Munich 2025

South Korea's Silbatone delivered sound with startling intensity and scale. In a show known for polished, high end presentations, its Munich demo was an all out sonic spectacle—part sensory onslaught, part performance art. This was music as a full contact experience.

Michael Chung, who owns Silbatone, co hosted the room alongside former Sound Practices editor Joe Roberts. Together they walked visitors through the system's technology. Silbatone designers J.C. Morrison and Stefano Bae were also present.

Center stage stood an enormous 1935 era Western Electric field coil horn setup, representative of WE's "Wide Range" systems—including tweeters, so called "snail horns," and woofers. This near mythical assemblage included two WE 597A tweeters per side; two 22" tall WE 22B midrange horns per side, each driven by two WE 555 drivers (four per side, eight total); and a pair of WE TA 4181 18" woofers mounted in WE TA 7395 open back baffles measuring 9'2"W × 7'7"H × 3'1"D.

Between the towering Western Electric horns sat a G.I.P. Laboratory speaker system. Roberts explained that if and when a WE driver blows, a G.I.P. replacement works equally well. Sources included turntables supplied by Daniel Kim, Thomas Schick, and Frank Schröder.

Kim, of Analogtechnik, provided a 1958 Neumann PA 2 turntable and tonearm, with Analogtechnik DST15/DST25 carts (based on Neumann DST and DST62).

Frank Schröder's TG (Tiny Giant) idler drive turntable with his Schröder No.2 SQ tonearm was outfitted with a Soundsmith Hyperion II phono cartridge. A Schröder direct drive turntable with a K3 tonearm was paired with a vintage Denon DL109D phono cartridge.

A Thomas Schick Dual direct drive motor, mounted in a Schick plinth, supported two tonearms: a 12" Schick arm with a black armtube and a "special selected cartridge," and a 9" Schick arm with a 10.5gm wooden headshell carrying a van den Hul Colibri XGW cartridge. A second Schick 'table featured an Audio Technica direct drive motor, a 2.5kg platter with red mat, a Schick plinth, and a 12" Schick "banana" tonearm.

Amplification included a Silbatone SQ 101 Silver LCR Phono Amplifier ($91,000), which uses silver wired input and output transformers (with 1:10 and 1:20 gain ratios) and a silver wired choke coil in the LCR filter network. Tubes used were two D3As, four 7044s, and two WE310s.

The Silbatone L 101 Preamplifier ($97,000) featured a pure silver, transformer coupled, relay controlled 128 step attenuator with silver transformer gain control. The tube lineup included two WE262s, two WE437s, and two 7044/6900s.

The horns were driven by biamped Silbatone P 103 NeoHyb hybrid power amplifiers ($79,000/pair), which used a WE310A input tube and rare WE300A output tubes (predecessors to the more common 300B).

To drive the WE woofers, a 200W Silbatone P 101H High Power Hybrid Amplifier ($43,500) employed WE310A tubes, a silver input transformer, a signal choke coil, and what Silbatone describes as a "unique I/V converter topology."

The system also featured a J.C. Morrison active subtractive crossover and Bae's interconnects made of silver litz wire. The speaker cables, Roberts noted, were fashioned from "old rubber coated AC power cable like from a 1950s floor polisher." He added, "That stuff sounds right with these horns."

From Maria Callas to Led Zeppelin, the Western Electric system transcended the confines of the K1A ballroom. Callas's emotional delivery felt more profound and powerful, and Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" became a visceral assault of stereo kamikaze dive bomber guitars. The scale was immense, yet every nuance, every dynamic shift was laid bare. It was a sound so captivating, so transportive, that it made me almost forget everything but the music itself. Silbatone didn't just present music; it redefined it. Best sound of High-End Munich 2025.