LATEST ADDITIONS

Just some tonearm sweetness from Thales. Photo taken through a window. Enjoy.

The South Korean company Silbatone manufactures exquisite pure tube and hybrid audio amplification that's specifically engineered to be un-conventional, un-compromised, and un-affordable. About that last characteristic: It's un-affordable because it's not for sale—and everyone knows you have to pay extra for stuff that's not for sale. Right?

I'm sitting in the Alluxity room next to Joseph Audio's Jeff Joseph and wondering how his new graphene-cone Perspective2 loudspeakers ($14,999/pair) can sound so big and solid and transparent when they're so far apart. I'm looking for the hole in the middle, or at least a fuzzy-creamy center, but I can't find it. All I can "see" are the solid, accurately described voices of singers like Ella and Elvis.

The show wasn't open yet. The booths weren't finished being built. I was walking alone, and there were no audio people anywhere. But as soon as I saw it, I froze and pulled out my camera. It's not hammertone gray. It's not a grease-bearing. But it was here in front of me.

Leute, High End München 2019 ist der große Audio-Zirkus . . .

I first became aware of the existence of Stereophile sometime in spring 1985, while working as a typesetter in Santa Fe, New Mexico. (Remember typesetting?) From far down the hall behind me I heard a big, high-pitched laugh. I turned to see my present boss guiding toward my dark typesetting cell my future boss: a very tall, balding, round-faced man with a huge grin who shambled along in loose chinos and a Hawaiian shirt in full sail.

What better way to get into the proper frame of mind for Munich High End than by listening to native German speaker baritone Matthias Goerne’s new recording of Schumann: Liederkreis, Op. 24—Kerner-Lieder Op. 35, with accompaniment by the distinguished piano soloist Leif Ove Andsnes? It’s available on CD (Harmonia Mundi HMM902353), as a download (up to 96/24), and streaming.