Munich 2022

My first stop in the Munich High End venue's huge halls, or Halles, was a treat—and not only because the Hegel folks had a box of Norwegian chocolate hearts to taste. Hegel introduced a couple of new analog components, the Hegel Reference H30A Reference power amplifier and the P30A preamplifier, which supersedes the P30 preamp. Hegel CEO, founder, and lead designer Bent Holter (right) was on-hand along with Anders Ertzeid "VP of This and That" (aka VP Sales and Marketing, left) to share details. The amp and preamp are both analog designs—the A stands for analog.

Ease was the order of the day in the Marten/Jorma room. Soprano Anna Moffo sounded just lovely, with superb air and open soundstaging, on an LP of her singing the "Jewel Song" from Gounod's Faust. Ditto for pianist Byron Janis, whose superb-sounding recording of Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto graced a prized Mercury Living Presence LP. Deserving of honor was Swedish manufacturer Marten's new Mingus Quintet 2 loudspeakers (€62,000/pair, equivalent to US$66,100). This replacement for the original Mingus Quintet boasts a new midrange driver, lower distortion, higher sensitivity, a new crossover, and a less resonant cabinet than the previous model.

There was buzz about many rooms at the High End Munich show but perhaps few were as talked about as the Nagra/Wilson Audio Specialties setup in Atrium 4.1 F130. It seemed to be among the more packed ones, a tough room to get into. I passed by twice before I was able to poke my head in, then was only able to return briefly near the end of the show.

In the US market it isn't every day you see big, shiny red speakers—cars, yes—but less often flagship floorstanders. Here, a pair of tall, Danish flagships, the Audiovector R11 Arreté Titanium speakers clad in red enclosures graced the room. A model above the Audiovector R8 Arreté that Jim Austin reviewed, they use the company's Quasi Dual Drive Avantgarde Air Motion Transformer (AMT) tweeters.

For elegance of presentation, the separate but related companies of Siltech and Crystal Cable have few peers. Given such care, it was near-impossible to resist peering further and investigating the two companies' latest offerings.

Vitus Audio, now in its 27th year, introduced its forthcoming entry-level RD-101 Mk.II DAC/Streamer ($15,000, release date TBD) at Munich High End. The unit sports a redesigned streaming module—the old one is obsolete—a newly optimized power supply, and significant noise reduction. There's also a new DAC chip, the ESS9038 Pro, which replaces the 9028 Pro.

I went into a room looking for Lumin's latest components and found a broad range of gear, both classic and modern. The recently relaunched Mission 770 speakers demo'd in this room represent a prime example of heritage speaker revival. Behind this exhibit was International Audio Group (IAG), the company behind Mission and other British brands, such as Wharfedale, Castle, and Quad, as well as Luxman. Peter Comeau, IAG's director of acoustic design, gave me the download on the Mission 770 redux. He mentioned that he and John Atkinson had listened to 770 prototypes in 1978. (JA will be reviewing the new 770 in a future issue of Stereophile.) Comeau owned an original pair of the Mission 770s, so he knows all about them: "We used a lot of the same concepts but everything is now up to date to make them suitable for modern sources."