Loudspeakers

When we first saw MoFi Electronics’ SourcePoint 888 floorstander [HFN Jan ’25], its sheer size, at the £5599 price, raised an eyebrow. But designer Andrew Jones (ex-ELAC, TAD, KEF) hasn’t stopped there. Selling for £8800, the company’s new flagship takes the style and shape of the ’888 and scales it up, resulting in cabinets measuring 1239x394x505mm (hwd) and weighing 72.6kg.

Only when I recently started driving a German-made car – a Mini built in Leipzig, actually – did I grasp the concept of that country’s approach to over-engineering: the thing has four ways of opening the boot, two of them remotely, for heaven’s sake, and three of putting it into its raciest engine/transmission/noise mode.

The giant professional KM1 apart, KEF has been pretty quiet in the large loudspeaker market during the past year or two. The Reference series has run on without much fanfare, and most of the action has been with the budget ‘C’ range, particularly the highly competitive Coda, now in Mark 3 guise.

Everywhere, from the alphabet to Roman numerals, V comes before X, so you might expect Wilson Audio’s Sabrina V to be a lesser version of the SabrinaX model [HFN Dec ’20], which was an upgrade of the original Sabrina [HFN Aug ’15]. Not so: the Sabrina V is a redesigned and rethought version of the X, with changed and improved components, sharpened up styling, and a significant price increase.

Dynaudio’s collection of passive loudspeakers is substantial. You begin with the Emit series and move through its Evoke line, various Contour models [HFN May ’25], and the Heritage and Special Forty one-offs, before you get to the flagship Confidence range [HFN Jan ’25]. On the other hand, active options are more limited, with – until recently – just the three-strong Focus series appealing to cable-cutters. Now, though, the Danish brand has added the Confidence 20A, priced £17,000.

'Where meticulous engineering meets creative artistry', says Audio Group Denmark of its Børresen loudspeakers. This is a not unfamiliar claim, but there’s no denying that the tall-yet-slender C1 looks suitably distinctive. Available in black or white piano lacquer finishes at £15,000 a pair, they stand just under 43cm tall, or a little over 112cm with the supplied stands, while the enclosure itself is a mere 20.4cm wide.

Standmount? Or floorstander? It’s a question faced by many hi-fi enthusiasts. On one hand there’s the potential for a tight, clean sound from a smaller enclosure, albeit with the need for a stand to bring the speaker up to listening height and stabilise it. Meanwhile, the argument for floorstanding speaker designs involves the possibility of a bigger, more forceful presentation, often taking up no more floorspace than that smaller speaker on its stand. Then again, which design is more aesthetically pleasing is very much a matter of taste...