Californian valve / tube electronics experts Aesthetix are no strangers to US magazine The Absolute Sound’s annual Awards, with seven components in the latest Awards, which focus on hi-fi designed for the audiophile’s or music lover’s home listening / living room.
From 2024, US audio magazine’s annual Editors’ Choice Awards have been split into two cycles, the first (in November) focusing on hi-fi components suited to a home living room, and the second (in March) featuring products that best fit into larger systems in dedicated listening rooms. Unsurprisingly, Aesthetix’ high-performance electronics continue to feature in both cycles.
In the November 2025 Awards, seven Aesthetix’ components are winners.
Aesthetix’ Pallene preamplifier and Dione power amplifier were reviewed in The Absolute Sound’s January 2025 issue, and immediately made it into the Editors’ Choice Awards. The Pallene is “a supremely functional preamp designed to cover pretty much any contemporary music lover’s needs” with a sound that offers “crystalline transparency” and “hits that sweet spot that just sounds natural”. With “superb design and build” this is “a relative bargain in today’s high-end world.”
Similarly, the Dione “is notably transparent to the nature of each recording. It’s not warm and tubey sounding, nor is it solid-state cool, but manages to hit that sweet spot that sounds just natural.” And, with “superb design, fit and finish”, both of thee amps constitute “a relative bargain in today’s high-end world”.
Two Aesthetix preamplifiers are once again award-winners. The all-valve Calypso linestage “delivers most of the performance of Aesthetix’ two-box Callisto linestage for about a third the price” with “extremely good dynamics and dynamic nuance”, while “transparency and resolution are first-rate”. Priced at the lower end of the range, the Calypso effortlessly “competes with the megabuck preamps.”
The Janus, priced towards the upper end, combines the above Calypso with a scaled-down Rhea phonostage in a single chassis. It delivers “speed and detail; a low noise floor; precise rhythms; dynamics that are almost reference-caliber; and a laid-back perspective,” while “the quiet background and smooth highs add up to long hours of glorious, fatigue-free listening.”
And, speaking of the Rhea, this “versatile phonostage” with “tons of gain” is again an award-winner in its own right – one that “exhibits transient quickness, effortlessness in crescendos and a deep, layered soundstage” and “vividly demonstrates the value of component quality”.
The Aesthetix Mimas, meanwhile, is “the very definition of what we all seek from an integrated amplifier” that “can express the full palette of tonal and textural colors with harmonic ripeness”. It’s “an old musical soul” that “embodies many of the classic sonic virtues of the golden era of tubes, but with the ease, control and extension that are the hallmarks of today’s finest solid state”.
Finally, the ABCD-2 MC cartridge demagnetizer, the seventh winner for Aesthetix in this awards cycle, is a battery-operated device that will effortlessly “restore tone colours and soundstage clarity” thanks to the special signal it sends though your MC cartridge to remove any stray magnetism in the coils.
Discover the full range of Aesthetix’ multi-award-winning electronics and locate your nearest specialist retailer at https://www.aesthetix.net
Check out complete listings of The Absolute Sound’s Editors’ Choice Award winners in the magazine’s November 2025 issue.
David Denyer PR | The hi-fi specialist 