January 2026

Get Ready Audiophiles And Music Lovers, It's Coming!
Hmmmm... what we can expect from 2026?
Editorial (Mainly) By Roger Skoff, With Slight Additions By Steven R. Rochlin

  Happy New Year from all of us here at Enjoy the Music.com! This is going to be a great year! After a fitful 2025 now in the rearview mirror, both the music industry and our own luxurious high-fidelity audio industry—the companies and people who bring us the audiophile gear we use to enjoy the music—are poised to reach new highs and to reach more people than at any recent time! We live in interesting times, CDs are back, reel-to-reel tape thriving, vinyl LPs... and an abundance of true lossless Hi-Res Music (20-bit/88kHz and higher) digital streaming to everyone in the world.

Change is in the air. Can you hear it?

The music business enters 2026 with a kind of renewed energy it hasn't felt in a long while. Streaming is still the engine, but it's no longer the only story. When it comes to profits, physical media and merch provide an excellent return on investment. Subscription numbers for streaming services continue to climb, and even the ad-supported side—after uncertainty through much of 2025—seems to have found its rhythm again. The majors are still consolidating, of course, as they always will. But for once, the independents aren't just surviving—they're thriving.

They've learned how to use the tools, how to build communities, how to turn a niche into an advantage. And AI, which was a source of trepidation, is finally settling into its proper role: not as a threat, but as a powerful assistant that can help artists create, promote, and connect in ways that were unthinkable only a few years ago.

Artists themselves seem to be entering 2026 with a clearer sense of balance (we'll save the ‘larger' AI music debate for another editorial). The pressure to release constantly hasn't gone away, but the smarter ones have figured out how to pace themselves, how to use AI and other tools without being used by them, and how to build careers that feel sustainable rather than frantic. There's a growing recognition that authenticity isn't something you can manufacture on a schedule, and that the audience—perhaps more than ever—can tell the difference. The result is a musical landscape that feels more open, more diverse, and more creatively alive than it has for years.

Live music, too, is poised for the most profitable year ever, and with record attendance, too! The mega-tours will continue to dominate, of course—they're too big, too polished, and too well-loved not to. But the real story of 2026 may be the return of the mid-tier festivals and venues that struggled so badly last year. Costs are stabilizing, weather planning is improving, and audiences—after a year of caution—seem ready to come back. People love the life experience of being within the same space with others, sharing the same excitement, and feeling the music vibes in the air.

And the music industry, to its credit, seems to be ready to meet that desire with better planning, better production, and a better understanding of what audiences really want. Live sound companies like L-Acoustics, d&b audiotechnik, Meyer Sound, HOLOPLOT, etc. can seamlessly create amazing immersive sound experiences within concert venues globally.

On the home audio hi-fi side, the audiophile optimism is strong at shows, and of course here at Enjoy the Music.com too. Luxurious high-end music sound systems within one's home continue to flourish, driven by audiophiles who treat our systems not as appliances but as central parts of our lifestyle—objects of craft, passion, and personal expression. (We're the ones who will spend the day or an evening with friends, repeatedly playing the same bit of music and moving the speakers a quarter of an inch at a time until the imaging is just right; who can hear the difference between cables that look identical to everyone else; and who treat their listening rooms with the same reverence others reserve for chapels). For us, for music lovers, and even for those to whom music is just an entertainment, 2026 promises a wave of new products—many of which will benefit from AI technology—that are not only better engineered but more beautifully made, more thoughtfully designed, and more musically satisfying.

The middle and lower-priced markets, which may have thinned out in 2025, are showing signs of revival, too. Manufacturers are finally realizing that not everyone can be satisfied with a soundbar or a smart speaker, and that there's a large, underserved audience of affluent listeners who not only want something better—something more real-sounding—they can very easily afford the best... but might, or might not, want to pay the price of a car (or a good-size house) to get it.

We here at Enjoy the Music.com expect to see more integrated amps, more compact speakers, more affordable DACs, and lossless Hi-Res Audio streamers that deliver genuine performance... yet without requiring a second mortgage. The livingroom, and especially the home office, bedroom, and yes bathroom (showering to great music rocks!) are spaces that have been neglected for too long, and 2026 looks like the year that real hi-fi at realistic prices may come back to life.

Even vinyl LP playback, which many predicted would plateau, seems ready for another strong year. Not because it's trendy—trends fade—but because it offers something people increasingly crave: a physical connection to the music they love. The labels have finally figured out how to balance quality with quantity, and the pressing plants have caught up enough that we can expect fewer delays and fewer warped discs. Collectors will keep collecting, newcomers will keep discovering how really good analog recordings can sound, and the format will continue to thrive—not as a novelty but as a legitimate, enduring part of the listening ecosystem.

And then there's the rest—the CD people, the reel-to-reel pure analog lovers, and yes, cables, accessories, and tweaks, the humble companies run by music lovers who deeply care more about getting it right than getting it big. They had a surprisingly strong 2025, and 2026 looks even better! Enthusiasts are investing again, not just in gear but in the experience of listening. They're treating their systems as evolving projects, as expressions of taste and curiosity, and the companies that understand that—really understand it—are going to have a very good year.

What makes 2026 feel so promising is that both the music and the luxury high-fidelity audio industries seem to have learned from the challenges of the past few years. They've shed some illusions, tightened their focus, and rediscovered the value of serving the audience rather than chasing the algorithm. They've remembered that music is not just content, and that hi-fi is not just hardware. Together, they are the two halves of the same experience: the creation and enjoyment of something that truly matters.

So yes my friends, Enjoy the Music.com strongly feels that this is going to be a great year for music lovers! Not because everything will be easy, it won't, but because both industries are entering 2026 with clearer eyes, steadier hands, and a renewed sense of purpose. The cracks of the past few years didn't break anything, really; they just revealed what needed attention. And now that the work has begun for everyone within the high-end audio community and music business, the path forward looks brighter than it has in a long time—particularly because, if preliminary indications are to be believed, a growing world economy will give people everywhere more currency to own more things that they may have wanted but not been able to afford before.

It's going to be a great year: more music, more toys and goodies... and much more currency to own them. Get ready to...

Enjoy the music!

 

Roger Skoff