LATEST ADDITIONS

I began my Friday with a direct assault upon one of the MOC's three atria: expansive, beautifully lit spaces, each resembling a boulevard of swanky shops, with café seating at the center and rows of glass-fronted listening rooms on the farthest side. Again, the effect is not unlike an audio-centric Champs Elysée on an especially pleasant day. Times three.

First stop was Dali Acoustics, where the sound of a mandolin—it was Steve Strauss's "Jennie Mae"—led me toward Dali's floorstanding Rubicon 8 (€2399/pair, seen on the far left in the photo above).

I had the opportunity to review, in our June 2012 issue, the sweet-sounding Allnic A-5000 DHT amplifier. Yet it wasn't until the Munich show that I had the chance to meet its very genial designer, Kang Su Park, seen here with David Beetles, the international distributor for Allnic Audio Arts.

Road Shows, Volume 3 (on Okeh Records) might be Sonny Rollins' greatest album ever. Certainly it's the album that most closely supplies the sensation of a live Sonny Rollins concert—or the best moments of several live Sonny Rollins concerts, which is what the whole Road Shows series is meant to be.

How good does it get? I think I’m closer to having an answer to that one.

The first bit of music I heard at the Munich show—officially known High End 2014—was utterly lacking in soundstage depth, imaging precision, and transparency: It was actual music, courtesy of the Bavarian brass/accordion ensemble Unterbiberger Hofmusik, who performed just inside the main entranceway of the Munich MOC. (To the surprise of everyone, the morning dawned too cold for an outdoors performance.) It was a big, colorful beginning to this uniquely big, colorful show.

In 1995, Harry Weisfeld's son Jonathan was killed in an automobile accident. Jonathan was a charismatic young man whom I had come to know—a genuinely gifted artist and musician who, at the time of his death, was helping his father develop the tonearm that would be named for him: the JMW Memorial Arm. The design of the original JMW Memorial Arm focused on providing easily adjustable and repeatable VTA and SRA via a massive threaded tower that bolted to the plinth. The bearing point, on the other hand, sat near the end of a relatively long and not particularly rigid metal platform cantilevered off the VTA/SRA tower.

Our June 2014 issue is now on newsstands, with MBL's cool-running, hot-sounding Corona C15 amplifier on its cover. The C15 combines a class-D output stage with a hefty linear power supply to produce performance that finally convinced John Atkinson that class-D designs need not produce compromised sound quality. JA also outs his hearing ability on the line by reviewing EnigmAcoustics' cost-no-object electrostatic supertweeter. The bulk of the Sopranino's output lies above the venerable JA's hearing limit, so did he hear any improvement? Read the review to find out...