Munich 2022

New components in Wilson's other eye-candy exhibit may have been limited to the new Nordost QNet 5-port internet switch and QSource Linear Power Supply, but that didn't prevent a miracle from happening. In a room that D'Agostino's Bill McKiegan had warned me rarely delivered good sound, VTL's Siegfried II Series II monoblocks and top-level line TL 7.5 Series III and TP 6.5 Series II preamplifiers, seen here with Nordost’s Dennis Bonotto, sounded extremely musical and inviting.

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.

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.