Headliner reveals Best of IFA 2025 Awards

At one time (approximately 100 years ago, actually), IFA – the Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin – was all about the humble radio. The nomenclature translates literally as ‘International Radio Exhibition Berlin’. Fast forward a century, and the biggest tech show in Europe has expanded to reach all corners of the consumer tech industry, with the brand adopting the Innovation for All tagline to illustrate how wide its net has spread.

Arguably, the audio section now takes somewhat of a back seat in favour of other gadgets and gizmos. However, Headliner was there, boots on the ground, checking out what was on offer both inside and outside the consumer audio sector. 

As such, we have identified three outstanding audio products from the show that we think are worthy of an accolade, namely Headliner’s Best of IFA 2025 awards.

Let’s check out the winners in a nice, unbiased alphabetical order…

Best Home Theatre Audio

Canvas HiFi: The HiFi Frame

It was impossible to walk around the AV area of IFA 2025 without hearing loud music emanating from one corner of that particular exhibition hall. Said music was coming from the Canvas HiFi booth, where company CEO Laust Nielsen and his team were demoing its new soundbar meets Samsung TV stand, the HiFi Frame.

Purveyors of high-quality Danish audio – Canvas HiFi – teamed up with Samsung to launch a surround-soundbar that also functions as a stand for Samsung’s high-end TVs (note the same speaker array is available as a mounted option that can sit underneath any mountable TV). I simply couldn’t walk past; I had to get in the stand’s experience chair and discover what it was like for myself.

The result is a truly immersive experience (no mean feat in the corner of a room probably 200x the size of the average living space, with all manner of other noise going on). Laust played a number of tracks for me, starting with Bob Dylan, and I felt as though the music was surrounding my entire person, despite the speaker setup being directly in front of me, and with no wall to speak of behind me.

I was suitably impressed by the end of the first verse, but by the time Laust played the third and final track of his repertoire for me, I was sold. Award-worthy stunning design, incredible sound, and an experience to rival any multi-speaker home theatre system.

Best Wired Headphones

Kinera Divine Mark Loki IEMs (Limited Edition)

IEMs are becoming more and more prevalent outside of music production and performance, as those looking for clarity and reference-level reproduction have realised a wired IEM is somewhat unparalleled when it comes to such sonic characteristics.

Kinera’s range of IEMs are not only beautifully crafted; they are incredibly well-engineered, too. One such IEM we tested at IFA 2025 was Kinera’s limited edition ‘Divine Mark Loki’ IEMS. If you go weak at the knees for drivers, Kinera’s new IEMs have drivers for days.

Taking care of the lows is a 6mm LCP driver. A total of six BA drivers cover the mids (x4) and treble (x2). As if that wasn’t enough, there are four electrostatic drivers for micro detailing, and, wait for it, two Sonion bone conduction drivers—the latter being the reason I could literally feel the bass in the Zed Bias track Kinera’s representative Tommy Lim offered me to debut the earphones.

A sensational pair of IEMs in terms of form, feature set, and function, and truly a deserving winner of a coveted Headliner award.

Best Wireless Earbuds

Status Audio Pro X Wireless Earbuds

Status Audio’s Between 3 earbuds dropped into our palms (or, more appropriately, our ear canals) back in 2023. Since then, founder James Bertuzzi and his R&D team have been busy in the workshop alongside Knowles, developing the brand new Pro X earbuds.

Boasting twin Knowles BA drivers to deal with the mids and tops, and a solid 12mm dynamic driver for that all-important bottom end, the Pro X shows a real evolution compared to the Between ‘buds, which featured a smaller 10mm driver. They’re also smaller, which is never a bad thing when it comes to carrying things inside your ear canals; the less strain, the better.

Delivering detailed mids, clear highs, and nicely controlled lows, the Pro X wireless earbuds stood out to us thanks to the quality of their wireless sound reproduction alongside their excellent ANC; an undoubted challenger to the AirPods crown. We’re keen to see where Status Audio heads next, design-wise.

Notable Mentions

While we couldn’t pick everyone for an award, we would still like to mention some other cool devices we saw at the Messe.

First up, we have the Glowb from Xello. Imagine a psychedelic lava lamp at a ‘90s warehouse rave, and you’re halfway to imagining Xello’s super cool Glowb speaker, with a sound-reactive NanoFluid display that dances to your music. Very mesmerising!

JMGO’s O2S Ultra 4K – a UST projector – deserves a mention for its tiny footprint. UST projectors are excellent if you are short on real estate in your living space, but most existing models are still pretty bulky. The O2S Ultra 4K, available from October 25, solves this problem with its small stature.

See you at NAMM!

That wraps up our Best of IFA 2025 Award round-up. We tested out some superb tech at IFA, and all of our winners have earned their accolades by standing out against their peers.

Unfortunately, the Alpha Theta stand didn’t feature the new CDJ 3000X, or that certainly would have been a contender here, too!

Up next, we’ll be at NAMM; see you then for more best of brilliance.