The greatest audio advancement 2025?

[Oddball]

With the year wrapping up slowly but surely, interested to hear what people got out of 2025 audio developments?

IMO D&M implementation of Dirac ART takes the center stage. ART for the broader market is really welcome and hope people will enjoy it. BTW works for stereo as well.

 

[Curvature]

Ascilab's speakers for me and ART, as you say, although the year's not over yet.

 

[Power Pop 23]

A shout out to WiiM for their continuing work on the 'RoomFit' room correction feature. When I purchased a WiiM Mini in early 2023, I had no idea it would receive a firmware update (February 2025) officially supporting room correction.

 

[EERecordist]

Room EQ for everyone is important. It has been going on for several years.

To me the 28bit DAC discussed in depth on ASR and Schoeps digital colette preamp are year highlights, though we can't wait for 2025 to wrap up. Both had a year or two professional testing before release. Not sure if it is this year, but the Purifi low distortion-optimized speaker drivers are a great contribution.

We look forward to reduced noise in microphone systems to source original audio. Many close microphones have high SPL and you can gate them when the instrument is silent, even manually in your digital audio workstation, but your ambient microphones in a room for surround recording have low SPL.

Home - Imersiv

Delivering noise, linearity, and dynamic range performance so advanced that modern test equipment cannot measure it. imersiv HDR-A is an entirely new audio architecture, poised to re-imagine the way we capture and deliver sound, from microphone to power amplifier, and everything in-between.

imersiv.com

New 28-bit DAC coming out.

This came across my Facebook feed. It's a company based in California that's claiming 28-bit true performance. The link just leads to a landing page with a few quotes from professional engineers. The fact they are announcing/showing it at AES instead of launching it at an audiophile show...

www.audiosciencereview.com

The Schoeps modular CMD 42 preamp is 24 bits AES format. It builds on the in-body digital processing of the SuperCMIT vocal shotgun. Neumann had some digital microphones but they did not catch on. Of course then you need a digital-in mixer/recorder. You have to eat the delay, but your mic preamp in the console is greatly reduced in price. So hopefully this will catch on.

The CMD 42 page has user reports.

CMD 42 | digital microphone amplifier | SCHOEPS Microphones

The CMD 42 is the new digital microphone amplifier from SCHOEPS. It transfers the signal from the microphone capsule directly into the digital domain. The deta...

schoeps.de

 

[geickmei]

IMHO, the greatest contribution was my article in the September AudioXpress, "An Image Model Theory for Stereophonic Sound." Forty years in the making, this was a re-write of an earlier paper of the same name at the AES (unpublished). The reason for such a delay for the rewrite is the difficulty of explaining something that is so different from what we have all been taught for the entire history of the stereo era. Most of us have been taught that stereo operates by two channels being sent to our two ears with the axial output of the direct sound from two speakers, and room reflections can only damage the illusion. Image Model Theory (IMT) sees the stereo soundstage as the complete pattern of direct and early reflected sounds formed in the room by the radiation pattern of speakers and the summing localization among all direct and reflected images. The new theory puts new light on direct to reflected ratios, radiation patterns, speaker positioning, and speaker design, measurement, and perception.

There is a lot more to it than that, but please check it out:

audioXpress September 2025 PDF

FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK—Different Perspectives, by J. Martins, p. 4 MARKET UPDATE—Connected Home Audio and Home Theater, by J. Martins, p. 8 High End Munich 2025: One More Time Open for Business, by Ward Maas, p. 20 An Image Model Theory for Stereophonic Sound, by Gary Eickmeier, p. 28 Audinate...

cc-webshop.com

Gary Eickmeier

 

[Curvature]

IMHO, the greatest contribution was my article in the September AudioXpress, "An Image Model Theory for Stereophonic Sound." Forty years in the making, this was a re-write of an earlier paper of the same name at the AES (unpublished). The reason for such a delay for the rewrite is the difficulty of explaining something that is so different from what we have all been taught for the entire history of the stereo era. Most of us have been taught that stereo operates by two channels being sent to our two ears with the axial output of the direct sound from two speakers, and room reflections can only damage the illusion. Image Model Theory (IMT) sees the stereo soundstage as the complete pattern of direct and early reflected sounds formed in the room by the radiation pattern of speakers and the summing localization among all direct and reflected images. The new theory puts new light on direct to reflected ratios, radiation patterns, speaker positioning, and speaker design, measurement, and perception.

There is a lot more to it than that, but please check it out:

audioXpress September 2025 PDF

FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK—Different Perspectives, by J. Martins, p. 4 MARKET UPDATE—Connected Home Audio and Home Theater, by J. Martins, p. 8 High End Munich 2025: One More Time Open for Business, by Ward Maas, p. 20 An Image Model Theory for Stereophonic Sound, by Gary Eickmeier, p. 28 Audinate...

cc-webshop.com

Gary Eickmeier

I need to pay for the issue to read it. Fine. Since this is, you know, the greatest thing to happen this year

 

[Keith_W]

IMHO, the greatest contribution was my article in the September AudioXpress, "An Image Model Theory for Stereophonic Sound." Forty years in the making, this was a re-write of an earlier paper of the same name at the AES (unpublished). The reason for such a delay for the rewrite is the difficulty of explaining something that is so different from what we have all been taught for the entire history of the stereo era. Most of us have been taught that stereo operates by two channels being sent to our two ears with the axial output of the direct sound from two speakers, and room reflections can only damage the illusion. Image Model Theory (IMT) sees the stereo soundstage as the complete pattern of direct and early reflected sounds formed in the room by the radiation pattern of speakers and the summing localization among all direct and reflected images. The new theory puts new light on direct to reflected ratios, radiation patterns, speaker positioning, and speaker design, measurement, and perception.

There is a lot more to it than that, but please check it out:

audioXpress September 2025 PDF

FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK—Different Perspectives, by J. Martins, p. 4 MARKET UPDATE—Connected Home Audio and Home Theater, by J. Martins, p. 8 High End Munich 2025: One More Time Open for Business, by Ward Maas, p. 20 An Image Model Theory for Stereophonic Sound, by Gary Eickmeier, p. 28 Audinate...

cc-webshop.com

Gary Eickmeier

Thank you Gary! I bought the magazine and i'm reading it now.

 

[geickmei]

Keith and Curvature thanks for the response and the effort. Obviously I believe in it strongly and hope to get something rolling. I am working on a follow-up article explaining the implications more fully, but I think the basic article is fairly complete. Let me know.

Gary

 

[RexrothPigeon]

(This post does not reflect my opinion of geickmei's paper as I have not read it and don't intend to.)

 

[krabapple]

Bought the article. (Gee, nine whole dollars, that's gonna break a lot of the audio hobbyists here. )

(and the $9 is for the whole issue, not a single article)

 

[andyc56]

(This post does not reflect my opinion of geickmei's paper as I have not read it and don't intend to.)

I cracked up at the end of that video. Gary did a video presentation of his ideas at SMWTMS a couple of years ago. Here's the video in case anyone's interested. I have not watched it yet.

 

[krabapple]

It seems like for part of this he's introducing AVRs with calibration tools -- something available for decades now -- to an audience that's never used them? (It's true that 'audiophiles' often eschew AVRs, and surround sound generally) So a bunch of this was yes, and....? to me. Only a few in his zoom audience have used a surround system.
(But only a few raise their hand when he asks if any of this was new to them)

It looks like he's recording 'live' sound in MS microphone config and playing it back on his system. I don't see any discussion of plain upmixing of a 'stereo' recording into a surround configuration.

 

[Audionaut]

For me, the biggest development in the audio sector in 2025 is the continuous improvement of Class D technology and the evolution of very affordable amplifiers based on Ti TPA32xx chips, which offer very good amplification quality at a truly minimal cost.

 

[Oddball]

For me, the biggest development in the audio sector in 2025 is the continuous improvement of Class D technology and the evolution of very affordable amplifiers based on Ti TPA32xx chips, which offer very good amplification quality at a truly minimal cost.

Do you think they really needed improvement? I am quite happy with my old dogs that measure, well, what they measure...

Rotel RB-1070 Amplifier Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Rotel RB-1070 stereo power amplifier. It was released in early 2000. Can't find the cost then but I see it used for around $400 to $500. I have always found Rotels to be most attractively designed power amplifiers. One look at that front panel...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[masterhw]

For me, the biggest development in the audio sector in 2025 is the continuous improvement of Class D technology and the evolution of very affordable amplifiers based on Ti TPA32xx chips, which offer very good amplification quality at a truly minimal cost.

While I find products like the WiiM Vibelink incredibly compelling ($125-150/channel for 100 dB SINAD decoded and amplified) it is worth keeping in mind the TPA32xx family is like 8 years old now…

 

[mosco]

By far the best of the year. Free, accessible, and simply spectacular. We can't thank Serko enough.

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

Audio is to me a mature technology. We haven't reached the rounded corners are the greatest thing ever phase yet, but improvements are mostly incremental advances in existing stuff. I'm not saying that it's not fun or interesting but there haven't been any quantum leaps in a while. I'm a big fan of class D amps though. Less than $100 for performance that exceeds the limits of human hearing.

 

[GS430man]

I would mention Trinnov's introduction of a new digital CI processor supporting AES67/Dante/Ravenna protocols. Certainly a higher price bracket than most of us play in, but it bodes well for the long term future of audio over IP networks.

 

[Oddball]

Audio is to me a mature technology. We haven't reached the rounded corners are the greatest thing ever phase yet, but improvements are mostly incremental advances in existing stuff. I'm not saying that it's not fun or interesting but there haven't been any quantum leaps in a while. I'm a big fan of class D amps though. Less than $100 for performance that exceeds the limits of human hearing.

Have you read the threads related to Dirac ART? Seems like many happy takers and great measurements. At least conceptually there is a significant leap as the "active" room correction (aka via filters and amps) acts like the "passive" room correction did in the past for the passive speakers. Will do much more for the sound than couple of more dB for D class SINAD.

This has been in the works for years, and finally D&M implemented ART which dropped the Storm entry price of close to $20k to less than $2k. For lesser number of channels though, but still a solution that might appeal to many more than before. I have pretty "big" HT, but never seriously thought of spending $20K for Storm processor. I bought ART within days after its release.

 

[Oddball]

Have you read the threads related to Dirac ART? Seems like many happy takers and great measurements. At least conceptually there is a significant leap as the "active" room correction (aka via filters and amps) acts like the "passive" room correction did in the past for the passive speakers. Will do much more for the sound than couple of more dB for D class SINAD.

This has been in the works for years, and finally D&M implemented ART which dropped the Storm entry price of close to $20k to less than $2k. For lesser number of channels though, but still a solution that might appeal to many more than before. I have pretty "big" HT, but never seriously thought of spending $20K for Storm processor. I bought ART within days after its release.

And actually, would add @OCA to the 2025 accomplishment list. His work in 2025 was admirable and provided benefits to so many enthusiasts - for free. Sorry, just got caught up in the whole ART thing, and forgot the baseline.