HIGH END MUNICH 2022 – CUBE AUDIO, TEKTRON, M2TECH, AUDIO ANALOGUE, RIVIERA AUDIO LABS, FERRUM, AIG, GERSHMAN ACOUSTICS, CARDAS, LAMPIZATOR, VAC, VIVA, TUNE AUDIO, TRAFOMATIC.

You may well know the name Cube Audio as they have had a small advert on HiFi Pig for a good few years now but I’m not sure how many people will have actually had the opportunity to experience their wideband loudspeakers. We have had the pleasure a couple of times and have always been quite impressed with them, so when we were invited to take a listen to their new Jazzon loudspeaker at the High End Munich show we could hardly say no.

This wideband loudspeaker uses an F10 select driver and, of course, there is no crossover in the way. They have a 90dB sensitivity and so should be a doddle to drive, weigh 34Kg and have a response that goes down to 35Hz. I was a tad sceptical if I’m absolutely honest but a listen in their booth at High End was actually quite revelatory and both Lin and I went away muttering that they sounded excellent. What did impress me, though this is no review, was the amount of fast and clean bass these speakers pump out. I genuinely cannot wait to get my hands and ears on a pair for review to give them a proper workout and see how they cope in a real-world environment. They looked great and the cost isn’t daft at €7990 a pair I black or white and €9900 a pair for the natural veneer or high gloss finish. Personally, I’d want to be spending the extra as I thought the wooden finish looked fab!

The preamplifier and amp used on the Cube Audio Jazzon speakers were the TK One pre and the TK 211 PSE power amplifier, from fellow Italian brand Tektron Audio. This amp should deliver about 38W a channel and sounded really great with the Cube speakers. Again, I hope to be able to bring you a review of these amps in the near future as I’ve always admired them from afar when I’ve seen them exhibited at shows. All the Tektron amps use rare and NOS tubes and they look great!

Quietly doing its thing in this room but there is no doubt it is adding a great deal to the sound is the Lampizator Amber4 DAC. If you don’t know the name then where have you been hiding? We own the brand’s Big7 DAC and it’s awesome!

Going around the halls at Munich High End is a daunting task and if you have never been but intend to in future years then once you get there you will know what I’m banging on about. Our first foray into the halls was really just to snoofle about and have a look at what was going on and what caught our eyes – step up another Italian brand, M2Tech who had a good few new products to talk to us about.

The Larson monoblock amplifiers are a cool looking true Class-A design that give out 20W a channel and the Tosh is a cute little preamplifier that offers balanced and single-ended inputs. However, the product that really caught my eye was the Mitchell analogue active crossover that I’d love to have a proper play with at some point. You can configure the Mitchell by using computer software and changes can be heard in real-time and then stored. For those that don’t know, this crossover would sit between a preamplifier and then a stereo amp for each driver of your speakers – a three-way design would need three stereo power amps (6 mono) and a two-way would need two stereo power amps (4 mono). Obviously, using the Mitchell would mean that you would need to completely bypass the crossover inside your speakers and replace and wire the drivers to the specific amplifier. I really do believe in the benefits of active crossovers and I think the Mitchell will be a bit of a boon for DIY enthusiasts and those looking to go active.

Audio Analogue, another Italian brand were next door and looked to be busy.

This area of the show really was like Little Italy with the next stand being the excellent Riviera Audio Labs. There wasn’t the opportunity to listen here but in the Goldenear room that I went in a day or so later there was a Levante amplifier playing and sounding excellent. I’m sure many people reading this will think that the sound of a product is all that matters but just look at these Italian beauties, they are really one of my favourite designs of any HiFi product.

Ferrum, from Poland, make a headphone amplifier, a headphone amplifier and a DAC, and a very clever power supply. I have one of their Oor headphone amplifiers and Hypsos power supplies on the rack at the moment and very good it is too. Once we have finished the marathon that is the Munich High End write up you can expect a review. Without giving too much away the Oor and Hypsos are a fantastic combination. As I mentioned, the Hypsos is a cool product that can be used as a PSU for a good number of products, not just the Ferrum-made products. The very cool feature that is its main talking point is the ability for the user to fine-tune the output voltage to get their preferred sonic signature. Review soon come!

Wharfedale, Mission, Audiolab, QUAD, LEAK and Castle are names that pretty much any HiFi Fan of a certain age will know as being classic British brands and it’s great to see them still alive and very much kicking. The speakers in the room when we went in were the reissue of the classic Mission 770 which is designed, engineered and made in the UK where parent company IAG has expanded its Cambridgeshire facility to allow for the manufacturing, assembly and finish of specially selected products. Now I have a bit of a thing for these speakers as when I was a teen a friend of a friend had a Pink Triangle turntable, I can’t remember the amp and a pair of Mission speakers – I was insanely jealous!

The new speaker is faithful to the original blueprint whilst making full use of modern techniques and technologies to elevate its performance. The project’s design and engineering team was led by Peter Comeau, Mission’s current Director of Acoustic Design. Peter was a young reviewer for Hi-Fi Answers when the original 770 launched and well remembers its impact (he subsequently co-founded loudspeaker maker Heybrook in 1979). For Peter, the new Mission 770 is a labour of love; just as it was for Farad Azima all those years ago.

When Peter revisited the original speaker at the start of the project, he confirmed that two key elements were fundamental to its highly musical performance. First, its polypropylene cone which was claimed to be unique in a consumer product at the time, and second, the resonance control of the cabinet. Naturally, these elements also became the cornerstone of the re-engineered design, but every part has been improved from the drive units, to the crossover, to the cabinet.

Ofra Gershman of Gershman Acoustics clearly knows a thing or two about designing loudspeakers and I thought the Posh speakers (that’s what they are called) sounded brilliant when Ofra played us some Elton John. The midband was absolutely in-the-room real and the whole thing was lovely and balanced. Electronics were by VAC but the product that caught my attention, other than the speakers was the Horizon DAC by Lampizator. I have yet to hear it, or any Lampizator DAC for that matter, not sound excellent in any system and I want one of the Horizons to replace our BIG 7…one day! So there I am sat enjoying the music when who should walk in but Mr Lampizator himself (that’s him in shadow!) who suggested that I get a listen to the Gershman Grand Avant Garde at some point.

The Posh speakers, despite having a bit of a daft name comes in two parts, a top section with an Accuton ceramic midrange and a soft-dome tweeter, and a bottom section with two woofers, each in its tuned enclosure. The two sections are totally separate from each other and there is no crossover in the bass module. They cost around €130,000.

Cables in this excellent sounding room were by Cardas.

Next up was VIVA from Italy who were playing through their Aurora (I think) mono amps that use the 845 tube and then their Nuda horn loudspeakers. These are a 4-way speaker with an active sub, mid/bass and mid horns and then a tweeter on top. Records were being played on a WAND turntable and I have to say that this system really did it for me. Giampietro Schembri is always very happy to see us and is clearly highly passionate about the products he makes – we always make a bit of a beeline for his company’s products at shows though I don’t think I’ve yet dared to ask the price of his stunning looking kit, though I believe the Nuda are just shy of €100K.

Down the corridor again and we are into the room that always really ticks my boxes on the sonic front and this year was no exception. I’ve awarded best of show to rooms using Tune Audio speakers when covering a few different shows and today’s offering didn’t disappoint. Amps were from Trafomatic, with Rockna and Audiobyte electronics and Signal Projects cables. There was something about the dynamic ease of this system that really appealed to me with effortless mid-band to boot. Look and drool!

Stuart Smith

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