Meet the extreme of high-end audiophilia: the Luna Series from Abbingdon Music Research

What do you get the tech bro, crypto sis or picky audiophile pal who has everything? How about half-a-million quid’s worth of hi-fi equipment?

That’s the approximate retail value of AMR’s Luna Series luxury audio collection: the Luna Ingenii DAC, the Luna Medii preamplifier and the Luna Procellarum monoblock power amplifier. A decade in the R&D, designed in collaboration with the Grateful Dead’s fabled sound engineer, in a limited run of 148 sets, using components that don’t – and won’t – exist anymore: this is, in a very real sense, an amp that goes all the way up to, well, 111.

And while the sound will make your ears tingle, the price might make your eyes water: £441,000. ‘Basically, we wanted to push the boundaries of what audio technology could achieve in terms of resolving sound,’ explains Miles Roberts, global sales director for Southport-based Abbingdon Music Research. ‘Some of the technology that we've got in here is based on components that we actually bought the final runs of about ten years ago.’

Roberts is talking in Fitzrovia, central London, in the uber-plush basement lounge – think Bond villain’s lair, with snacks – of Cornflake, the smart-home automation and media-room installation specialist. AMR has booked out the space to demonstrate the kit it has carefully freighted south from Merseyside in custom-built Pelican flight cases, the combined weight as hefty as the price tag, some 80kg per component.

‘What we wanted to do is achieve a representation of music which was as near to reality as you could possibly get. It's taken us the better part of ten to 12 years to do that with this system,’ continues Roberts. To help them reach their ultra-audio goal, they enlisted John Curl, an electronics engineer and audio designer renowned in music and beyond, notably for his role in co-developing The Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound, the band’s legendary live-concert sound system.

‘John always wanted to make a particular amplifier that was unique in the world, which is a four-quadrant, push-pull amplifier. And we're the only company that could work with him to do that. So that's what you see before you now.’ Before me now are a pair of what look like mini-Ancient Egyptian sarcophagi. Gleaming and gold-trimmed, those are the components that make up the Luna Procellarum monoblock power amplifier. Why two?

‘Because in true music systems, you generally have what's called dual mono, or separate left-right, so there's no interference between the left and right channel. We've got a 1200-watt-output monoblock for each side, for each speaker. And there's no interference between the left and right whatsoever.’

When it comes to the high-tech audiophiliac spec, Roberts has plenty more where that came from. But to cut to the chase: what makes the system so expensive? ‘It's a combination of the cost of the components, the engineering time and the limited accessibility. These will probably become collectable items. Due to the fact that we've bought all the components to make these, we can only make 148 sets. So it's a bit like a fine whisky or a Ferrari. There's only a limited number of these that can ever be made. And that's the end.’

It is, then, likely to pique the interest of ‘high-net-worth individuals who have the yacht, the Porsche, the villa in Greece. They like the finer things in life, and they're always striving to get to perfection.’

Beyond that, the ideal client, apart from a wealthy one, is ‘someone that really appreciates music. And that music doesn't have to be classical,’ Roberts adds, and duly indulges me with a playlist of ear-treat tunes across various genres: Melody Gardot’s ‘If You Love Me’, Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Mrs Robinson’, the theme from Where Eagles Dare and, just to give the system a full work-out, Martin Garrix’s monster dance track ‘Funk’. As he says, ‘that’ll test pretty much any speaker!’

Having launched the system at June 2026’s High End Vienna trade fair (‘the international meeting place for everyone who wants to help shape the future of audio technology and experience sound at its finest’), AMR has already had ‘some serious interest from the customer base. So I don't think we'll struggle. But at the same time, there isn't someone around every corner that's going to spend half a million pounds on a hi-fi system.’

At least it’s straightforward to use – Roberts is playing the tunes to me on streaming platform Qobuz. ‘You don't have to relearn an operating system or anything like that. You can use whatever [to play your music] – Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music. Or if you were a real audiophile, you might have a big collection on hard drive. So it's accessible. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to drive it.’

But you might need to be a rocket owner to afford it.

AMR’s Luna Series is available from Q1 2027. Interested buyers should visit AMR-Audio.co.uk, @AMR_Audio