High End 2022 • Hot Product

Diptych’s distinctive, attractive and affordable push-pull planar-magnetic speakers made waves at the last few High End shows. This year the company moved seriously upmarket, launching the new Reference model (€44,000 per pair). A door-sized flat panel available in any of 160 RAL colors, the Reference is a 3.5-way design using a novel (and patented) cross push-pull topology in which the diaphragm has a voice coil etched on both sides, one at right-angles to the other. The front and rear magnet arrays are also at right angles to each other. It’s an arrangement that the company claims generates increased sensitivity and linearity as well as lower distortion.

The simple demonstration system -- a hard drive coupled to a B.Audio B.dac (€12,000) and a Kora TB-400 integrated amplifier (€15,000) with O2A cables -- certainly impressed, with a relaxed, open, detailed and naturally dynamic sound that really let the music breath -- all that in a pre-fab "sound booth" buried in one of the large halls. This is a mightily impressive debut and promises great things, both from the Diptych Reference and other models still to come.