Loudspeakers

As safe bets go, that you've never seen anything quite like the £70k Monitor Audio Hyphn speaker is pretty much a dead cert. Yet look closer and there's actually a lot of 'form following function' going on here in those two columns with a gap between them, linked by a central belt. And while to unsympathetic eyes they may look like two huge clothes pegs, it won't take long for audiophiles to understand the thinking behind the configuration, however unusual the speakers look by comparison with traditional 'box, domes and cones' designs.

Viewed from a modern perspective, there's more than an element of 'forget everything you know' about the latest incarnation of the Klipsch Klipschorn AK6, a classic now heading for its 80th birthday. It was designed in 1946 from earlier prototypes by company founder Paul W Klipsch – officially described by the US brand as 'genius, madman and maverick' – in an Arkansas tin shed, and it's been continuously made and refined ever since.

Launched in the 1970s as an audiophile-grade record label, Chicago's Mobile Fidelity has acquired a celebrated reputation among vinylistas, particularly for its One-Step pressings [HFN May '17]. Its move into the world of vinyl replay in 2016, under a new MoFi Electronics division, was arguably a long time coming. The range now extends to cartridges [HFN Jan '22], phono preamps [HFN Mar '20], and three turntables – the StudioDeck [HFN Jan '20], UltraDeck [HFN Jul '19] and the luxurious, Fender-branded PrecisionDeck. And the next obvious step? Loudspeakers.

Here's a platitude which should adorn a t-shirt made mandatory attire for all audiophiles: 'It's OK To Like More Than One Thing'. In my view, hi-fi is no more cut-and-dried than wine, cars or shoes. Components are not mutually exclusive. With speakers in particular, there are more competing, different-sounding technologies than just about any other part of the chain. And what DeVore Fidelity has in its £9998-per-pair Orangutan O/93 is a design which ticks numerous boxes, all the better to alleviate any guilt about loyalty to a single topology.

These days we could probably name no more than 11 or 12 manufacturers of TVs, but ask us about loudspeakers and you'd fall asleep before we'd got as far as companies beginning with the letter 'D'. The industry appears to be in rude health, with models to suit all tastes and budgets, and there are plenty of options that you might not have come across before. Kroma Atelier's Stella Xtreme perhaps being one of them.

Everything about the Audiovector R 8 Arreté is impressive, from the size and scale of the speaker – it stands 144cm tall and weighs over 72kg – to the seemingly fiendish complexity of the design, which appears to have drivers firing and venting in all directions. The piano-lacquered Italian Burl Walnut veneer, seen here, is gorgeous too, and offered alongside Italian Grey, black and white finish options.

Ah, the sweet spot! Positioned in the exact middle of a seven-model range of Wilson Audio floorstanders, between the Sasha DAW [HFN Mar '19] and Alexx V [HFN Jan '22], the new Alexia V – by accident or design – now occupies that most coveted of spaces. One of hi-fi's inexplicable phenomena, a 'sweet spot' seems to exist in pretty much every hi-fi model range, from turntables to amps to speakers, when a stand-out in performance relative to size and cost just happens. Yes, the new Alexia V is that special.