Scot is flying towards Munich; I will be doing the same at dawn. I hate flying that early and would do it for one reason only. It’s that time of the year.
The biggest kermesse in this crazy audio world of hours, the High End Show of Munich, opens doors in just a few hours. Instead of waxing poetic on the show let me offer you some clues on what we are about to listen to and report back to you
The MQA format will be officially launched along with a new MQA ready DAC from Brinkmann, the Nyquist, which will be added to the ones already available (read Mytek Brooklyn and Manhattan along with Meridian’s models).
Bowers & Wilkins, aka B&W, will be throwing special events for the launch of the new 800 D3 Diamond speaker. The 800 series has been a reference for almost affordable high-end for decades and we can’t wait to find out how this all new version sounds like. Even more we can’t wait to talk with the B&W team as EVA automation, a relatively small Silicon Valley start-up acquired the British brand just two days before the show.
Wilson Audio will be throwing a private party for the European launch of the new Alexx speaker and if last year is something to go by it sure will be fun.
Trafomatic Audio will be showcasing the new uber triode amps called Elysium along with Tune Audio’s horn speakers. I was asked politely by Ms. Hull to remove Scot’s credit card from his wallet before he places orders using the kids’ college funds.
Continuum Audio Labs will be showcasing their new turntable, the Obsidian with the inhouse Cobra tonearm along with the state of the art SAT arm.
Avid after launching some true high-end amplifiers last year will make a further step into becoming a complete from source to speaker company with a series of reference transducers that share the same modern looks with the aforementioned electronics.
Metaxas and sins will be finally presenting the new Ikarus amplifier, which I trust will be the most beautiful single piece of equipment of the show. Speaker’s wise the new Estelon YB model looks quite intriguing while the new Raidho 4.1 will try to improve over the already astonishing D4.
So for yet another year do stay tuned on Part-Time Audiophile for a top coverage of Munich’s High End show!
If you see Adyton there (Oslo Hi-fi center) you really need to check them out, their speakers and electronics is unbelievable, just a tip :p
some nice stuff. i drove over to the only repair place in vegas for hi end audio and listened toa combo on consignment that sounded pretty darn nice. it was a audio space 5 wpc tube integrated mini with a couple of older tower cain and cain speakers for 1500 .the little audio space had its own power supply and it drove those towers easily. they audio space looked hi end and that combo sounded surprisingly good???i was looking for hybrid integrated with tubes in the preamp stage but they didn’t have anything like that. they had some bryston stuff, one or two macintosh things and a few other decent things but not what i was looking for?
Date: Wed, 4 May 2016 22:00:41 +0000 To: jbrookner@hotmail.com