"Authority. Control. Order. Restraint." That's how Jim Austin summed up the Goldmund Telos 2800 monoblock power amplifier in the January 2026 issue of Stereophile.
Authority. Control. Order. Restraint.
Austin framed the review around Nietzsche's two impulses, the ordered Apollonian and the wild Dionysian. The Telos 2800, he wrote, is "pure Apollo: Authority. Control. Order. Restraint." He heard "something godlike" in it: "a pure strength, a crystalline imperviousness."
Loud, without the irritation of loud
He found the noise floor exceptionally low, and its effect surprising. "The Telos 2800 possesses the rare quality of making loud music seem less loud; in big music, you get all the advantages of extra volume—scale, authority, the sense of awe—without the irritation of loud."
No electronic character
Austin described a "transparency that sharpens and solidifies while maintaining basic character." Throughout the review period he kept noticing "the naturalness—the absence of any electronic character," even in recordings he'd assumed had it baked in. "In this respect, too," he wrote, "the Goldmund Telos 2800 was the best I've experienced."
A gradual attachment
Then comes the most human part of the review. There was no instant tingle. Instead, over weeks, "an addiction developed. More each day, I found I didn't want to turn the music off. I'd leave it on in the background, playing at low or moderate levels. Even at background levels, the music offered … peace? Solace? Relief from tension?"
He closes on value, and on what matters more: "Value is a question of values, but regardless of which side you come down on, the quality is here."
Download the full Stereophile review (PDF). Goldmund was founded in Geneva in 1978; explore Goldmund at Rhythm and find a Rhythm dealer to hear the Telos 2800.
