HIFI PIG’S SECOND REPORT FROM THE AUDIO VIDEO SHOW WARSAW 2022

Stu and Lin continue around the rooms of the Sobieski Hotel.

Please note, all content and photos are the copyright of HiFi Pig Magazine/Big Pig Media LLP and must not be copied or reproduced in any way without the prior, written consent of HiFi Pig/Big Pig Media.

HORCH HOUSE

Tape manufacturers Horch House were showing off their reel to reel player through Wilson speakers and a D’Agostino integrated.

SISOUND

This room of Polish brans SISOUND was packed! REALLY PACKED!

DAC was an EXTRAUDIO DAC 3 R-R2 ladder. The amps were the CLASS A Scissus by SISOUND. The speakers were really interesting with a horn loaded tweeter and with all parts being either European or Japanese. Loading on the speakers is patented and somewhere between bass-reflex and transmission line. The company is run by five people all of who have their own specialisations to make an end to end system.

Speakers are 50K but the whole system is €100K. A lot of money, but then it did sound very good!

AUDIOTHLON / AUDIOFORTE

Atoll 300 Series Electronics (St3000 Signature streamer/DAC, AM300 power amplifier, SDA300 Streamer/DAC.pre/power) and Equilibrium EVOLTA speakers S8 though the S9 were also in the room. The speakers (S8) are less than €7000 which seems like a lot of speaker for the money.

No histrionics, no shouting, just a nicely put together system that sounded really nice, though a bit of room treatment would have cured the bass boom that was apparent in the room whilst playing Mighty Mo Rodgers’ Took Away the Drum – otherwise an excellent sounding room!

ALLEGRO AUDIO / WAY CABLES

Allegro and Way were playing Rebecca Pidgeon’s The Raven. The system was based around brilliant the FLOW One integrated amp by Allegro that I reviewed here. The WAY Cables flagship lineup of Poetry+ analogue RCA & XLR interconnects, Mind Ethernet audio cable Cat. 8+, Libertas USB audio cable, Endless X speaker cables and jumpers, Core power audio cables and the Union power audio strip made up the rest of the system.

For digital, they used a FIDATA HFAS1 network audio server/streamer with a WEISS DAC 5 01 digital-to-analogue converter. Speakers were the Franco Serblin  Accordo Essence. The Audio Stand will be a Rogoz Audio Anti-Vibration Audio Stand 4SPB3N MKII.

This was excellent! Played at a good but not too loud volume and the system, despite there being no room treatment in the room fitted it very well with no boom! Very tight and very pleasing system.

Allegro may be a newcomer to many people (they are) but this Hungarian brand has a VERY bright future with folk who search out excellence in audio!

NEWSLASH – it looks like there will be an integrated from Allegro coming very soon.

VOICE

The first of the VOICE rooms partnered PRIMARE electronics with RAIDHO speakers. The TD1.2 and the TD 3.8.

The Primare electronics were the 135 Prisma amp, CD 35 CD player, Pre 35 with DAC and the A35.2 power.

This was a lovely sounding room put together by people that clearly know how to put together a show. Not too loud and nicely chilled. Really excellent and a few more could learn from the way this room had been set up and put together. Very sympathetically done.

VOICE

The second of the Voice rooms was equally as chilled but this time it was the Audiovector QR7s taking centre stage along with the AVM’s evolution C’s 5.3 all in one system. Cables were by the lovely folk at Cardas. This is a properly done system for the home that is properly HiFi but also manageable from a price and size perspective. Very good.

You can read my review of the QR7s here.

AV CORP POLAND

AV Corp Poland had a really nicely put-together room that was clean and really nicely lit. A really cool room to come into.

Streamer was the INNUOS statement and they were using a WAVERSA SYSTEMS WSMARTHUB land and USB Hub.  An Aqua Audio CD player was also used in this room as was the AQUA Acoustic La Scala MKII Optologic DAC.

Speakers were the French-made Jean Marie Reynaud Abcisse Jubile which threw a very wide soundstage in this room, and were played at a volume that had them sounding very nice. The company also sells Diptyque speakers from France.

TENTORGA / DIVINE ACOUSTICS / IDHOS

The highlight in this room was the Tengora WOWO (from €8000). We have come across Tengora a number of times at this show and they have always looked interesting and as though they should do well. However, I think I’ve only ever seen them at this show. This brand should be more widely known in my opinion!

The IDHOS amp is a SET  based on 845 valves and costs  12,000€ for the amp and pre together, though the phono stage is an extra 6k extra and comes with an external PSU.

Speakers are the Divine Acoustics Bellatrix.

AIDA ACOUSTICS

This room had the absolutely bloody huge Aida Acoustics DIAVOLO speakers which could have sounded too much but, sensibly, the volume was toned down and the result was a really nice and calming sound which was rather lovely to listen to after a rather large lunch. A couple of hours in here to make like a python would have been rather splendid.

The speakers are a modular construction made from three elements and are a 4-way semi-active design with a built-in DSP processor. Drivers are custom Lavoce. The beautiful cabinets are plywood, with an internal truss for stiffening the structure, with a luxury finish featuring champagne gold insets and facets inspired by gemstone facets. We will bring you more details on these shortly.

The mid-range was driven by the Aida Acoustics Amaterasu monoblock tube amplifiers and the system featured the flagship Lampizator Horizon DAC and Audio Research.

The styling of the room, just like in 2019, was spot on with a featured painting from famous Polish artist, Władysław Podkowiński called “Frenzy of Exultations”. The Aida Acoustics Diavolo cost 80,000€ per pair.

DNA .AUDIO

So this room was absolutely heaving and whilst there was music playing the main attraction appeared to be a rock band called who were Rezerwat, an 80s polish band signing autographs and records. It’s this kind of thing that sets the Warsaw show apart somewhat.

DNA.AUDIO

This was the same system that Lyngdorf presented at the recent Dutch Audio Event . All in-wall speakers with a gazillion and one small drivers and tweeters and a couple of subs a side. This could well have been really over the top but it wasn’t. It was relaxed, effortless and really rather nice.

PYLON ACOUSTICS / FEZZ AUDIO

Fezz have rebranded with the Evolution range of electronics seen here in a really brilliant colourway. Along with the matching Pylon Jasper monitors this system made for a very home-friendly system. The Silver Luna (€1,200) amp uses EL34 tubes, the Giaa is the phono in three models, Omega Lupi is a headphone amp and the speakers are by Pylon Jade Twenty. The Pylon and Fezz branding at this show was totally cool, slick, professional and modern.

We then got a chance to listen to a full Fezz Pylon set up in a really well set up and inviting room. The retro-looking JADE speakers by Pylon are ever so cool and rather British looking. This seems to be a bit of a trend at the moment with people looking backwards to a more traditional aesthetic, and I think I really like it. They were playing John Coltrane Locomotion and it sounded great – very dynamic and natural sounding…which seems to be a bit of a theme too.

The Muarah turntable (€4450 with tonearm) and speed controller(€1250) is a cool thing. With the speed controller, you get a clamp (InteliClamp) that feeds back to the box of tricks and keeps the speed absolutely correct. This is a very, very cool bit of kit and will work with other turntables with synchronous motors.

MYTEK AUDIO USA

Using Focal Scala Utopia speakers this room was very good sounding. The streamer is the new Mytek USA EMPIRE streamer with the new Mytek EMPIRE monoblocs. I’d not heard anything from or about Mytek in a long time but it would seem they are back…and with a vengeance. Joe Satriani’s SMF sounded great. A system that I would say definitely ticks a lot of my boxes; detailed and dynamic with loads of power. Welcome back!!!

BELWEDER TECHNOLOGY / MOREL HIFI

A pair of new brand to me in here was Musician and Zidoo. The NEO S media player and Monoceros amps with Aquarius DAC through Morel speakers sounded ok but the subs were really too much for me and needed to be in a room filled with more people or dialled back somewhat!

BELWEDER STX

Belweder’s second room had another new-to-me brand by way of STX loudspeakers. Managed to hear the STX ATOM 400 speakers but they were a bit lost in this huge room.

STX also do room treatment panels which looked pretty cool, funky, and home friendly. How they perform, I have no idea!

METAXAS AND SINS

Kostas Metaxas and his Sins (sons) make exceedingly wonderful kit and the Tourbillon and Papillon tape machines are perfect examples. These have to be THE most perfectly formed and designed products and I think that a lot of high-end brands could learn a thing or two from this brand. Didn’t have a listen but as well as designing beautiful kit, Kostas (and his wife Camilla) is also an absolute hoot! Very HiFi Pig and we almost got no further in the show as we were giggling so much!

SARMATA AUDIO

Well, it would seem that we happened across the high-end corner of the Audio Video Show, Warsaw. We had a listen to the Kodan speakers that come in, depending on the finish, in the order of around €40K. They were being powered by 80’s Threshold Class A amps and a Technics reel to reel. Drivers in most of the range are made entirely from scratch by Sarmata audio. The frames/spiders are made of solid brass that has been finished on a CNC machine rather than simply being cast. The horns on the speakers are made of sycamore with a nod toward violin makers of the past. Everything is customisable.

ARKADIA IV-V SILENT POUND / ZOOM AUDIO LABS

Silent Pound is a relatively new Lithuanian HiFi brand designing and making open baffle speakers. At this year’s Warsaw HiFi Show they launched the new Silent Pound Challenger. The Silent Pound Challenger works in any room as small as 25 sq m without any audio treatment in the room. The design of the speakers aims to direct soundwaves toward the listener while trying to radiate as few waves to reflective surfaces as possible thus decreasing interaction between speakers and the room.

Audrius Balciunas told us: “There are different ways to achieve this goal, such as low-frequency horns or low-frequency speaker arrays. Usually, they are very expensive to acquire and require a lot of technical skill to install. We’ve addressed this issue by building in a gradient type low frequency (LF) module in our system and the results were astonishing: 3x less acoustic power radiation to the room (directional index ~4,8 dB) when compared to traditional closed enclosure speakers emitting low-frequency sound in all directions. This particular LF technical solution allowed for noticeable decrease in room resonance within the lowest frequencies with no additional room treatment”. Continuing ““Mid-frequency range plays a crucial part in recreating a sound stage, which is why we’ve paid a great deal of attention to designing mid- and high-frequency range part of the system. To address the mid-range frequency (MF) correction of directivity in the lower part of MF range, we’ve created a unique acoustic enclosure, which allowed to find optimal acoustic balance between MF and LF. Careful experiments and calculations led to a significantly more detailed soundstage when compared to traditional systems. MF-HF range is recreated by a mathematically modeled compact horn of our own original design tuned to match MF”. These speakers cost about €10,000 which seems like an awful lot of speaker for your money.

Playing Thriller and cranking the volume a good bit these speakers remained calm and collected but still dynamically pleasing! They also look very, very nice! Imaging in the hot seat was excellent and “large-scale”. One of my favourite sounding speakers of the day so far.

Please note, all content and photos are the copyright of HiFi Pig Magazine/Big Pig Media LLP and must not be copied or reproduced in any way without the prior, written consent of HiFi Pig/Big Pig Media.

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