I m going 19 - 22 may to the show in munchen
Who s going?
What brands you wanna hear ??
Who s going?
What brands you wanna hear ??
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Munchen High end show 2022
- Thread starter andromedaaudio
- Start date
worth a visit @hifideluxe , liked it a lot:
Back late last night from 2 days. As always, not long enough so have promised 3 next year but have said that before!
As a generalism, rooms sounded better on Friday than Thursday, and the atrium rooms were more comfortable early in the morning temperature-wise, esp 4.2 rooms.
Alsyvox / Horizon room was significantly better on Friday than Thursday. I didn't realise at the time, but they took the Jadis pre-amp out of the loop on Friday, running instead straight from the Horizon. On Friday, it sounded superb, with a sense of ease with which the music presented itself whilst still being dynamic and powerful when needed, and all from 30W.
I loved the Audionec / Riveriera room. Having demo'd the Riviera pre, I have an idea of what they do, particularly around the harmonic nuances of the music, and this coupled with the Audionec dipole created some magic.
The Wadax room with Wilson Benesch Eminence speakers and AR amplification was another system that sounded quite a bit better on Friday and was creating some real magic. I own a pair of WB speakers and find that they allow the music to flow very well as opposed to it feeling driven at you. No surprise therefore that this was how the room presented itself, with the AR amps providing enough valve magic to get you emotionally engaged.
The Diptyque Reference speakers made a good first impression - clean and transparent with a lightness of touch. Bass was perhaps a touch light so for full-on orchestral work may need subs. Equally could be room etc.
As already commented, the Western Electric speakers were interesting. Some of the most bizarre I've ever seen, but sounded very good - tonally engaging no doubt helped by the 300B amplification. Not sure if I could live with the looks though!
Special kudos to Linn for playing Arab Strap - made a pleasant change from the plinky plinky guitar music which seemed to be standard fair this year. The demo of improvements they've made to their DAC architecture was impressive too.
I managed to get into the Nagra room early on and close to optimal spot (whenever I was close by later on it was queueing to get in), and sounded ok, but not engaging enough for my liking. Maybe it was another room that would have been better on Friday. I also found that I enjoyed the near-field listening experience of rooms than bigger ones like this.
CH / Rockport room ok. The demo of L1 + X1 to L10 was impressive. Having demo'd L1 + X1 and thought the best thing CH produce, the gap to L10 was significant. I suspect this makes it one of the best line-stages out there. For me I don't find CH engaging enough, and I think Rockport are quite a laid-back speaker (physically as well as sonically!!) so this system really didn't light my fire.
Stenheim / Dartzeel room was one I was expecting big things from, with the new Reference 2 and top-flight Dartzeel amps, but didn't meet my expectations. In the past I've found Stenheim speakers to be a relaxing listen but with enough detail and dynamics, esp in the bass, to be very engaging too. This time they felt more edgy which I didn't like. I've heard lower-level Dartzeel stuff in the past with my wife once describing them as like having shards of glass thrown at you, so maybe it was the combination that didn't work for me. I was also disappointed they were only playing the 5's not the Ref 2's. Apparently they are playing the Ref 2's over the weekend and were working on them late yesterday. The sax player they had playing over a recording of his band was cool though, so kudos for that at least.
For the Wilson Benesch / Audionet room, I think my expectations were too high, given my own hifi. It was great, but I'd perhaps expected to be blown away. This was a big room, so perhaps reflects my comments about preferences for near-field listening. There'll be a lot of attention on the turntable (rightly given the tech involved) and the new Bohr phono-stage, but I was more interested in the new Omnium speakers and changes to the Torus subs, so was fantastic to speak with Craig Milnes for 15 mins running through both. I hope to get a home demo of the Omniums at some point this year. Roy Gregory was visiting late Friday so I expect he'll be posting thoughts at some point.
The Aries Cerat room was hugely entertaining and there'll be a lot of photos of the speakers doing the rounds. I'm not a fan of horns, but these sounded great, linked to some thumping bass too.
Another room using a Horizon was VAC / Gershman - sounded very pleasant.
Living Voice made the brave choice not to bring their full-on horn system, but the OBX sounded great, with unbelievable bass from a speaker with such a small footprint.
The Engstrom / Maarten room sounded very good, with a presentation from Timo and Lars on the product range and design philosophy. The Monica phono and pre into the Lars power amps sounded clean and articulate, but with just enough harmonic structure to get you engaged in the music. I love the design too, especially with some of the colour finishes they are now doing.
A standout in the "budget" category was the new Audiovector QR7 which retails at under EUR6k. Maybe not the last level in detail, but very musical and punchy dynamic bass. Impressive for the money.
The Wadax / Robert Koda room (not sure what the speakers were) sounded pretty good. There was enough flesh to the one to suggest what the amps were bringing to the party given their reputation and class-A design.
Award for most enthusiastic welcome goes to John Lim at Hifistay - having chatted via email over the last 6 months or so, was great to meet and chat. Great display of their very-well engineered products too!
Headphones clearly becoming ever bigger and great to see so many to demo. One big problem though - most high-end ones are open-backed, so for those displays out in the open, the background noise made it pretty much impossible to get an understanding of what the products were doing. Kudos to dCS, Hifiman and a few others for having booths to listen in.
As a generalism, rooms sounded better on Friday than Thursday, and the atrium rooms were more comfortable early in the morning temperature-wise, esp 4.2 rooms.
Alsyvox / Horizon room was significantly better on Friday than Thursday. I didn't realise at the time, but they took the Jadis pre-amp out of the loop on Friday, running instead straight from the Horizon. On Friday, it sounded superb, with a sense of ease with which the music presented itself whilst still being dynamic and powerful when needed, and all from 30W.
I loved the Audionec / Riveriera room. Having demo'd the Riviera pre, I have an idea of what they do, particularly around the harmonic nuances of the music, and this coupled with the Audionec dipole created some magic.
The Wadax room with Wilson Benesch Eminence speakers and AR amplification was another system that sounded quite a bit better on Friday and was creating some real magic. I own a pair of WB speakers and find that they allow the music to flow very well as opposed to it feeling driven at you. No surprise therefore that this was how the room presented itself, with the AR amps providing enough valve magic to get you emotionally engaged.
The Diptyque Reference speakers made a good first impression - clean and transparent with a lightness of touch. Bass was perhaps a touch light so for full-on orchestral work may need subs. Equally could be room etc.
As already commented, the Western Electric speakers were interesting. Some of the most bizarre I've ever seen, but sounded very good - tonally engaging no doubt helped by the 300B amplification. Not sure if I could live with the looks though!
Special kudos to Linn for playing Arab Strap - made a pleasant change from the plinky plinky guitar music which seemed to be standard fair this year. The demo of improvements they've made to their DAC architecture was impressive too.
I managed to get into the Nagra room early on and close to optimal spot (whenever I was close by later on it was queueing to get in), and sounded ok, but not engaging enough for my liking. Maybe it was another room that would have been better on Friday. I also found that I enjoyed the near-field listening experience of rooms than bigger ones like this.
CH / Rockport room ok. The demo of L1 + X1 to L10 was impressive. Having demo'd L1 + X1 and thought the best thing CH produce, the gap to L10 was significant. I suspect this makes it one of the best line-stages out there. For me I don't find CH engaging enough, and I think Rockport are quite a laid-back speaker (physically as well as sonically!!) so this system really didn't light my fire.
Stenheim / Dartzeel room was one I was expecting big things from, with the new Reference 2 and top-flight Dartzeel amps, but didn't meet my expectations. In the past I've found Stenheim speakers to be a relaxing listen but with enough detail and dynamics, esp in the bass, to be very engaging too. This time they felt more edgy which I didn't like. I've heard lower-level Dartzeel stuff in the past with my wife once describing them as like having shards of glass thrown at you, so maybe it was the combination that didn't work for me. I was also disappointed they were only playing the 5's not the Ref 2's. Apparently they are playing the Ref 2's over the weekend and were working on them late yesterday. The sax player they had playing over a recording of his band was cool though, so kudos for that at least.
For the Wilson Benesch / Audionet room, I think my expectations were too high, given my own hifi. It was great, but I'd perhaps expected to be blown away. This was a big room, so perhaps reflects my comments about preferences for near-field listening. There'll be a lot of attention on the turntable (rightly given the tech involved) and the new Bohr phono-stage, but I was more interested in the new Omnium speakers and changes to the Torus subs, so was fantastic to speak with Craig Milnes for 15 mins running through both. I hope to get a home demo of the Omniums at some point this year. Roy Gregory was visiting late Friday so I expect he'll be posting thoughts at some point.
The Aries Cerat room was hugely entertaining and there'll be a lot of photos of the speakers doing the rounds. I'm not a fan of horns, but these sounded great, linked to some thumping bass too.
Another room using a Horizon was VAC / Gershman - sounded very pleasant.
Living Voice made the brave choice not to bring their full-on horn system, but the OBX sounded great, with unbelievable bass from a speaker with such a small footprint.
The Engstrom / Maarten room sounded very good, with a presentation from Timo and Lars on the product range and design philosophy. The Monica phono and pre into the Lars power amps sounded clean and articulate, but with just enough harmonic structure to get you engaged in the music. I love the design too, especially with some of the colour finishes they are now doing.
A standout in the "budget" category was the new Audiovector QR7 which retails at under EUR6k. Maybe not the last level in detail, but very musical and punchy dynamic bass. Impressive for the money.
The Wadax / Robert Koda room (not sure what the speakers were) sounded pretty good. There was enough flesh to the one to suggest what the amps were bringing to the party given their reputation and class-A design.
Award for most enthusiastic welcome goes to John Lim at Hifistay - having chatted via email over the last 6 months or so, was great to meet and chat. Great display of their very-well engineered products too!
Headphones clearly becoming ever bigger and great to see so many to demo. One big problem though - most high-end ones are open-backed, so for those displays out in the open, the background noise made it pretty much impossible to get an understanding of what the products were doing. Kudos to dCS, Hifiman and a few others for having booths to listen in.
I find it is always funny that the main part of the speaker cable is so thick but the lead ends are so thin. So what all thickness composed of?
I have visited the wilson xvx / nagra room.
Bit dissapointing its almost like i hear a tw issue
Rockport ch precision .
almost only talk they increase the feed back and play 10 sec and talk again i need to come back
Please just play more music thank you.
Best sound so far at MOC probably cessaro horns , i liked pilium and the small magicos too
Bit dissapointing its almost like i hear a tw issue
Rockport ch precision .
almost only talk they increase the feed back and play 10 sec and talk again i need to come back
Please just play more music thank you.
Best sound so far at MOC probably cessaro horns , i liked pilium and the small magicos too
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Yesterday i listened to audionote UK and now also to Devore .
Lets say it politely , its not my thing .
Currently Listening to the avantgarde trios ,G 3 not bad so far it also uses the WADAX but totally different sounding then yesterday
Stenheim dart was okay afaik a bit exxcesive bass in the room
Lets say it politely , its not my thing .
Currently Listening to the avantgarde trios ,G 3 not bad so far it also uses the WADAX but totally different sounding then yesterday
Stenheim dart was okay afaik a bit exxcesive bass in the room
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After hearing a lot of the systems (still need to revisit rockport and quit a few more rooms)
I d say so far what i like personal
Best digital Wadax
Best amps The gryphon Apex
Best speakers Kharma.
Ps R koda and Pilium sound very good too afaik
I d say so far what i like personal
Best digital Wadax
Best amps The gryphon Apex
Best speakers Kharma.
Ps R koda and Pilium sound very good too afaik
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Fantastic...any 'intuitive feel' for how far advanced the Apex takes the Gryphon sound? My experience with Gryphon starts with DM100, Antileon and goes up to Colosseum and Mephisto Stereo.
As for as Wadax is concerned, it is the only digital that has genuinely peaked my interest in all these years since the Zanden. The AudioNote DAC 5th Element was perhaps the closest, but the Wadax provides a complete solution in digital source.
What Robert Koda did you hear? Did not realize they were there.
I don't understand this post.
How can you judge a single component that plays within a system? I can somewhat imagine judging a loudspeaker (although it depends on many things: room, amps, etc.). But how can you say that a particular amp (in this case Gryphon) was the best?
What if it had played in the system where the Koda monos played and vice versa?
To avoid misunderstandings: I have no problem at all with what you like (and what you don't). But to judge a component of a system when you have only heard the whole system seems impossible to me.
Interesting that Taiko plus Lampi Horizon didn't make the top. For $150k I'd expect Wadax to be superior, but the Taiko Extreme/Pacific/Alsyvox sure sounded outstanding when I heard the combo and I'd expect the Horizon and bigger Alsyvox speakers to be even better.
Best horns so far i think
I have several more to go
VIVA amps with their horns.
I have several more to go
VIVA amps with their horns.
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This room was the most sterile sounding at the whole show! My vote for worst expensive room.
I agree, these were pretty good…not the best though by a long shot…
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