Good German Hifi ?!

[DanielT]

This century-old classic German company is becoming Chinese. I don't know what that will mean in practice. Maybe nothing? Or for the better/worse?

Century-Old German Brand Beyerdynamic Acquired

The owners of beyerdynamic have agreed to sell the company. The announcement dates from June 6, 2025, and was revealed publicly on June 9, when a document detailing the terms of an acquisition by Jiahe Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., acting on behalf of Cosonic International Pte., confirmed...

audioxpress.com

Then I can take the opportunity to recommend this YouTube channel. Many videos about the history of Hifi manufacturers, here are some examples:

Interesting for this post:

 

[Oddball]

James Larson over at audioholics took a look, a listen, and measurements of the evergreen Heco Aurora 1000. Results are actually quite good. Here in Europe these can be found for around 1200€ a pair (tax included, obviously ).

These are great speakers and great value. I did fall in love with their La Diva towers though, which in my mind is still good value for the sub $10K category. Chose it over likes of Perlisten R towers or Revel 228. They measure reasonably well and go really loud and low, but overall design is quite unusual and their sound (after EQ) just perfectly agrees with me.

 

[lini]

And Neumann, AKG and in a lower segment of the market Teufel. I am sure there are others as well.

Sorry, but AKG used to be Austrian, not German.

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

P.S.: They also used to have a place here in Munich, though - but I'm not sure, whether they've also developed or/and produced anything here.

 

[Ropeburn]

A little anecdote: long years ago I had both Canton Ergo RC-K and Nubert NuWave 3 speakers, 1000 and 500 € the pair category respectively. Both speakers with the same concept and size, sizeable 2-ways with 8" (really 7") woofers and back ported. Loosely "mid-fi" category overall, aka "proper hifi but still affordable", whatever you wanna call it.

Directly comparing them was astonishing. I expected them to sound similar, but they were virtually identical. It was really hard to spot differences at all (and I really wanted to find some), and they were so subtle to not matter, for example a tiny bit more detail on the RC-K - probably partly imaginary. The tonality was exactly the same, bass extension too. Two speakers with different parts and crossovers and from different companies, and I can't even be sure I heard any difference, that's how close they were.

Mind you, my ears were in their early 20s then and could hear 18kHz easily - but my brain was already used to listening VERY closely to every detail from 10 years as a hobby musician. Mom and dad couldn't spot any meaningful differences either.

Interesting how two different companies can use the same basic concept, then do their thing, and arrive at exactly the same result. The only meaningful difference justifying the price difference (500 vs 1000 is substantial) was build quality. Plain vinyl wrapped box vs nice cherry veneer and rounded corners.

Two good examples of German hifi companies having the same design philosophies (neutral speakers are good speakers) and arriving at the same place with their designs independently from each other, and they're not the only ones by far. You really can't cheat physics.