After a lot of hard work, Vitus Audio arrived in Munich with a new Signature DAC, the SD-025 Mk.II (26,500), and new SM-103 Mk.II monoblock amplifiers (70,000/pair). Allied with other Vitus equipment), the system offered bountiful color, snap, and excellent low bass on a CD of Mathias Heise performing "Quadrillion." Having just viewed a bit of a Heise's live performance of the piece, I find myself extremely grateful for the opportunity to close my eyes and focus solely on the music.
SteinMusic's apparent paradox, a striking black-and-white equipment array that's on track to win my Looker Award of High End 2023 but that delivered maximally colorful sound, attracted throngs to the company's room. On Sir Simon Rattle's recording of Stravinsky's The Firebird Suite, performed by the City of Birmingham Orchestra, and Musica Nuda's live recording of "I Will Survive," Holger Stein's system delivered an arresting three-dimensional soundstage and marvelous range of colors.
You may have now read as much German as I dare put into print, but you'll likely read far more about Voxativ's revamp of its first loudspeaker, the formerly discontinued, single 8" driver Ampeggio loudspeaker (25,900/pair), in the coming months.
"People kept asking for it," Voxativ owner Inès Adler told me. "We've learned a lot in the 20 years since it was first issued, and have been able to optimize and specially tune the design. Yet we've managed to keep it at the same price it was two decades ago."
This sign may not look auspicious, situated as it is over a trash basket. But this poster next to the exit stairs of the Kieferngarten stop of the U-Bahn, Munich's equivalent of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system's network of underground and overground trains, was essential for people walking from the train to Munich High End's home in the MOC.
Nor was it the only sign I encountered. Many subways stopseven the airportdisplayed large posters announcing the annual well-attended Munich High End audio show.
Alexander Melnikov: Fantasie: 7 Composers, 7 Keyboards; Nielsen: Symphonies 2 (The Four Temperaments) & 6 (Sinfonia semplice); Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D Major (cadenzas by Jörg Widmann); Fragment from Violin Concerto in C Major; R. Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra & Debussy: Jeux.
Mick Survance of Quintessence Audio in Morton Grove, IL knows his brands well. Wilson Audio, Dan D'Agostino Master Audio Systems, Clearaudio, DS Audio, dCS, Transparent, Bassocontinuo, Sonus faber, Boulder, Critical Mass Systems, Hana, and Kubala-Sosna: these are among the major, time-honored brands that fill the homes of many audiophiles with means.
Each of these rooms had several elements in common: premium equipment, meticulous set-up, and heavy black draping that, while necessary to reduce multiple issues in narrower air-walled spaces (which were nonetheless larger than my music room), also reduced three-dimensionality and air. It was thus a wonder that individually as well as collectively, Quintessence's showcases produced some of the best sound I encountered at the show.
Just as I dashed into the Expo Hall to check out Coherence Systems' ADD-POWR SorcerX4 ($4399.95) and smaller Apprentice ($3299.95) harmonic conditioning devices, Bill Stierhout (above) was packing up. We just had enough time to snap this photo before his booth became a booth no more.
Grandinote owner/designer Massimiliano Magri (above) joined his North American distributor Reinhard Goerner at AXPONA for the premiere of the Grandinote Premier Mach 8XL loudspeaker ($30,800$33,000/pair, depending upon finish). According to Grandinote's endearingly "English as a second language" website, the Mach 8XL's eight full-range drivers utilize a special treatment behind the drivers' membranes that prevents cone break-up. The drivers roll-off above 13kHz, allowing a super tweeter that handles harmonics above 7kHz to come to the fore. Rather than employing a crossoverthe Mach 8XL has nonedrivers are modified to create "a solution in the middle between bass reflex and transmission line."
Some believe that Dolby Atmos, Apple's spatial audio variant, and other immersive technologies are the wave of the future. While the best way to determine what the future will bring is to live long enough to render the future the present, Jim Austin and I independently dipped into Focal Naim's impressive self-contained 7.2.4. Dolby Atmos Theva exhibit, staged within their larger exhibit space, to get a taste of what's available right now.
Credo Audio Switzerland's Cinema LTM loudspeakers ($199,995/pair) may have towered above all else, but the gear from EMM Labs and their lower priced Meitner Audio line, van den Hul, VPI Industries, and DS Audio displayed in another "give it all you've got" large room was nothing to scoff at. Though I've grown tired of the overblown sound on Gary Karr's LP, Adagio di Albinoni, I was awed by the midrange beauty of Sara Barreilles's voice on a 24/88.2 file of "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road." The recorded sound of this live performance seemed uncannily real, and the soundstage was awesome.