A big surprise from Northnuance, a brand-new Finnish company, was the sleek Spiro -- a full-range speaker in a sort of transmission-line cabinet. It looks really nice and well built, and the sound was very good for €995 per pair. Need more bass? You can add a Northnuance Subspiro subwoofer, but it’s bigger and costs more than the Spiro itself.

There wasn’t only recorded music at HEM 2014-- there was also the real thing. Jan Allan, the famous Swedish jazz trumpeter, played with Hans Backenroth and Daniel Svensson, and told the attendees some stories about his long life in music.

The largest model from Vivid Audio, the Giya G1, was driven by a lot of Constellation Audio products. I had a long talk with Vivid’s Robert Trunz, and now there’s a pair of the smaller Giya G3s in my room, awaiting review. Very interesting speakers. Constellation Audio made its first major presentation in Sweden. Peter Madnick of Constellation showed me their brand-new integrated amp, the Argo -- a real gem! Near the back wall you can see a pair of Matts Odenmalm’s marvelous acoustic wings.

Piega is a Swiss company that I first got to know through their active loudspeakers. Here is one of their passive models driven by some very competent electronics from Soulution, another Swiss company. Both brands are new to the Swedish market.

The Airedale is the biggest speaker model from the classic British manufacturer Wharfedale. Together with other classic brands -- Audiolab, Luxman, Mission, Quad -- Wharfedale is now part of International Audio Group, a Chinese-based organization.

Genelec, a Finnish speaker company, makes active studio monitors found in professional audio installations all over the world. A year ago they launched their G series of models specially adapted for home audio.