The Final Report

Well there’s a massive amount to see at Munich High End and there’s no way that we could have hoped to have visited every room and every exhibitor but we did see a lot and we did manage to spend time listening in many of the rooms. Overall we thought the show to be very well organised and we met some very nice people.

So in this final part of Hifi Pig show report of Munich High End 2013 we’ll give you a mixture of photographs and brief write ups of some of the rooms where music was played.

Ayon

Hugely impressive loudspeakers with ribbon tweeters that delivered the music in an airy and incisive manner. However, the room did divide opinion with Mrs Hif Pig not been quite as enthusiastic as I was.

Tune Audio, Total Dac

One of the standout rooms for me. I’d spoken to the manufacturer of the Total Dac previously as he lives just up the road in Brittany, France but never had the opportunity to hear his creation. It’s a clever thing being a DAC with an inbuilt crossover. The Tune loudspeakers are a 3 way horn design distributed by Jack at BD Audio in the UK with whom we had a good chat in the beer garden…in the rain.The sound in the room was very impressive indeed being deep, controlled and insightful and “sweet” with solo instruments – my notes say beautiful! Definitely a sound I could live with…but where to put that sub?

Zeta Zero

Zeta Zero are a Polish manufacturer who make the Picolla and Venus Edition loudspeakers pictured plus a handful of other speakers, the 1175W 1175 power amp and the 1176 six channel home cinema and stereo preamp.

Avantgarde

Hugely impressive as Linette has already stated with the Trios and six Bass Horns but equally impressive was the much smaller Zero 1 which retails at €9000. Interesting concept the Zero 1 which includes onboard DAC and power amps meaning all you have to do I plug them into the mains, plug in the source (Airport Express for example) and that’s it. No speaker cables as the two units communicate wirelessly…simple and an ideal solution for those wanting great sound with minimum fuss.

Acoustic Signature

Very impressive looking turntables indeed!

Audio Research

Thoress

German amps and pre amps that just oozed quality! I may have mentioned these before but please excuse if I do so again.

Brodmann Acoustics, Viola and TechDAS

The photographs here really don’t do justice to the finish on the Brodmann Loudspekers – in the flesh they are simply stunning and they have a sound to match. They are an odd design that really feels as though it shouldn’t work but it does. The Viola acoustics electronics is beautifully finished and sounded great and the TechDAS Airforce One turntable is just a master-class in engineering. When we first went into this room it was far too busy but we returned and were very pleased we did.

Cessaro and Tron

Beautiful loudspeakers and fabulous valve amplification came together to produce a sound that was effortless and unforced, beautifully balanced and infinitely listenable. Definitely one of the stars of the show.

Devialet

Devialet have a new quartet of amplifiers out with the idea that “One day everyone will own Devialet” The 110 comes in at €4990, the 170 at €6990, the 240 at €12900 and the 500 at €22900. Hardly bargain basement prices but the room sounded very nice indeed when we were in there.

EMT

EMT turntable and Phonostage.

Grimm Audio

The LS1 loudspeakers have a weird set up (see below) and they are not a big speaker by any stretch of the imagination but they do offer up a huge sound that is crisp and accurate with a lovely tone.

Arcam and KEF

One of the rooms of the show for me! When we walked in the hugely impressive LS50 loudspeaker from KEF was playing away and playing modern music(shock and horror). An American audio engineer was in the room at the same time and commented to us that the LS50s should be on every recording studio’s bridge in place of the ubiquitous Yamaha NS10s. They are indeed huge fun and their sound quality belies their modest asking price.

KEF’s Johan Coorg and Arcam’s Andy Moore were by far the most enthusiastic people when speaking about their products and this enthusiasm was infectious.  Great job….and thanks for the beer!

Legacy

Legacy were showcasing their Signature SE loudspeaker and it sounds very good indeed. Perhaps not the most exciting of sounds but then they were playing unknown Jazz whilst we were in the room. Linette’s comment was “nice”.

McIntosh

McIntosh put together an awesome looking AV system that was playing Kraftwerk when we were in the room. Impressive but I’m not sure I could live with all that scaffolding in the front room – perhaps taking the limits of WAF that little bit far.

Pivetta Only Opera Amplifier

NUTS! is the only thing that can be said for a walk in amplifier that weighs one and a half tonnes, costs £1.5M and has an output of 160KW.

MBL

We tried to get into the MBL room a couple of times but it was packed on both occasions which is a shame as the sound coming from the room was very nice indeed. Here are some MBL amps that we managed to snap!

Moon

Neat

Had a good chat with Bob Surgeoner the MD of Neat Acoustics and very much admired their Hifi Pig Pink SX2s that they’d clearly had specially made in our honour. The top pic shows Neat’s Iota loudspeaker.

Wilson and Pass

Sadly no music was playing when we went in this room but the kit certainly looks impressive!

ProJect

A couple of the many ProJect turntables on display.

Vyger Baltic M Turntable

YG Acoustics

We think the turntable playing in the room was the Kronos Audio which has platters spinning in the opposite direction to each other. The loudspeakers were very refined and very believable!

Zingali

Couldn’t get in the room sadly but they sure look impressive!

So that’s pretty much it from Hifi Pig and this year’s coverage of Munich High End 2013. We had an absolute blast and all that remains to be said is CHEERS and we’ll see you next year!

You can read all the coverage of Munich High End 2013 and other shows here