Munich 2018

Herb's First Morning in Munich

Herb Reichert  |  May 14, 2018

So, folks, here are a couple things you need to understand about Munich High End 2018:

As a rule, Europe brings to audio a different aesthetic and perspective than America—they are way less into giant, million-dollar, solid-state amplifiers and way more into low-power tube amps. And . . . they are definitely into horn loudspeakers in a way that most Americans cannot fathom. I was in Munich for three days and I could never have covered all the rooms featuring horn speakers. Can you imagine that many horn speakers at CES, RMAF, or AXPONA? I can't.

Mainstream taste in American high-end audio leans towards a kind of left-brain precision in detail, imaging, and, of course, super-tight bass response. Europeans, on the other hand, take a more colorful right brain approach. Europeans understand that presence = essence and they demand a lot corporeality from their hi-fis. Americans favor speed and focus while Europeans favor weight and body.

Americans want to see the piano. Europeans want to feel the piano—which is why they favor horns so much.

Also . . .

In Europe, virtually everyone lives within driving distance of a major historic concert hall. Consequently, people on the Continent enjoy music from a broader, more international, and historical perspective—one that includes classical, early music, and the indigenous music of Europe's native national cultures. Hence, less Eagles, and more Chieftains and Arvo Pärt.

To illustrate my above thesis, I am going to start my reporting, with a wild looking single-ended triode amplifier + horn loudspeaker that I believe might appeal to both Americans and Europeans: the Odeon Audio "No.33" horn loudspeakers (28,000 Euros/pair) driven by the outrageous looking NAT Audio "Magma" tube amplifier (44,900 Euros). The Magma features, nay showcases, in its beautiful cage, the fantastic GM100 "watermelon" tube, which, is bigger than a football and hotter than a stove. NAT claims the Magma's single GM100 puts out "170W (!!!) of no-feedback, class-A power—into either 4 or 8 ohms." And it looks crazy good to me.

The Odeon NAT people played a digital Getz & Gilberto's Girl From Ipanema with an Aqua La Diva CD transport (7680 Euros), an Aqua La Scala MK II Optologic DAC (6780 Euros). They also played LPs with the outstanding (11,000 Euros) Reed Muse 1 C Laufwerk turntable, a Reed 1X tonearm, and a Lyra Delos moving-coil cartridge. With no apparent struggle, good horns with SE triodes will generate copious texture and tangible weight, but more often than not, horns play too big to be real. Guitars can be 8' wide and singers can be 10' tall. But not with the No.33s. Of all the myriad horn speakers I've heard, the three-way 33s produced proper-sized instruments and 5–6' vocalists. Instrumental textures were vivid, tone was rich and colorful, but I thought I heard a subtle grain through the upper midrange that I imagined was generated, not by the 33s, but by the monster high-voltage GM100 tube.

Racks were Atacama Bambus Module. Interconnects were JPS Aluminata and Superconductor while the loudspeaker cables were Odeon.

Throughout the 1990s I used a big, heavy, loud, tedious-to-operate Keith Monks record cleaning machine. I put a lot of miles on it, and every time I used it, I thought to myself there's got to be a better way. When I moved my living quarters from a big firehouse to a small boat, I gave Monk's machine to an friend and returned to using Palmolive soap and a shoe polish-applicator brush to clean my records. I was never once tempted to buy another machine until the AudioGläss Desk System appeared—but it was too loud and out of my price range.

Today, however, I believe I've discovered a made-in-Denver record cleaning machine I could live with: the Kirmuss Audio "In The Groove Ultimate Ultrasonic Vinyl Restoration System" (a High End 2018 world premiere). In its separate slots, it can simultaneously clean two 12", one 10", and one 7" disc (four records total) in 5 minutes. Best of all, because it operates at a lower ultrasonic frequency (35kHz) than other currently popular disc cleaners, according to Kirmuss CEO Charles B. Kirmuss it can clean delicate shellac discs without damage. More best of all: it costs only $795!

As some of you might know, I am a rabid fan of Vincent Brient's discrete resistor ladder DACs that he builds in France in the shadow of France's Mont Saint-Michel monastery. Today, I finally I got to meet Vincent in person and experience his two-way d150 horn loudspeakers (46,000 Euros/pair). I was impressed by both of them. The d150's sound was relaxed very wide open and delightfully coherent. These beautiful turned-wood horns were driven, not by a compression driver, but by a full-range cone driver; which is crossed over to a 15" bass driver at 150Hz. I was immediately impressed by how smooth, vivid, and 3-dimensional the sound was. Sensitivity is claimed to 98dB/W/1m.

The d150s were supplemented by two Totaldac subwoofers (6500 Euros each), which feature 18" drivers mounted high up. Think big, full, open, and exceptionally coherent. I would have nominated Brient's system for best sound at show, but is was only the morning of my first day, so I moved on.

When the patent expired on Oskar Heil's Air Motion Transformer (AMT), a number of audio engineers wisely began exploring the nearly unlimited possibilities of this low-coloration air-squeezing transducer technology; but the 2m-high AudioNec Diva XL (245,000 Euros/pair) is, to my knowledge, the most ambitious of these explorations. The Diva XL's large "Duo-Pole" AMT driver covers frequencies from 200Hz to 20kHz and is powered by a 1-Tesla neodymium motor. The XL is open-backed and the Duo-Pole therefore operates as a box-less dipole; one which made me sit slack jawed in awe at the largeness of image and the relaxed grainlessness of its presentation. The Divas hypnotized me. Their midrange was more natural, airy, and open than any electrostatic loudspeaker I know. To my even greater surprise, the two 15" top-bottom woofers were making bass that was as big and smooth and transparent as the Duo-Pole's midrange. Clearly, the Diva XL is an extraordinary loudspeaker designed for an extraordinary audiophile—with a healthy wallet and an appropriately sized listening room.

Amplifiers were Jadis JA-80 Mk.IIs (15,000 Euros/pair) and power cables were by Absolue Creations (2800 Euros each).

"Beauty is only the beginning" is the tagline on Lawrence Audio's website and that is how I felt when Lawrence Liao and Angela Yang greeted me with extreme warmth and fine sounding music. I could have (and almost did) melt in my chair. The Taiwanese company Lawrence Audio's "Dragon" loudspeaker was making yet another "Munich-midrange" to die for.

I always heard that the glass-wall rooms at Munich's High End audio show ruined the sound for most exhibitors. But I am not experiencing that at all. The Lawrence Audio Dragon, and every other speaker I heard on Thursday, was making clean bass and sensuous midrange.

The Lawrence Audio Dragons employ a Jantzen Diamond tweeter, a German-made Accuton Cell 5" ceramic midrange and two 10" Accuton aluminum "sandwich black cell drivers" for the lows. The Dragons sounded refined and "beautiful" but I never got the price. (Lawrence and Angela promised to send me a list of components and prices but I never found it in my email.) Sorry.

COMMENTS
RH's picture
Submitted by RH on May 14, 2018 - 10:49am

Like I was there!

Two things:

1. About the Kirmuss Audio record cleaning system:

"Best of all, because it operates at a lower ultrasonic frequency (35kHz) than other currently popular disc cleaners, according to Kirmuss CEO Charles B. Kirmuss it can clean delicate shellac discs without damage."

That's interesting. Another new ultrasonic record cleaner, The Degritter, has been making some waves and one of it's selling points has been the opposite: that they employ a HIGHER ultrasonic frequency than most cleaners - which they claim allows for finer and gentler cleaning of a record than lower frequencies. Hmmm..which sales talk to believe :-) (I'd like to pick up an US record cleaner at some point. The less labor intensive for me, the better, as few other record cleaning methods appeal to me).

2. Herb, do you know when your follow up review of the Joseph Audio Pulsar speakers will appear?

Thanks.

Anton's picture
Submitted by Anton on May 14, 2018 - 11:41am

"They are way less into giant, million-dollar, solid-state amplifiers and way more into million-dollar low-power tube amps and they are definitely into million dollar horn loudspeakers in a way that most Americans cannot fathom."

:-)

I agree with you, I like it Euro style.

Still out of my budget, but I love the way you describe the vibe.

Allen Fant's picture
Submitted by Allen Fant on May 14, 2018 - 1:43pm

Nice coverage- HR.
I am digging those (2) Chaps in the white lab coats!

Anton's picture
Submitted by Anton on May 14, 2018 - 2:02pm

Didn't he once say he searched for them at shows?

I think that is hilarious. It's a little meme I watch for now!

Herb Reichert's picture
Submitted by Herb Reichert on May 14, 2018 - 3:38pm

preceedes Matthew Polk. But who in audio wore a lab coat first?

CG's picture
Submitted by CG on May 14, 2018 - 6:21pm

I confess that this bothers me a bit.

The costs of these systems are in the Porsche category. OK, there's a market for both very expensive audio systems as well as Porsches. I get that and am completely on board with products that push for the best, pretty much regardless of price.

But, in almost all of the various show reports, I'm pretty much only seeing these wildly expensive systems. Aren't there any VW level products (to stick to the German car analogy)? Mind you, that's still pretty expensive for the average music fan, but it's certainly more within reach.

Are many companies even trying to reach people who actually have limits on their Black Cards? Or, are these lofty products the only products shown at shows, with more pedestrian products actually sold in volume? Or, are these the only products that get reviewers' attention?

Something seems out of whack. Or, is it just me? Even the car magazines have something to say about various VW's, Toyotas, Mazdas, Camaros, and so on when they are unveiled at shows.

spacehound's picture
Submitted by spacehound on May 15, 2018 - 10:23pm

Or don't want to
Take prices and your car analogy.
I'm in the UK. Yesterday evening I was driving along what we call a 'main' road between two small 'country' towns 12 miles apart. One has a population of about 1,000 and the other about 4,000. The road was not busy. It was a dull, wet, evening.

Being bored I counted the cars coming the other way. There were twenty nine. That's all.

EVERY ONE was a Range Rover. They start at about 90,000 US Dollars and go up to about 180,000 :-)

spacehound's picture
Submitted by spacehound on May 15, 2018 - 10:24pm

Or don't want to
Take prices and your car analogy.
I'm in the UK. Yesterday evening I was driving along what we call a 'main' road between two small 'country' towns 12 miles apart. One has a population of about 1,000 and the other about 4,000. The road was not busy. It was a dull, wet, evening.

Being bored I counted the cars coming the other way. There were twenty nine. That's all.

EVERY ONE was a Range Rover. They start at about 90,000 US Dollars and go up to about 180,000 :-)

CG's picture
Submitted by CG on May 16, 2018 - 4:20am

Careful - counting cars may be like counting sheep.

Do many drivers in the UK lease their cars versus purchasing them? How about company provided cars? (Showing my ignorance...)

Depending on who you consult, the top 5% of all income in the United States is for households with yearly income of over about $225K. Depending on the make-up of that household (age, kids, location, and so on) that isn't quite the level you'd need to purchase a Range Rover and pay your other bills. Unless, of course, that was the big expenditure in your life to the exclusion of other items. Leasing is a different story, of course.

So, maybe Europeans are far, far more affluent than residents over here in the USA. If that's the case, that really explains the large market for Range Rover priced audio gear, at least in Europe.

spacehound's picture
Submitted by spacehound on May 16, 2018 - 5:24am

...of UK (not the rest of Europe) cars on the road are company purchased as 'perks' for employees. This has huge tax advantages for the company as there is no taxation distinction for what is 'essential' and what is not, so the cars are all set off against company taxation as essential equipment, as is the CEO's Ferrari.
There is an additional 'company benefits' tax for employees but it is far less than buying/maintaining your own car, the costs of which of course otherwise has to come out of your 'after tax' pay and also bears a 20% Value Added Tax' on everything you spend except food and children's clothing..

But most of these 'company cars' stop at about the low end BMW or Mercedes level. And they all have nonsensical accessory and trim options depending on your position in the company 'pecking order' :-)

The rest of us buy Range Rovers, Porsches, or the low-cost Mazda Miata out of our own money to demonstrate that we are 'above' all this company rat race nonsense.

And in the 'country' of which I spoke the Range Rover is king and very popular. Mostly among rich people and heavily subsidised farmers, which is all of UK farmers. The rest of us in the 'country' often create fake corporations purely to take advantage of the company car taxation system. As all the relatives of the politicians do the same thing this is not investigated :-)

CG's picture
Submitted by CG on May 16, 2018 - 5:44pm

Ha! Very interesting.

Do mains powered immobile audio systems qualify as essential equipment?

spacehound's picture
Submitted by spacehound on May 16, 2018 - 10:56pm

The whole UK corporate tax system is one enormous 'fiddle'.

And so an audio system is an 'essential tool' just like the milling machines on the factory floor or the secretaries word processors.

You use it to make presentations to the workforce :-)

Though every UK commercial operation I've ever come across seems to use Bose - make of that what you will :-)

No government can ever check on this stuff to see if it is used for what you say it is. Half of the population would be employed checking on the other half and who would check on the checkers?

RoryB's picture
Submitted by RoryB on May 15, 2018 - 5:36am

The Duo-Pole drivers in the AudioNec speakers aren't actually AMTs. They are a flexible diaphragm driver like the Linaeum tweeters. The working principle is somewhat different from the AMT even though the aspect ratio is similar and mixing up the two ideas is forgivable.

AMTs would struggle to produce a wide bandwidth even from a large diaphragm area because the diaphragm is divided up into multiple pleats which are like individual diaphragms - they flex as a separate independent cell, with the bends between the pleats taking up some of the tension. Large planar drivers have wider bandwidth than a large diaphragm AMT, and the Linaeum-style driver should have an even lower usable bandwidth limit (more like a cone) because it uses bending and not tension as restoring force.

I always felt the Linaeum driver had more potential than just being used as a tweeter -- actually, the higher mass relative to a planar ribbon membrane (but lower mass than a cone driver of similar size) makes it more suited to midrange reproduction.

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