Admittedly, I have never attended the big shows in Shanghai, Hong Kong, or Warsaw, but it would be hard to imagine either one outdoing Munich. The Warsaw show calls itself the second biggest show in Europe, deferring, presumably, to the Munich show. Munich is so big that it even has a sideshow, HiFi Deluxe, just down the road. HiFi Deluxe caters to exhibitors who got shut out of the big show, which despite its hugeness is oversubscribed. It can all become a bit overwhelming.
The main Stereophile crew covering the Munich showKen Micallef and Jason Victor Serinusdid all the heavy-duty legwork, posting highlights here. I toured the halls to see what was new, collecting the best, most Spin Doctorish things for this report. Here's a smattering.
For a guy born in postwar Glasgow who spent his formative years across the border in Northern England, Mark Knopfler has a knack for writing songs based in an American ethos.
Since disbanding Dire Straits, which he led from 1977 to 1992, Knopfler has evolved from headband-sporting guitar hero to acclaimed observational songwriter. Commencing with his 1996 solo debut Golden Heart (Warner Bros.) and continuing through One Deep River, his just-released 10th solo studio album, on the jazz-centric Blue Note label, Knopfler tells character-focused stories in arrangements that might cause listeners to think he's from Nashville, not Northumberland.
One afternoon, as we passed a stack of George Foreman Grills, she saw the record player, a mottled beige-brown box familiar to any Gen-X kid who spent time in their elementary school library. It had the reinforced metal corners and industrial clasps of a steamer trunk and a thick green handle made of indestructible Cold War plastic. Written across the top in black marker: #0027. How this piece of surplus ended up in the wayward-housewares section of a suburban thrift shop was surely an interesting story but not my concern. There it was, shut tight and resolute, perhaps since the 1970s. The price: $8.
With a miniature box speaker like my reference Falcon Gold Badge LS3/5as or the similarly sized Harbeth P3ESR XDs, which I'm auditioning this month, I have to sit very close to experience any of their direct, "off-the-cone" energy. If my listening position gets too far away or the speakers are positioned too far apart or too far from the wall behind them, the sound thins and loses body.
I didn't need to sit close to those 1947 Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre horns I used to use.
