HiFi Deluxe Show Munich 2022 show report by Ian Ringsted.

The High End show alone is impressive, but a select group of companies decided they wanted to show their wares off at a totally separate venue, the Marriott Hotel in Munich. Lasting three days the show was far more relaxed and offered a wide range of rooms and suites to saunter around. We took the whole Saturday of the show to cover this event and we certainly needed to.

The first room we walked into was Totaldac. Now if you have read my report from the MOC Totaldacs room there had not impressed us. Here, although a smaller room, immediately we felt more at home sound-wise. As I said before you just never know how a room or system might sound on a given day. Totaldac operates on a direct sales basis for customers worldwide and although not cheap seem like good value. The electronics are compact and average about 5000 Euros whilst the speakers are 15000 Euros but check their website which has all the prices and details on it. There are numerous models to choose from.

FM Acoustics of Switzerland had a large suite with a large pair of their speakers driven by the Resolution series FM1811 power amplifier producing 1000 W into 8 ohms and costing $125,000. This luxury brand company makes a wide range of quality electronics rather like a Swiss watch company that offers watches to suit all pockets. The system price must have been £500,000 but details were scant. For the money, I was expecting to be blown away but in all honesty, I wasn’t. Maybe on another day I might be surprised. They weren’t keen on people touching the electronics either which was a shame as I can’t resist normally.

72 Audio, a company completely new to me is from Hungary and they make some rather interesting phono stages, transformers and cables for turntable enthusiasts. Electrocompaniet and Rockna electronics were being used so I knew them, but details again were scant and information on the internet poor. This is a criticism I have time and again about companies. I understand if they are a non-English speaking nation that setting up an international website with English may be a barrier but certainly not impossible. It is a global market now so please will all the companies out there who aren’t geared up yet do so.

Acapella are a well-established German company having been around for 45 years. They had their Campanile room high speaker pillar playing and it had a striking blue coloured horn you couldn’t miss. Again, details were sparse and the website states price on request so not bargain basement. Looking at the range it is extensive, and they make some amazing designs that really are pieces of audio art. I can well imagine many of their customers buying the speakers as much for their looks as sound quality. Certainly, in a beautiful modern home or very palatial property their designs would look stunning. If you’ve got it flaunt it.

Ubiqaudiolabs from Slovenia were showcasing a new amplifier and impressive floor standers. The company is a joint venture between two passionate audiophiles Igor Kante and Andrej Lakner and was formed in 2021. The Ubiquitous Extreme mono power amps are cost no object £150,000 designs producing 1200 W into 8 ohms and the speakers are their flagship Ubiqitous Extreme speakers weighing 270Kg each. On a side table was their very interesting Ubicube power amp weighing a hefty 30Kg and beautifully made. 100 W into 8 Ohms, 200 W into 4 Ohms.  Cost 36,000 Euros. One to watch and hopefully it will get more universal coverage with time.

British company Audio Note had a nice and relaxed room combining excellent sound along with live performances from their resident cellist French Canadian Vincent Belanger. I’ve seen Vincent at several shows in the UK but this was the first time I had seen him play live. Audio Note ask him to play at their shows around the world and its fascinating to hear him put a cd on of his own music and then play along to it to show how good the electronics are at reproducing his performances. I spent a few minutes talking to Vincent after his performance and he said how impressed he had been by Audio Notes ability to recreate his music faithfully. Audio Note were started by Peter Qvortrup who still holds the reins and has an enviable reputation worldwide for his valve electronics, speakers, turntables, cartridges and very high-quality components which are used by many companies. Oliver, his son, was once again demonstrating a wide range of music from every genre imaginable and Cyntia , Oliver’s wife told us they had had a young man at the show the day before and he spent the whole day in their room listening transfixed by the sound and music. What I admire about Oliver’s approach is that no music is off limits and if a potential customer wants to hear some bizarre music, he’ll happily play it. I had a look at his vinyl collection and saw he had Gentle Giant. They are a group I used to listen to back in the 70’s and Oliver readily played a couple of tracks for my own indulgence which was fabulous. I must admit Audio Note is a brand that creeps up on you. The electronics compared to many companies are not a design statement in let’s grab your attention visually. First and foremost, the money goes on what’s inside the boxes to make them sound so good. There is some fantastic looking kit out there but when you factor in the cost of the beautifully made casework and paraphernalia unless the components are up to scratch the sound will suffer. Audio Notes components are world class and command a high price, but years of research and experimentation don’t lie. Every designer has a passion for their product and will pursue perfection along the path they are happiest with. The system playing was based around a prototype upgrade on the CDT3 cd transport which has been around a while. Oliver was telling me that they were trying out belt drive for the motor rather than the usual direct drive method. CEC and Burmester’s 089 use  belt drive on their CD players and transports with universal praise. A TT3 turntable was the record source, and the speakers were a new model in the AN-E range that had been tweaked being driven by their Tomei Kensei power amp and a M6 Phono Balanced pre amp. An expensive system which I didn’t have prices for, but which sounded delightful and one that you literally could listen to all day long. If you love valves definitely a brand to follow.

Interestingly the next room we walked into was another valve legend French company Jadis. Jadis Electronics started in 1983, once again the result of a passion by one man Andre Calmettes to recreate perfect sound. Jadis caught my attention from day one when I saw it reviewed in the UK hifi mags as valve amplifiers were making a comeback. The brand has a unique style in stainless steel and gold which I love, and all units are hand made in their French factory and really have that bling factor. Their range of products is large and comprehensive. Stuart recently reviewed the new I-70 integrated amplifier and absolutely loved it being sorely tempted to keep it. The output transformers are superb quality and the reason the amps sound so wonderful. Like the Audio Note room one I could have sat in all day, but time was of the essence.

A complete contrast in style was an Italian company Omega Audio Concepts, yet again totally new to me. The room was very grand and a real style statement of ultra-modern design.  The Munich show premiered the new Assolo single chassis amplifier and M.U.S.A loudspeakers. The system consisted of ASSOLO amplifier, DNA converter, DNA cd player and M.U.S.A loudspeakers. Housed in a specially designed rack arrangement it looked quite amazing and a showstopper. Build was superlative. They even make their own cables so a true all in one product range. To the side of the main system were additional products that were radical in design and very Italian in concept that I have seen before and certainly grab your attention. Rather like a Ferrari or Lamborghini. Far from boring in looks I applaud the designers for going all out to reawaken people’s ideas and think outside the box. The ESSENZIALE 4-way floor-standing speakers certainly did that for me being the shape of two intersecting triangles for rigidity in the cabinet. I will watch this company with great interest and hope their products get the reviews and attention they deserve. Companies like this take a huge leap of faith to launch products so different and ground-breaking in concept at a considerable cost. Bravo.

JMF Audio had a large suite and hail from France where they started in 1985. The HPM-500 floor standing speakers weighing 230Kg each filled the large room easily. They use a HPH dispersion-controlled horn. sophisticated HTS woofers and high current handling, linear, phase-controlled crossovers. Possibly the largest and heaviest units for two-way loudspeakers. Sources were a Vertere Reference turntable, PHS 7.3 dual mono phono preamplifier, PRS 1.5 pre-amplifier, DMT 3.7 Transport that plays cd, sacd and Blue Ray discs, DXC 6.10 modular DA converter. HQS 9001 mono amplifier and an array of their own specialist cables. Quite a tour de force and a system you don’t ask the price of, it’s very expensive but fascinating and admiring the sound and design costs nothing.

Kroma Audio are a Spanish company based in Granada, Andalusia. Driven by the pursuit for perfectionism in sound they have an extensive range of speakers in many fetching finishes beautifully made. The Mimi is the baby in their range being a small stand mount model £11,500 with stands, the Thais are compact floor standers £19,950, followed by Stella £29,450, Julietta which have a striking stand incorporated into the speaker £37,950, Carmen a larger floor stander £51,950, Norma £69,950 and Elektra their biggest floor stander weighing 170Kg £99,950. Using superb quality drivers and top-notch cross over components in beautiful cabinet designs Finishes are varied being Champagne, Titanium, Aluminium, Walnut root natural wood (superb to look at), Carbon fibre and Limited edition Vacasart. The big system they were demonstrating appeared to have a new flagship speaker for which I had no details, but I reckon would have been £250,000 plus. A mixture of top-class electronics was being used from Wadax, Gryphon and a rather nice reel to reel machine. Sound was excellent.

One of the smaller rooms was our next port of call and which I was extremely excited to visit. This was the Jern loudspeaker room. Eagle eyed readers of my reviews will have noticed that over the last two years my personal reference speakers for home use have been the Jern 12WS. My wife and I adore these speakers and heard them three times in Munich, Copenhagen and finally Bristol deciding to buy a pair. They are truly amazing to our ears and fit the bill perfectly in our home. Ole who owns Jern is a charismatic person who enthuses about all his designs. Why I was excited was because Jern was launching their new flagship the Jern 35. Jern’s model philosophy is very simple, all the speakers are numbered dependent on their physical weight in Kilos. The Jern 35 then is 35Kg in weight. That’s heavy for a solid lump of cast iron, don’t drop it on your foot, you’ve been warned!! All the Jern’s look like Russian dolls and the Jern 35 is simply a bigger unit. The woofer unit is a Purifi very long stroke model specially developed for Jern and is optimised for smaller rooms reaching down to 30Hz.  The tweeter is specially modified by JERN from the latest Scanspeak top model. It has a long linear excursion and a larger cone area in an elliptical shape. This reduces distortion at higher sound pressure levels. The crossover capacitor is the superb sounding Mundorf EVO Silver/Gold/Oil capacitor. The crossover coil is a very low resistance CFC flat coil made by Mundorf. 0,18 Ohm and 1,6 mH. Ole showed us the coil and it was considerable in size and very costly. The proposed price for the Jern 35 will be 20,000 euros. Sound was excellent given the smallish room and set up was minimal. Compared to the systems I had seen all day it was a no-brainer for me. Expensive, but in the grand scheme of things a very practical easy to accommodate state of the art speaker. Well done Ole. He also played one of my favourite groups Fourplay without me prompting him in any way so double Brownie points.

Analog Domain impressed me at previous Munich shows and here they had a system using their smaller stand mount speakers the Aura which come with matching stands, and these have a hollow column to hide the speaker cables making things neat and tidy. The Isis M75 range of amplifiers are state of the art audio amplifiers feature our proprietary Excalibur output circuit, which couples extreme output capability with perfect control. The DX9 bias control method and managed power supply ensure outstanding performance with greatly improved thermal efficiency, thus maximizing component life. The M75 range includes the M75D integrated amplifier and M75P power amplifier. Both models can be configured as stereo or as single channel amplifiers in bridged mode when higher power output is required. Stable into 2 ohms in stereo mode. Analog Domain M75 amplifiers are built to the highest standards and are backed by a 5-year manufacturer’s warranty. The M75D sells for £18.990 and the M75P for £16,990. Moving up the range the Calysto and Artemis mono block amplifiers start from £121,900. Truly a high-end brand.

The last room we had time to see was Essen-based Mal Valve from Germany. Dieter Mallach is the brains and company founder started in 1989 and his passion has become world-renowned. It showed how companies have such different approaches to audio perfection. A laid-back room the glow of valves from their different units made for a warm and intimate feel. The styling was reminiscent of a lot of UK valve companies such as Croft where the passion of the product was in the components and sound produced and not the aesthetics. This is not a criticism, but an observation of the many varied ways product is presented. The interesting speakers being demoed were the Malstat Four an amalgamation of a magnetostatic woofer and midrange units topped off with an electrostatic tweeter. The speakers can be driven passive or actively. The passive crossover is external as shown in the pictures and is highly sophisticated. The company’s website is very informative, and it looks fascinating. The CD transport weighs 50Kg. The products aren’t cheap but audiophiles who value ultimate sound quality over style will love these.

This show really hit home that you must take price out of the equation when viewing and listening to these products. People who will just moan and groan about crazy prices must realise that’s not the point. To see and admire them is enough so that we can be educated and realise what is available to those fortunate to be able to afford them if they so wish. The rest of us will be wiser and can admire from afar. You never know, one day a lottery win could make your dreams come true.

Ian Ringstead

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