Money No Object
We’re all about offering practical buying advice at TechRadar, giving our readers expert tips and insights on how to choose the right gadgets. But every so often, we also like to celebrate some of the more ridiculous tech on the market – the luxurious, high-end products that are simply fun to dream about buying. That’s the kind of kit we cover in our regular Money No Object column, which you can read more of here.
If you’re looking to part with a significant quantity of cash, hi-fi gear is usually a good way to go. That was just as true in 2024 as any other year: from pricey DACs to premium CD players, plenty of bank-breaking audio equipment found its way onto our money-no-object list.
We’ve picked out our favorite kit from that list here, to give you the year’s ultimate high-end hi-fi buying guide. And when we say expensive, we mean seriously pricey: the gear below starts with a four-figure minimum, with the loudest price tags rising all the way north of half a million.
So whether you’re a well-heeled audiophile looking for something lavish to listen to, or an aspirational shopper researching your lottery-win wish list, you’ll find plenty of ways to spend it below.
For more affordable audio, try our guide to the best Bluetooth speakers, but for now – in no particular order – here are the finest slices of high-end hi-fi we tried in 2024…
1. Bang & Olufsen Recreated Classic Beosystem 9000c CD player
With its vertical six-disc design, motorized glass lid and linear moving clamp, the Beosound 9000 CD player was a stunning piece of audio design in 1996. Reborn as part of B&O’s Recreated Classics series, it’s even more evocative in 2024. Not a reproduction of the nineties original, B&O actually sourced 200 genuine Beosound 9000 CD players and brought them back into the same Danish factory where they were first made.
Here they were disassembled, inspected, cleaned and repaired on the original workshop tables. The CD mechanisms were re-made, while designers re-machined and re-anodized all of the aluminum parts. Polished up and shipped with a matching set of Beolab 28 speakers, a revived pair can be yours for $55,000 / £45,000 / around AU$85,000.
2. Magico M7 speakers
If you can’t quite afford Magico’s flagship M9 loudspeaker, but happen to have half a million kicking around, the M7 might just be the next best thing. An all-passive, four-way, six-driver, floor-standing loudspeaker pair, the M7 will set you back around $560,000 (officially £450,000 / around AU$859,000). Factor in a stack to match and you’re well on the way to a million-dollar setup.
Every M7 that leaves the Magico factory bears a plate signed by CEO Alon Wolf, a sign of the perfectionism applied to each unit. R&D for the M7 included analysis of acoustic, mechanical, electromagnetic and thermal behaviors. It’s all thoroughly over-engineered, from the monocoque carbon-fibre shell to the aluminum rear baffle to the 28mm diamond-coated beryllium-diaphragm tweeter.
The payout pays off: when we listened to it, we remarked that, “the Magico M7 unearths, separates, layers, and showcases vocal textures and nuance with the skilled hand of an empathetic surgeon.”
3. Austrian Audio The Composer headphones
Founded by former AKG employees, Austrian Audio has rapidly planted its flag as a purveyor of excellent mainstream headphones. Now it’s turned its skills to something more premium: yours for $2,699 / £2,249 (around AU$3,800), The Composer make a statement in all the right ways. They have a functional build that’s all pared-back aluminum and pleather, matched by a wired setup which is all about plug-in quality and simplicity.
That minimalist look is made possible by the open-back design, with doesn’t enclose the drivers with rear earcups. This helps to keep weight down to a barely-there 285g, even if it means you can only really use them in a solo setting (unless you want to annoy fellow train passengers). Hard-wired to a high-quality source, we found them “compelling” on our ears, delivering a “thrillingly open, informative and confident listen” with “an extraordinary amount of detail.”
4. Cambridge Audio EXA100 amplifier
If you’re dropping thousands on an amp, you obviously want it to sound good. But Cambridge Audio’s EXA100 does more than just that to justify the outlay. Priced at $2,199 / £1,999 (around AUS$3,900), the EXA100 is an integrated stereo amplifier that’s designed for sources past, present and future: it plays nicely with digital and analog sources, as well as offering some wireless streaming support.
A Class AB amplifier capable of pumping out 100W per channel, the EXA100 has more than enough oomph to power whatever loudspeakers you’ve got in your living room. In our full write-up, we praised its “dynamic potency” and “general hardcore hi-fi credibility”. Lashings of aluminum also make it a lovely thing to look at.
5. Avid Acutus Dark Iron turntable
The Acutus Dark Iron turntable is a weighty purchase in more ways than one. Handmade in Cambridgeshire, England, it features an aluminum platter which hits the scales at a hefty 10kg. It isn’t a lightweight purchase, either: prices start at $13,000 / £10,000 (around AU$19,250), but upgrade to a resin mat and dual-operation clamp and you’re looking at $17,700 / £13,500 (around AU$26,500) in total.
Stump up and you’ll bag a premium turntable that’s designed to be silent and reliable. A high-torque motor is coupled directly to the main chassis for perfect belt alignment with no speed issues, while the platter sits on self-lubricating inverted bearings. It’s all beautifully solid. Just make sure your cabinet can take the weight.
6. TEAC UD-507 DAC
If your ears are sensitive enough to warrant dropping $2,099 (around £1,650 / AU$3,165) on a DAC, you can do a lot worse than the TEAC UD-507. A high-end desktop DAC that doubles as a headphone amplifier and pre-amp, the UD-507 rewards your outlay with “incredible sonic accuracy”. At its heart is the TRDD5 – or snappily named TEAC Reference Discrete DAC – which is designed to emphasize “musicality”.
Larger than any of the best portable DACs, its A4 footprint means the UD-507 can accommodate a quartet of physical inputs, as well as a Bluetooth receiver with support for LDAC and aptX HD. All of which adds up to a pretty serious addition to any audio setup, assuming you’ve got some of the best headphones to listen with.
7. Audio-Technica ATH-AWKG headphones
Audio-Technica is normally known for making quality audio gear accessible. Not so with the ATH-AWKG headphones: these are so exclusive that they exclude themselves from our list of the best wired headphones. Why? Because they’re made with Kurogaki: a type of wood only found in trees over 100 years old, which requires “extensive knowledge and expertise” to process.
Wooden headphones are nothing new for Audio-Technica, but the use of Kurogaki, a cherished material, certainly is. A celebration of Japanese craftsmanship, they’re hand lacquered, paired with sheepskin earpads and shipped in a matching Kurogaki storage box.
Sonic quality is ensured by 53mm drivers with German Permendur magnetic circuitry. All of which goes some way to explaining the $4,200 / £3,000 (around AU$6,365) price tag.
8. Technics SL-G700M2 network streamer
There are lots of ways to update your existing stereo stack to support more sources. The Technics SL-G700M2 combines most of those ways in one expensive box. An all-in-one solution for feeding audio into your hi-fi setup, Technics describes the SL-G700M2 as a “network audio CD player”. In practice, that means it can do a bit of everything.
From high-resolution super audio to standard CDs, its optical drive can handle just about any disc format that might be living in your library. You also get a pair of USB ports, as well as digital optical and coaxial inputs.
There’s Ethernet and Wi-Fi for network streaming, with support for Apple AirPlay 2, Chromecast and Spotify Connect, plus pretty much any streaming service worth its salt. There’s Bluetooth pairing, too, albeit ‘only’ 4.2. The price for all of these possibilities? Around $3,650 / £2899 (around AU$5,599).