.png){kind=logo}
Note that this is a discontinued product. You may want to visit the brand's page here to browse their newer products.
What reviewers think
Bloggers and YouTubers have tried this product—so we've summarized their strongest opinions below. Links to full reviews follow.
Product Strengths
- The Akira presents each of the eight vocal lines separately, and has superb stereo imaging in both the width and depth planes—allowing full appreciation of their ensemble singing
- Sheer resolution continued to astonish throughout auditioning, laying bare every little vocal inflection with no unnatural emphasis
- Low-frequency warble tones sound extremely clean, with no audible distortion
Product Considerations
- A faint trace of character exists in the upper midrange, a little bit of extra 'ping'
- Discontinuities exist at 90Hz, 700Hz, and 1.1kHz
- The 160Hz band was higher in level, and the 100 and 80Hz warble tones a little lower in level than the bands to either side of them
Takeaway: The Akira speaker is capable of astonishing resolution and presenting music in a way that brings the listener closer to the recording. For those wanting a speaker that can reveal every nuance of a performance, this could be a great choice.
What are hifi reviews useful for? (1) Identifying products you should demo in person at a dealer. (2) Learning which products reviewers unanimously praise as the best they've heard (this means they probably are legitimately great). (3) Identifying a product's attributes that satisfy your idiosyncratic needs and tastes. Beyond that, we often discount what reviewers say because they heap praise on most products—and are often apprehensive about publishing strong criticism or comparisons between products. Further, they seldom have more than a few products on-hand, often relying on their memories to compare past products. Always listen for yourself.
All
Akira
reviews
[{"title":"Tidal Audio Akira loudspeaker","link":"https://www.stereophile.com/content/tidal-audio-akira-loudspeaker","source":"Stereophile","datePublished":"2018"}]
An excellent review of a great product
/
Publisher
/
3/1/2022
An excellent review of a great product
Publisher
/
3/1/2022
Video Review
Manufacturer details
Features
Specifications
Description
The TIDAL Akira is the second to none game changer, worldwide universally overwhelming praised smaller sister of the mighty TIDAL La Assoluta. Built for the absolute approach in a decent sized design.
The TIDAL Akira. The second to none game changer, worldwide universally overwhelming praised smaller sister of the mighty TIDAL La Assoluta. Built for the absolute approach in a decent sized design. In terms of the sound – it was simply magical with a hallmark transparency to die for. This speaker releases sound so effortlessly yet with solid impact and big time dynamics, outstanding delicacy and cohesive sound from the very deepest lows to the highest highs. What I heard was perhaps the least coloured sound and stunningly beautiful, pure sound from a loudspeaker (and accompanying system) that I can recall ever having heard… Additionally the sound was relaxed, silky smooth, loaded with intimate details with every little musical nuance being revealed. There was simply no tension while listening to recorded music - just as it is when listening live. When called for – music also came through the system with as much verve, punch and drive to provide the impression of the real thing.
Release Timeline
Manufacturer Site
Brand highlights
Taking a step back to look at reviewers' thoughts of the brand's entire lineup—not just this product—what stands out most is the following:
- 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.
Select products
Select product comparisons
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.
See All Products
Avg. Product Price
$100,001+
Used For Sale
7
Available (Scroll Down)
Brand Popularity
279
of 900+
Badges
Top 50 Brand
Top 250 Brand
Products Listed
13
Founding Year
Our take on 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.
Look inside the brand
Brand Page
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 our interview with
.
Brand Page
Used
TIDAL
All of the Brand's Used Products
What if you spend more?
No items found.
What competes at this price?
.png){kind=logo}
TIDAL
Sunray
450000
/
Released
2024
The all-new TIDAL Sunray (G3). For more than two decades, the Sunray has been renowned as the world's first reference speaker equipped with diamond and ceramic driver technology. Tall, elegant, and powerful, it remains a bold and unique statement, both then and now. Positioned perfectly between the TIDAL Akira and TIDAL La Assoluta, the Sunray captures the essence of both and does become something extra ordinary.
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.
Expand Details
.svg)
Our Summary
Product Strengths
- Natural suppleness balanced with quickness gives transients a purity and completeness suitable for all kinds of music
- The diamond tweeter blends the characteristics of different tweeter types, reporting treble accurately without editorializing
- These are uniquely revealing and musical speakers whose spatial characteristics and tonal sophistication befit their stature and unusual design
- The midrange has physicality and roundness to singers, sounding light and sprightly, while balancing presence and transient agility
- The Sunrays disappear into the soundscape they create and conjure powerfully real images in the listening room
Product Considerations
- The Sunrays don't possess the ultimate in bass weight, power, and bloom
- The sensitivity of the Sunrays may be too modest for some single-ended triode (SET) amplifiers
- The cabinet is made of HP-MDF, which some may perceive as less refined compared to other high-end speaker cabinets made of composites or aluminum
- Initial setup may prove unsatisfying and requires some fine tuning for optimal soundstage
Comparisons (according to reviewers)
- Vs Tidal Contriva Diacera SEs: The Sunrays are significantly better, sounding bigger, more transparent—especially in the midrange—and wider in bandwidth
- Vs Wilson Audio MAXX 3s: The MAXX 3s have more bass weight, power, and bloom, and are more coherent across their range
- Vs Wilson Audio MAXX 3s: The Sunrays walk a fine line between in-room and within-the-recording energy, with more variegated high frequencies than the MAXX 3s
Takeaway: The Sunray speakers are uniquely revealing and musical, offering a natural and detailed sound that brings recordings to life. They are an alternative to other big and expensive speakers and could be valued because of their spatial characteristics and tonal sophistication.
Video review
Our take on 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.
Product Page
Product Page
Burmester
BC150
150000
/
Released
2021
The new BC150 loudspeaker model by Burmester is now making the innovative leaps in sound quality, technology, and design from the Signature Line possible for other product lines. Within this loudspeaker model, elements of the BC350 loudspeakers from the Signature Line were incorporated.
Burmester, a high-end audio brand renowned for its German craftsmanship, designs and handcrafts its components in Berlin. Known for its distinctive industrial aesthetic with chrome finishes, the brand supplies premium sound systems for Porsche and Mercedes-Benz.
Expand Details
Our Summary
Product Strengths
- Detailed, exciting, dynamic, and transparent sound
- Vanishingly low cabinet coloration, contributing to speed and detail
- Lung-emptying, bowel-clearing, demolition-grade bass
- Bass integrates well with the rest of the frequency range for an integrated musical performance
- Voices have breath and contour, yet the result always retains a minimum of warmth
Product Considerations
- Room acoustics should be a strong consideration, as the BC150 reveals room issues
- Needs a lot of quality electronics upstream
- Requires firm control and ample current capacity from the amplifier
Comparisons (according to reviewers)
- The BC150 sounds more like a Burmester B38 with greater abilities to scale
Takeaway: The Burmester BC150 is a high-precision audio instrument that is both musically communicative and musically analytical, offering a detailed and transparent listening experience. It offers clarity and purity of sound, and brings music to another level.
Video review
Our take on the brand
Burmester, a high-end audio brand renowned for its German craftsmanship, designs and handcrafts its components in Berlin. Known for its distinctive industrial aesthetic with chrome finishes, the brand supplies premium sound systems for Porsche and Mercedes-Benz.
Product Page
Product Page
Borresen
M3
283975
/
Released
2023
The M3 speakers are the perfect blend of form and function, which reflects the excellent and highly productive partnership between two great minds in the audio industry – Michael Børresen and Flemming Erik Rasmussen. The sleek and elegant design of these speakers, combined with their outstanding audio performance, makes them a testament to Audio Group Denmark's commitment to audio excellence.
Børresen Acoustics stands out for its iron-free magnetic motors and cryogenically treated metal components, which reduce inductance for clearer sound. The brand's speakers feature unique elements like zirconium-based 3D-printed baskets and a patented ribbon tweeter design, combined with series crossover networks for phase-locked electrical current across frequencies.
Expand Details
Our Summary
Product Strengths
- The M3 presents music with an unprecedented degree of individuality and specificity, without sacrificing tonality, texture, or body
- Remarkable level of resolution
- Astonishing transparency and is resolute
- Accurate tonality and represents timbre faithfully
- Exceptional high-frequency detail and speed due to a planar tweeter
- Accepts only banana terminations
Product Considerations
- The planar tweeter misses the very last measure of extension, shimmer, and effortlessness accomplished by the very best available today
- Low-frequency extension was limited to the high 20 Hz, low 30 Hz range
Comparisons (according to reviewers)
- Compared to Magico M9, the M3 has recalibrated the resolution yardstick by which all other loudspeakers must be measured and compared
- Compared to Von Schweikert Audio ULTRA 9s, the M3 has recalibrated the resolution yardstick by which all other loudspeakers must be measured and compared
Takeaway: The Børresen M3 loudspeakers boldly represent the realization of striking potential in audio and push known boundaries. People who choose the M3 will enjoy a specific level of playback that is unavailable from other loudspeakers.
Video review
Our take on the brand
Børresen Acoustics stands out for its iron-free magnetic motors and cryogenically treated metal components, which reduce inductance for clearer sound. The brand's speakers feature unique elements like zirconium-based 3D-printed baskets and a patented ribbon tweeter design, combined with series crossover networks for phase-locked electrical current across frequencies.
Product Page
Product Page
Wilson Audio
Alexx V
154000
/
Released
2021
The original Alexx loudspeaker, launched in 2016, quickly gained critical acclaim throughout the industry. Alexx benefited from several elements developed during the five years Wilson Audio's founder David A. Wilson, and his unwavering R&D team, brought to life his magnum opus: the WAMM Master Chronosonic. Now, five years after the monumental accomplishment of the WAMM, Alexx V builds upon the original Alexx's success by offering a completely re-engineered performance envelope without greatly increasing the footprint. Comparing the overall size of Alexx V to the original, Alexx V is only 1" deeper and 1" taller while maintaining the same width.
Wilson Audio is often considered the quintessential American high-end hi-fi brand, a staple in premium audio dealerships across the country. Many reviewers use Wilson speakers in their own home systems, reflecting their reputation for outstanding dynamics, bass depth, and the ability to reproduce classical music with remarkable realism. Wilson focuses on creating an uncolored sound, aiming to replicate the experience of live, unamplified performances.
Expand Details
Our Summary
Product Strengths
- Sublime image size and expansiveness, coupled with an ability to be driven as hard as your ears or your amps can take
- A sense of balance to the sound of the Alexx V makes renewal possible, expressive and articulate from the deepest bass to the highest treble
- Trickle-down benefits from the WAMM Master Chronosonic and Chronosonic XVX
- Bass performance is otherworldly
- The Alexx V has the ability to uncover and continue to deliver micro-details at extremely high SPLs, even after that slam of a transient
Product Considerations
- Some power behind the throne is needed, because the loudspeaker's impedance plot drops to two ohms at 250Hz
- The dome tweeter does sacrifice the last ounce of micro-detail, compared to the insane resolving power of the best diamond and beryllium drivers
- The choice of finish needs to be considered with care
- Cable management can impact performance
Comparisons (according to reviewers)
- Compared to the original Alexx, the Alexx V is a massive improvement—closer to a baby XVX in so many ways
- Compared to the Alexia 2, the Alexx V was more than a mere additive sum, a step-function improvement
- Compared to the Wilson XVX and WAMM Master Chronosonic, the tweeter is effortless and resolving by normal standards, but no match for the extraordinary levels of detail retrieval
Takeaway: The Alexx V offers a sublime listening experience with excellent balance and dynamic range that allows the listener to get closer to the music. It is a worthy contender for those looking to upgrade their listening experience.
Video review
Our take on the brand
Wilson Audio is often considered the quintessential American high-end hi-fi brand, a staple in premium audio dealerships across the country. Many reviewers use Wilson speakers in their own home systems, reflecting their reputation for outstanding dynamics, bass depth, and the ability to reproduce classical music with remarkable realism. Wilson focuses on creating an uncolored sound, aiming to replicate the experience of live, unamplified performances.
Product Page
Product Page
Linn
360
110180
/
Released
2023
360 is audibly invisible. It produces a performance with unprecedented clarity and realism, that's entirely absent of sonic colouration. Incorporating innovative drive unit and amplifier technologies, 360 turns out our lowest ever levels of audible distortion. The honed curves of its cabinet are partnered with meticulously matched drive units to deliver the cleanest possible dispersion characteristics.
Linn is a hifi brand known for its modular designs, particularly the Sondek LP12 turntable where users can upgrade virtually every component over time to maintain performance across decades. The brand stands out for developing its own technologies in-house, including the Organik DAC with FPGA processing and Space Optimisation, which models room acoustics without needing microphone measurements.
Expand Details
Our Summary
Product Strengths
- Excellent imaging, providing a strong stereo image for multiple listeners due to wide dispersion and Space Optimisation+
- Flexible and capable of playing all kinds of music, getting out of the music's way, and suitable for both large and smaller rooms
- Dynamic, detailed, and can play at a wide range of volume levels, from quiet listening to near PA levels
- Features a new driver array, including a Beryllium dome tweeter, thin-ply woven carbon fiber midrange (used on NASA's Mars Rover), and aluminum-magnesium alloy bass units
- Incorporates new amplifier technologies—'Power DAC' for the lower bass and 'Adaptive Bias Control' for the mid and treble—reducing distortion
Product Considerations
- The midrange dome is exposed, which might be a concern with children
- Owners of previous Linn systems may find the price difficult to accept
- Some audiophiles may prefer Linn to trawl its past rather than building its future, and they will want an Isobarik
- Some audiophiles may not be able to see past the LP12
Comparisons (according to reviewers)
- The 360 offers significantly improved imaging and soundstaging compared to the Klimax 350
Takeaway: The Linn 360 is a high-end loudspeaker that provides excellent sound quality and flexibility, making it a great choice for enjoying music with friends or for personal listening sessions. Its innovative design and technology deliver a detailed and immersive audio experience.
Video review
Our take on the brand
Linn is a hifi brand known for its modular designs, particularly the Sondek LP12 turntable where users can upgrade virtually every component over time to maintain performance across decades. The brand stands out for developing its own technologies in-house, including the Organik DAC with FPGA processing and Space Optimisation, which models room acoustics without needing microphone measurements.
Product Page
Product Page
Questions? Ask the brand's dealers.
All Dealers
How to buy
Speakers
Search all hifi products
Explore our database of 10,000+ new and 25,000+ used hifi products.
