TIDAL
Amplifiers
DACs
Digital Sources
Preamplifiers
Best Known For
Speakers
/
Used Products
7
 Available
Average Price
$100,001+
Brand Popularity
279
 of 900+
Products Listed
13
Review Count
22
Founding Year
Headquarters
Germany
TIDAL
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

What's unique about the brand

TIDAL Audio is renowned for its exceptional craftsmanship, creating products that are both visually stunning and acoustically superior, with their Prisma preamplifier and Ferios power amplifiers particularly praised for their build quality. The brand's products deliver a distinctive "liquid" and "sensual" sound quality that avoids clinical sterility, while supporting immersive formats like Dolby Atmos and Sony 360 Reality Audio.

What reviewers are saying

We read all the reviews. Here's what reviewers feel most strongly about:

  • TIDAL combines luxurious aesthetics, often featuring high-gloss piano lacquer finishes and stainless steel accents, with advanced acoustic engineering.
  • They uniquely integrate their phono stages as an integral part of their preamplifiers, rather than an add-on.
  • Tidal meticulously selects high-quality components for their crossovers, such as Dueland silver-foil capacitors and Mundorf parts, regardless of cost.
  • TIDAL loudspeakers often employ Accuton ceramic and diamond drivers custom-made to their specifications.

Our favorite reviewer quotes:

  • "Not only did the Tidal speakers present each of the eight vocal lines separately, but their superbly precise stereo imaging in both the width and depth planes let me fully appreciate their ensemble singing in that beautiful church acoustic. The sheer resolution of the Akiras continued to astonish me throughout my auditioning." (https://www.stereophile.com/content/tidal-audio-akira-loudspeaker)
  • "The TIDAL Audio Intra exhibited the cleanest, most hash-free high-frequency transients of any amp I've yet to hear. Zero glare–while simultaneously delivering a staggering level of detail and information that never feels decoupled from the core of a recording." (https://pt.audio/2022/01/16/tidal-audio-intra-power-amplifier-review)
  • "With the TIDAL Audio Prisma in my system, and digital sources feeding the Berkeley DAC, the sound was absolutely free of even the smallest amount of glare or glassiness. Any and all annoying extraneous texture – no matter how minute was magically buffed off of the music." (https://pt.audio/2020/07/24/tidal-audio-prisma-preamplifier-review)
  • "Dynamically, the TIDAL Audio Intra is in a class of its own. It's never jumpy or artificially exciting but effortless in the way it plays dynamic contacts, macro, and micro." (https://pt.audio/2022/01/16/tidal-audio-intra-power-amplifier-review)
  • "The imaging of the TIDAL speakers was precise and the soundstage was remarkably deep and wide -- the latter being one of the more improved facets of the G2 over its predecessor. Cranking up the volume simply gave more of the same -- a generous helping of spacious, clear, coherent and tactile music with no sense of dynamic compression, congestion, or harshness that might have been stereotypically attributed to ceramic drivers years ago." (https://www.theaudiobeat.com/equipment/tidalpianodiacera_g2.htm)
Want to report a correction? Please contact us. We'd love to hear from you. Note that much of the data, recommendations, and summaries on ExtremeHiFi are researched after thousands of hours of loving labor. We archive our site's data and its pages on Archive.org and monitor for those repurposing the data. We also fingerprint data to know when text and numbers came from us.

Our interview with the brand

What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?

What's your approach to customer support?

What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?

What other products pair best with yours?

From Julian's interview with
.

Lineup comparison

We think it's helpful to understand how their products compare. To learn more about each, scroll to the section above to click through to individual product pages.

TIDAL Piano

  • Positioning: The entry-level masterpiece in TIDAL's lineup.
  • Description: Features sophisticated simplicity and high build quality, with proprietary TIRADUR cabinet material for reduced vibrations.

TIDAL Contriva

  • Positioning: A mid-range model in TIDAL's lineup, offering a balance of performance and luxury.
  • Description: Known for its elegant design and deep bass, uses TIRALIT cabinet material and carbon-fiber aluminum woofers for enhanced sound clarity. It stands out from the Piano with its more advanced driver technology.

TIDAL Akira

  • Positioning: A high-end model, positioned just below the flagship La Assoluta.
  • Description: Features a 1 carat pure diamond tweeter and TIRALIT Ultra cabinet for superior resonance control. It offers a more refined sound than the Contriva.

TIDAL Sunray

  • Positioning: Positioned between the Akira and La Assoluta, offering a unique blend of both.
  • Description: Distinguished by its use of diamond and ceramic driver technology, providing an exceptionally fast and deep bass. It offers a more powerful sound than the Akira.

TIDAL La Assoluta

  • Positioning: The flagship model, representing the pinnacle of TIDAL's offerings.
  • Description: Renowned for its groundbreaking sound quality and luxurious craftsmanship, featuring custom components and a massive build. It surpasses all other models in terms of performance.
Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi Writer

Search hifi products

Explore our database of 10,000+ new and 25,000+ used hifi products.

Similar

Speakers

brands

Known For
Speakers
/
Average Price
$100,001+
Used Products
1
 Available
Brand Popularity
373
 of 900+
Headquarters
Germany

About the brand

Göbel High End is distinguished by its patented bending-wave transducer technology, which enables their Epoque series speakers to cover an exceptional frequency range from 160Hz to 31kHz with a single driver. Their Divin series features a unique symmetrical bass reflex layout that achieves maximum efficiency without horns, while their enclosures are made from extremely rigid polyurethane and melamine-bonded fiber materials for non-resonant properties.

Our interview with the brand

What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?

What's your approach to customer support?

What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?

What other products pair best with yours?

Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi
Brand Page
Known For
Speakers
/
Average Price
$100,001+
Used Products
0
 Available
Brand Popularity
473
 of 900+
Headquarters
Germany

About the brand

Zellaton is a German hifi speaker brand known for its unique multi-component hard foam diaphragms, a technology invented by Dr. Emil Podszus in the 1930s that involves a complex, multi-step manufacturing process including oven baking and cooling. Zellaton is known for its breathtaking clarity and phase coherence. Hifi reviewers consistently praise these speakers for their exceptional sound quality at trade shows, leaving a lasting impression. The combination of their high price point and scarcity makes them a unique find in the audiophile market.

Our interview with the brand

What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?

What's your approach to customer support?

What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?

What other products pair best with yours?

Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi
Brand Page
Known For
Speakers
/
Average Price
$100,001+
Used Products
23
 Available
Brand Popularity
207
 of 900+
Headquarters
Switzerland

About the brand

Goldmund is a Swiss hifi brand known for its "mechanical grounding" technology, which reduces vibrations through heavy, precisely engineered components, and its proprietary Telos amplifier technology that significantly reduces intermodulation distortion. The brand appeals to audiophiles who prioritize pure sound reproduction, focusing on musical realism through minimalist design and high bandwidth circuitss.

Our interview with the brand

What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?

What's your approach to customer support?

What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?

What other products pair best with yours?

Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi
Brand Page
Known For
Speakers
/
Average Price
$100,001+
Used Products
1
 Available
Brand Popularity
541
 of 900+
Headquarters
Italy

About the brand

IO Design is a high-end audio brand that designs precision-engineered loudspeakers featuring an innovative no-baffle concept. By eliminating traditional speaker boxes, IO Design loudspeakers deliver unmatched realism and reproduce sound pressure akin to live musical instruments.
The Grand Reference loudspeakers embody and advance the groundbreaking principles initially introduced in IO Design’s Naked speaker concept, pushing technological boundaries and utilizing the highest-quality materials available. Unlike traditional boxed or dipole speaker systems—which inherently produce distortions, compression, and energy loss—IO Design's approach achieves extraordinarily low distortion, minimal interference, and an even distribution of energy across the entire audio spectrum.
The core objective of IO Design is to replicate the immersive energy and emotional impact of a live musical performance within a home environment. Their speakers generate authentic acoustic presence, faithfully capturing dynamics, micro-dynamics, and harmonic nuances, thereby bridging the gap between live sound and home audio reproduction.
IO Design’s meticulous engineering ensures consistent sound pressure at any listening position, maintaining purity, clarity, and naturalness of sound without compromising dynamics or detail. The result is a truly immersive and emotionally compelling listening experience, distinctly superior to conventional speaker designs.

Our interview with the brand

What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?

The concept itself, we are the first and (as of today the only ones) able to produce huge bass and devastating energy in the room with a dipole/baffleless architecture. Design is a factor, crossover another pillar, vibration control and many other points. Every mm2 in the speaker is discussed to the bone always for improvements. Our aim is a formula 1 car no other point than performance, design and crafting.

What's your approach to customer support?

We have distributors and dealers in some countries already and we are evaluating new ones. Being IO Design dealer/distributor is a mission because you are not selling normal hi-end loudspeakers but truly F1 devices. The network will hopefully grow, in the meanwhile, where we don't have dealers, we manage the customers directly or, even better, we ask the Customer to put his dealer in contact with us to make him safe and easy. 

If a Customer needs setup advise, we follow up analyzing also the acoustics if needed. Should any tech issue happen, we would support the dealer with parts and repair advise or we would ship back the units for check and fixing.

What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?

It depends from system to system and ambient to ambient. We always choose the more extreme quality tracks to show the true potential of the speakers because it's way above the current competition. Usually we prefer tracks where bass is very evident because it is a strong point (even if it might seem counter intuitive for a baffleless design). Also high transients, because the energy the speakers pushes in the room is much higher than anything else on the market.

What other products pair best with yours?

Any high quality amplification works, digital, tubes, solid state. The important is that the amp has control and current, watts are not so important, even 40-60 can do but the quality of the amp need to be xcellent to get profit of the shocking realism of IO Design speakers. Ypsilon Electronics is well tested for instance. Tubes also perform well, however they are usually a bit more euphonic on bass and they have more distortion; this is a pity because IO Design speakers are so clean and distortion free... In normal boxed speakers you don't notice, because those speakers are themselves distorting music with the box compressions...

Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi
Brand Page
Known For
Speakers
/
Average Price
$100,001+
Used Products
6
 Available
Brand Popularity
222
 of 900+
Headquarters
Sweden

About the brand

Marten is a Swedish hifi brand that uses diamond tweeters and ceramic drivers in their speakers, delivering exceptional clarity through their proprietary vibration-reducing Marten Isolators. Their speakers feature carbon-fiber laminate cabinets and are handcrafted in Sweden, focusing on achieving natural, unforced sound reproduction without harshness.

Our interview with the brand

What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?

Marten uses high quality drivers that are custom to our models often in exotic materials like diamond, beryllium, ceramics and aluminium. Marten is one of very fiev manufactures that is implementing first order crossover filters. This we do in all models in the Mingus and Coltrane range.

What's your approach to customer support?

Initially customers are advised to contact the dealer they bought their speakers from, when support is needed, if they have bought speakers second hand it's recommended to to contact the appointed distributor. Of course customers are also welcome to contact Marten directly via our info email and get support that way. We value customer support highly and help our dealers and distributors to take care of customers if something has happened. Customers should never ever hesitate to contact us or our partners.

What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?

We have many but here are three of our test tracks, St James Infirmary (live edition) Angela Brown, Someday you'll be sorry Harry Connick Jr, V. Panis angelicus (Soprano) Ensemble vocal de Lausanne.

What other products pair best with yours?

We do a lot of testing and development on brands like Halcro, Audiaflight, MSB and CH-precision. But we also know that customers use Gryphon, Goldmund, Soulution and Esoteric among many other brands in their home systems.

Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi
Brand Page
Known For
Speakers
/
Average Price
$100,001+
Used Products
0
 Available
Brand Popularity
489
 of 900+
Headquarters
Spain

About the brand

Lorenzo Audio Labs sets itself apart by fusing traditional audio approaches with advancements in materials, resulting in products like the LM3 that feature a novel crossover design to enhance the capabilities of standard 2-way speakers. THEY'VE developed proprietary layered-composite speaker cabinets called "AcoustiCore" that dampen vibrations more effectively than traditional MDF or plywood.

Our interview with the brand

What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?

What's your approach to customer support?

What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?

What other products pair best with yours?

Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi
Brand Page