May 23, 2013
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For those of you that don’t know, High End is, arguably, the most incredible audio show on the planet — imagine CES, but only for audio. If that doesn’t curl your hair, you’re wearing a wig — or haven’t been to CES. Anyway, the short of it is that there just isn’t a US-based audio show that can hold a candle to the sheer size, scale, and impact of this European behemoth.
Seems that this show is just fundamentally different in the way that it’s seen by the hosting city — there are billboards and signs everywhere. Folks bring families. It’s a regional event, unlike some of the hi-fi shows I’ve been to, which sometimes feel more like a fetishist conference. Ah, well. Lessons still need to be learned. As for me, the lesson I’ve learned is to schedule my personal vacations a bit better — I’m going to Germany next year.
In the meantime, feel free to enjoy this final part to the High End Show coverage from Munich, Germany. Stuart Smith over at Hifi Pig has graciously “syndicated” his reports — many thanks for letting folks on the wrong side of the pond in on the action!
Well there’s a massive amount to see at Munich High End and there’s no way that we could have hoped to have visited every room and every exhibitor but we did see a lot and we did manage to spend time listening in many of the rooms. Overall we thought the show to be very well organised and we met some very nice people.
So in this final part of Hifi Pig show report of Munich High End 2013 we’ll give you a mixture of photographs and brief write ups of some of the rooms where music was played. Continue reading
There’s nothing like measurements to really get an audiophile out of their chair and onto an Internet forum! My unreview of the DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/96 loudspeaker generated a few comments and a lot of email, which is always entertaining, but it also elicited a response from John DeVore, the designer.
The problem with measurements is that they’re just that, measurements. Numbers can tell you a lot of things, but one of the things you can lose, and lose quickly, is any sense of context.
John’s note, included here, provides some of that. Continue reading
Every now and again, I get my greasy monkey paws on something truly fine. This? This is one of those times.
Say hello to the DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/96.
Stuart Smith over at Hifi Pig has “syndicated” his coverage of the High End Show in Munich. Many thanks for letting folks on the wrong side of the pond in on the action!
In this part of the show report from Munich High End 2013 we have a listen to the new Gryphon Audio Vitus II loudspeakers, have a chat with Norbert Lehmann from Lehmann Audio and have a chat with newcomers Van de Leur who are launching a new valve pre and class D power amp. We also have a listen to German Physiks omnidirectional loudspeaker, Estelon loudspeakers, 3D Labs electronics and Jean Marie Reynaud loudspeakers. We warm our toes in the Gato room, get a look at some carbon nano tubes in the van den Hul room and have a look at some new kit from Chord.
Continue reading
I probably should make a joke here about how the word ‘Nagra’ is defined as “high-end audio jewelry”, but I suspect you’ve already heard that cliché. And if not, you’re welcome to just pretend that it was a good joke and that I carried it off well. Insert hearty laugh here.
As with most clichés, there’s more than a bit of truth buried in there, which makes sense, but it’ll be hard to capture with words — that’s why there are pictures! Anyway, here goes: the casework on the Nagra Audio Jazz and MSA amplifiers is absurdly fine. Look at the shots — even the edges and corners have been finished. That’s weird! In not a “good way” — in a great way. Dunno why that’s weird? Go get up close and personal with your Denon or Marantz receiver. That’s some decent work, pretty good for mass-produced bent-metal. Now, go stick your face on an Accuphase. Nice face plate, right? But what about the sides? The bottom? The rear? Better than the Denon, but … snore! With Nagra, it’s as if they’re expecting the gear to spin around on a spotlighted display platform. The units are a pleasure to see, touch, and taste (ahem). I’m impressed. No, really. As in, this is the nicest casework I can think of.
More: the knobs feel like they’re fitted together in the same way the elements in a Patek Philippe are fitted together. This is what they mean by “Swiss Made”. The dials all turn with just the right blend of ease and resistance, like, say, a vault door. There’s this reassuring and entirely satisfying solidity and precision of execution. And here I am, three paragraphs in, still talking about the build quality. Yeah. Continue reading
Stuart Smith over at Hifi Pig has “syndicated” his coverage of the High End Show in Munich. Many thanks for letting folks on the wrong side of the pond in on the action!
We’ll come back to the main listening rooms in the next installment of the show report from Munich High End but in this part we’ll look at some of the exhibitors who had taken static stands and were not actually playing any music or we were unable to get a listen. Continue reading
Stuart Smith over at Hifi Pig has “syndicated” his coverage of the High End Show in Munich. Many thanks for letting folks on the wrong side of the pond in on the action!
Bird: UK slang meaning a woman/wife/girlfriend, synonyms: broad, chick, dame, girl, lass.
‘Turn it up, bring the noise’
It’s Saturday already so time to pack our bags, eat another huge breakfast and set off for our last day at the show.The fantastic staff at the NH München Deutscher Kaiser are looking after our bags until we come back for the train tonight, we don’t leave until very late so we can actually have another full day here.
The plan was to have a day seeing a bit more of the city but so many people have wanted to meet up with us that we still haven’t got round all of the show, so off we trot like good little piggies.
The weather is a bit wet again but not too bad and the underground is packed with people in ‘drinking trousers’ as we have come to call Lederhosen, and Bayern Munich football shirts, it’s a great atmosphere but more on that later.
First stop is a meeting with Pim van de Leur of Van de Leur, Dutch AudioDesign. Continue reading
Stuart Smith over at Hifi Pig has “syndicated” his coverage of the High End Show in Munich. Many thanks for letting folks on the wrong side of the pond in on the action!
For those that don’t know Living Voice here’s a brief introduction as to who they are. Living Voice is owned by Kevin and Lynne Scott who also own the retail business Definitive Audio. The company is based in Derbyshire in the UK, was founded in 1991 and makes the Vox Olympian Horn Loudspeaker, the Auditorium series of loudspeakers and the G8 Equipment table. Their retail business includes brands such as Kondo KSL and Trafomatic Audio, so you know that their room is going to be special right? Well no actually. I’ve heard loudspeakers from Living voice a few times at the Hifi Wigwam show and I always found them lacking a bit – very nice and polite but not just my cup of tea… but I’m well aware that many people heaped praise on them in the same listening environments. With this in mind I was prepared to be under whelmed. Playing in the Living Voice room when we went in was the company’s OBX – RW loudspeakers. Electronics in this system included the Kondo M77 pre, Kondo Kegon amplifier, Kondo Ongaku Pre M77 and Kondo KSL M7 Phono. Sources included an SME 30 (I think) turntable, Wadia CD and DAC and a Canary Audio CD-300 CD player (Again I think the model number is correct).
I heard the deepblue system this year at AXPONA, and it was a hot little demo. There’s just no reasonable way that such sound was coming out of such a teeny box. Hopefully, we’ll be getting one of our very own to play with at some point, but in the meantime, the rest of you folks now have a crack at it, too. Check ‘em out. I’m positive that your eyebrows are gonna crawl right off your face, catch a flight to the Keys, and sip margaritas while you try and figure out WTF just happened.
Info and pics after the fold.
