- Elite Swiss audio specialist Goldmund launches Telos 9800 amplifier
- Looks like Eve from Wall-E
- Costs $500,000 / £370,000 (around AU$705,000)
You can get Wall-E toys for about $10, but if you want a huge-scale prototype model of Eve (which also plays your music), it'll cost you a little bit more…
I jest, of course. Swiss home audio company Goldmund has unveiled the Telos 9800, a new amplifier which looks inspired by the Pixar movie — or, to my eyes, one of the robots from Love, Death & Robots' Three Robots episodes.
This amplifier costs $500,00 / £370,000 (about AU$700,000), so it's a lot more expensive than a toy — and let me be clear, this is no toy. It's a serious product for hi-fi enthusiasts-slash-audiophiles and a luxury item, to be sure.
What does Telos mean? According to a brief Wikipedia search (after a brief Google search, in which AI Overview gave me something totally irrelevant), it's a term Aristotle used to refer to the intended end state of a natural creature. Deep.
The power tower
In our case, the Goldmund Telos 9800 is the end state of your home hi-fi set-up, and not just because it'll blow every last penny out of your budget.
It offers a whopping 1,560W of power at 8 ohms, with a built-in transformer (9.7kVA capacity), to avoid frying your hi-fi kit.
As you'll see in the images, there are two stages of the Telos: one is a power supply and the other is the amplifier, connected but not pressed up against each other.
It connects via XLR or RCA, with S/PDIF input and output too.
As you can imagine from the pictures, this thing is pretty huge. It's 1.367 meters tall, with a base of 50 x 50cm. The unit weighs 360kg too, so if you're ordering one, you really do need to factor in shipping and delivery costs.
Ultimately, it's not built for the average home hi-fi set-up. It's built for the "money no object" buyer, and for those of us unburdened by delivery costs. That is not this writer. But one can still dream…
➡️ Read our full guide to the best stereo speakers
1. Best overall:
Q Acoustics M40 HD
2. Best compact:
Dali Rubikore 2
3. Best desktop speakers
Creative Pebble Nova
4. Best budget buy:
Q Acoustics M20 HD
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