ERIC VAN SPELDE ROUNDS OFF THE HIGH END MUNICH 2024 REPORTS

Eric van Spelde is here to conclude HiFi PiG´s High End Munich 2024 coverage for this year, including a couple of important press conferences concerning product launches…

ADVANCE PARIS/BELLAME

More mid-century design from family-owned furniture makers Bellame, who tied up with electronics manufacturer Advance Paris just like last year – only without 2023´s Daft Punk references and with a visually arresting new speaker design that seems to consist of a two-way column speaker with built-on big subwoofer enclosures left and right…

ALBEDO

This Italian boutique speaker brand presented their new Achema model, driven by a Soulnote integrated amp for a very compact and tidy, but musically satisfying set up in a relaxing environment.

ARCAM

Arcam expands the Radia range with the SA45 and SA35 all-in-one streaming systems featuring Class G amplification, HDMI ARC and MM/MC phono stage, and hi-res full-colour displays.  At £2999 / €3499 (SA35) and £4499 / €4999 (SA 45) a shot these are decidedly in the premium price range and both run off Arcam´s own streaming platform.

AUDIOVECTOR

One of the more significant launches of this year´s High End was Audiovector´s Trapeze Reimagined speaker which was shown to the public for the first time after its introduction at their Copenhagen HQ last month. As the name says, it´s based on founder Ole Kliforth´s first big hit of 1979, and of course, it has about as much in common with its forebear as a current Porsche 911 has with one of 45 years ago… Basically, this has all the best technologies of the current slimline Audiovector range – open-rear AMT high frequency units, isobaric compound bass arrangement, Arreté level crossovers, of course with linear phase 6 dB/octave slopes, Audiovector´s own and nifty grounding arrangement for the drivers, only in a wide-baffle, big woofer format. As such, it has all the goodness of Audiovector´s core range with an enhanced ´fun factor´ that makes you want to dig out your AC/DC, ´80s pop or ´90s techno. Very likeable, easy to accommodate in normal living rooms for a speaker operating at this level and at 17,000 euros or 15,500 of your British pounds, not that utopian for a large group of prospective customers, especially as it´s got provisions to match a wide variety of amplifiers, too.

AVM & GOLD NOTE

One of the powerhouses in German high-end audio with a large portfolio from all-in-one systems to big power amps, AVM had a bumper year in 2023 with two entire product lines (30.3 and Evolution Line .3) introduced, their first loudspeaker CB 2.3, the RC5 Convenience remote control and the merging of their German distribution into the Better Distribution outfit, which means they are effectively distributed along with the quintessentially Italian brand Gold Note in Germany. Still, there were a host of new products that warranted a press conference in a wing of the Motorworld establishment across the road from the MOC. In particular, AVM´s head honcho Udo Besser presented two streaming amplifiers (AS 3.3 and 5.3) in the Evolution Line .3) featuring the AVM RoomConneXion multiroom system, a new plug and play DAC module which is 364/24 and DSD 256 capable and simply slots in place of the existing one in any digital Ovation Line device; two new phono stages (PH 3.3 and PH 5.3) for aforementioned Evolution .3 line, the rather massive SA 8.2 monoblock power amp and two rather nifty power conditioners with six and twelve power outputs respectively. Not only one can trace ´before´ and ´after´ noise levels (as well as DC present in the mains) in the central display, there´s also a small loudspeaker built into the devices so you can actually hear the noise in your mains supply and how much of that is being eliminated…

The other half of the AVM display room contained a good cross-section of Gold Nore´s portfolio, including their reference-level system built around the XS-85 flagship speakers, the DS-10 streaming DAC and a compact but high-quality cd player (CD-10), both operated by way of a touchscreen, and an even more advanced special edition version of the Mediterraneo turntable.

BURMESTER

Burmester´s coup for this High End edition was twofold: the brand new BX100 speaker which was demonstrated very convincingly – agile, detailed, natural with wonderful soundstaging and none of the Teutonic ´coldness´ that often is (mostly undeservedly) attributed to Burmester speakers – and the launch of a customisation programme where ´everything goes´ short of having Vladimir Putin or KKK signs painted on the side of a speaker or anything else that would go against company ethics, and things that would impair the sonic properties of the equipment. It also means that as of now, you can have your Burmester equipment in black instead of the traditional highly polished/chromed look.

GRYPHON

High End 2024 saw the premiere of Gryphon’s new (and first) turntable, the Apollo. For this, the company partnered with specialist Brinkmann Audio and let Helmut Brinkmann get on with the job of creating a turntable worthy of the Nordic brand. The Apollo uses two motors run by a digital motor control via a solid-state power supply. Alas, ´worthy´ in this case means ´expensive´- the complete package of turntable, tonearm and cartridge (the tonearm being Brinkmann-designed with a diamond-like coating developed by the Danish Aarhus Technological Institute and the cartridge being supplied by Ortofon, based on the Anna but also with a DLC-coating) costs a cool 128,800 euro. The next link in the phono chain was also new – the Siren phono stage (58,800 euro). I´ve got extensive experience of the Orestes/Elektra from the mid-1990s, which – after having comprehensively been brought up to ´as new´ status – still is a formidable phono stage but back then we thought 4,500 dollars for it was really pushing the outer envelope… By the way, the very first Gryphon product was simply called The Phonostage. It was tiny, consisted of two mono amplifiers with a common (gold plated) front plate and had an attenuator (so it could be used as a preamp) as well as a bypass switch with a line level input – with the proviso that this wasn´t attenuated…

HARMONIC RESOLUTION SYSTEMS

A manufacturer of high-end audio racks and isolation platforms, Harmonic Resolution Systems demonstrated their wares with Brinkmann equipment, Shunyata Research cables and mains conditioning and the Rockport Technology Avior II speakers.

HIGH FIDELITY STUDIO (DS Audio, Hana, MoFi, Origin Live, Pathos)

Two new product highlights in this room: DS Audio presented its brand-new valve phono equalizer to do with its optical cartridges, and the set up was bookended by the new MoFi SourcePoint 888 floorstanding speakers, with the ´triple eight´ standing for three 8-inch drivers per side (two bass drivers and a coaxial driver).

INDIANA LINE

Indiana Line from Italy operates at the affordable end of the quality loudspeaker market and brought their flagship Diva 3 and Diva 5 models as well as a new iteration of the Tesi series, featuring trickle-down technology from the Diva line and consisting of the floorstanding Tesi 5 and Tesi 6, the stand mount Tesi 2 and 3, and the center speaker Tesi 7.

KAWERO!

Kaiser Acoustics/Kawero! were playing the Atrium 4.1 E 110 room with Ypsilon electronics and a TechDAS turntable. The Kawero! Minal is a new floorstanding speaker from this German company, slotting in right below the Grande in the maker´s portfolio. There´s two more speakers that are new enough not to be featured on the manufacturer´s home page: the floorsanrding Furioso and a small bookshelf-type speaker which is apparently called the Mini Wonder.  A classy set up overall, sadly playing some fairly nondescript ´audiophlie´ music when we were there.

KII

Kii occupied a glass twin room suite at the top level of Motorworld from were one had a fantastic view of the classic motore and car and bike-themed displays, the bar room apparently had the bar out of a Zeppelin from the early 20th century with lots of Zeppelin memorabilia. In the other room, the Kii Three and Seven (the latter having been launched at Ascot last Fall) were taking turns, with more than one listener uttering their surprise when finding out it were the small Sevens giving a positively weighty and cinemascopic rendering of Billie Eilish´ Bond-song ´No Time to Die´.

METRONOME

Metronome, the French firm specialising in top flight digital equipment, brought the AQWO 2+ digital universal player, a separate power supply unit setting it apart from the ´regular´ AQWO 2 introduced last year, and the DSC mini digital/analogue converter, pairing with the existing DSS 2 network player via native i2S.  This, and the Kalista Dreamplay X streamer/multiformat player with the Mantax DAC introduced in Vienna last fall (a pairing that´s well into six figures with its dedicated stand) were playing through Jadis amplifiers on Davis Acoustics Stellar speakers.

PIEGA

Under the ´Piega x Hifi Rose´ banner, the Swiss loudspeaker manufacturer announced a joint venture with the latter electronics brand that takes over Piega and HiFi Rose distribution for the European market – which also means Piega can now offer complete, plug and play systems. Also, from now on Piega loudspeakers can not only be ordered in natural aluminium, black or white – they can also be anodised in pretty much any colour you want using a specially developed process.

VIVID AUDIO

Another press conference with a fair measure of gravitas occurred on Friday afternoon – the launch of Lawrence Dickie´s new brainchild and the new flagship of the Vivid Audio range, the Moya. Not that Dickie was planning to build a half a million dollar loudspeaker to sit above the Giya G1S (which is large and expensive enough, thanksverymuch) – but there you have it: feedback from customers and distributors indicated that there was demand for a statement product to top Dickie´s hitherto statement, so off to work it was with first sketches being put on paper being locked in a hotel room for ten days during the pandemic. None of this active malarky either (ages ago, Lawrence was hired by Bowers & Wilkins because of his experience with active speakers) – ´When I left B & W and started my own company shortly after, the general feeling was that it would be too much of a stretch for a brand that no one knew then, to put itself into a niche within a niche by marketing active speakers. Now I really enjoy designing and developing passive crossovers – which of course in case of a five-way, thirteen driver system like the Moya, is an immense task’.

Fortunately, Dickie didn´t have to do all of the number crunching himself, having recruited young female scientist Gresia Beco to provide all the hard data needed to support his intuitive engineering sense. Beco highlighted several aspects of this no-limits speaker, underlined with music examples. At some point, the deep and crystal-clear bass from the 8-woofer arrays was physically disturbing – like the, sometimes painful, pressure you get on your ears during plane landings…

VTL

The North American purveyor of high-powered valve amplifiers showed off its S-400 II Reference stereo power amp (in the same portrait format casing as the Siegfried monoblocks) on a pair of Spearmint turquoise Wilsons.

WILSON BENESCH/YPSILON/STAGE III CONCEPTS

Wilson Benesch chose their Omnium loudspeakers (in a finish called ´Phantom Belladonna´, erm, okay…) augmented in the (very) low-frequency department by a new device: the IGx Push-Pull Infrasonic generator.  The analogue front end consisted of a GMT System Turntable with two new tonearms: Graviton Ti and Graviton Ai with titanium and aluminium counterbalances respectively, and carbon fiber composite arm wands. The digital source was the brand-new Taiko Audio Olympus music server, with Ypsilon SET100 Ultimate and Aelius II SE power amplifiers.

YAMAHA

The audio branch of this Japanese stalwart which is also very well known in the world of musical instruments and for just about anything that has an internal combustion engine, bar production cars (they did develop engines for the likes of Ford and Volvo in the past, though) celebrates its 70th birthday this year, having released its first product, an integrated hifi turntable in a wooden case, in 1954. Along with several other landmark components for the brand like the iconic ´pyramid´ power amplifier that I marvelled about as a teenager around 1980, an example of this first step in audio was being proudly displayed in front of a giant timeline. ´Please, do touch it. By all means turn the knobs, ´ said our host. And they did feel solid and tight with a satisfying ´click´ – like it just came out of a factory.

Of course, there was also new gear on demo, but I have to say the show was being stolen by the pair of vintage NS1000M speakers that were playing at the time we were there – you don´t expect a Seventies speaker to sound this modern, with deep, tightly defined bass and good dynamics on decidedly contemporary, electronic dance music. “No, we didn´t touch those, either. They are unrestored, unrepaired, unmolested – nothing has been changed since the day they left the factory.”

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Eric van Spelde

For all the HiFi PiG High End Munich 2024 coverage, click here