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The link between jazz and the works of Igor Stravinsky is well known. In Conversations with Igor Stravinsky, his landmark 1959 collaboration with Robert Craft, the composer mentions jazz artists like Art Tatum and Charlie Christian. The fact that Stravinsky was captivated by the improvisational freedom of jazz and its insistent, inventive rhythms makes all his work, especially Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), a natural for jazz players to play and quote from, and over the years they have more than obliged.

The man pictured above is Joe Roberts, who does consulting work for Silbatone—in whose deservedly, lavishly praised exhibition room I took this photo. Joe published the deservedly, lavishly lamented magazine Sound Practices, which was one of my influences when I started Listener Magazine 20 years ago. In his public speaking as in his writing, Joe is all about passion, honesty, style, and fun. (You can't see it in this photo, but Joe was holding in his left hand the largest spanner I've ever seen. I think it was yellow.) To paraphrase Stephen Stills: It made sense that he was there.

High End 2014 drew over 18,000 audio enthusiasts and record lovers to the historic city of Munich, a corner of whose Marienplatz district is seen in the photo above. It presented the wares of 452 exhibitors, representing over 900 distinct brands. I was in attendance every minute of its first three days; I went home on its fourth and final day, bringing with me the certainty that High End 2014 was, in almost every meaningful way, the finest audio show of my experience. This wasn't a show about old men dodging furtively in and out of overdark, overloud rooms in a down-on-its-luck hotel: High End 2014 was about seeing the audio world's most important people and products in a single setting, the beauty and spaciousness and size of which reflected very well indeed on our industry.

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.

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