Series 1
All prices in euros or US dollars.
1 €  is approximately $1.36 at time of report.

Separately mounted Tweeter pods are synonymous with B&W. Although technically a bit late for the company's 40th anniversary, the new B&W Signature Diamond was created as a celebration of the company’s past accomplishments. This two-way vented loudspeaker features a 1" diamond tweeter encased in a marble Nautilus tube and a 7" Kevlar mid-woofer housed in a tube-like Matrix cabinet. Available in either white or wakame (our favorite), the speaker is simply stunning. The price for a pair is $18,000. There are only 500 units in each finish available.

While B&W may be known for its tweeters, KEF is becoming increasingly well known for coaxial drivers -- or, as they call them, Uni-Q drivers. But we've never seen a Uni-Q speaker this expensive. The € 100,000/pair Muon is a sight to behold and something special to hear as well. The "super-formed aluminum" cabinet is said to be 6mm thick, with the final result being a collaborative effort between KEF's designers and industrial designer Ross Lovegrove. The Muon is a four-way system that also features rear-mounted woofers. It's expensive, but there's nothing quite like it.

This may well be the most expensive CD player ever made. Burmester's 60kg, belt-driven 069 top-loading player also features a precision-built chrome-plated chassis and a separate power supply. Burmester says that this is the company's best CD player yet. With its $50,000 price tag, it should be.

New from Nordost is the Odin cable line, which takes the company's monofilament technology to the extreme -- with prices to match. The Odin speaker cable shown above retails for $32,000 for a three-meter pair. The Odin interconnects retail for $16,000 for a one-meter pair. The company's demo pit an Odin interconnect against the previous top-of-the-line Valhalla with results that we're sure most current Valhalla owners won't want to hear. [www.nordost.com]

Long familiar to those of you who have kept up with our High End coverage over the years, Germany's Ascendo showed its newest speaker, the C8 Renaissance (€ 5500 per pair), which impressed us because there's a lot more to it than first meets the eye. Among its features are a coaxial tweeter-midrange, an internally mounted 21cm woofer, and a rear-firing ribbon tweeter. Also, the C8 Reference comes in a wood-veneer finish, which is a departure for Ascendo, whose previous speakers have been in high-gloss piano black.