DEUTSCHE HiFi TAGE 2022 SHOW REPORT

HiFi Pig’s Benelux (and Germany) correspondent, Eric van Spelde tells us what he saw at, and thought of Deutsche HiFi Tage 2022.

After the sodding monster that was the Dutch HiFi Event at Veldhoven, the German equivalent organised by Audio and Stereoplay, two of the German Big Three HiFi magazines that you can find in pretty much every press stand in and outside of Germany (the third is Stereo which belongs to a different publisher from the other two), was a return to normality of sorts.

Held in the Darmstadtium conference centre in the middle of the picturesque old town of, er,  Darmstadt (a fantastic view of which was on offer through the glass fronts of most of the rooms), it was a more corporate affair with far less, but much bigger rooms, which the ´mainstream´ of the higher end German brands  – with a few notable absentees such as Burmester, MBL and Avantgarde Acoustic – plus a selection of importers/distributors had been wheeling out their biggest and best equipment into in a bid to impress. Which by and large they succeeded in – even though the conference rooms were upwards of 100 square metres each, more often than not they were chockful to the point where visitors were lining up to the immediate vicinity of the entrance doors.

Large though the rooms may have been, the hard wooden floors and huge glass areas posed some stern challenges to the system setter uppers, and quite obviously some of the had risen to them by a more complete extent than others. If we had to play a guessing game, we could pick some rooms that were set up by ´music´ folks and others where the marketing/salespeople would have had their way. As for the quality of the demos Darmstadt was mostly a reprise of the Süddeutsche Hifi Tage in Stuttgart last month – on the whole very good and professional but in a lot of cases, leaning a bit to being ´impressive´ on a superficial level with not much on the playlists too much out of the ordinary ´audiophile´ realm. Compared to Veldhoven, the moments that touched the soul were few and far between.

The large entrance hall was taken over by local dealers HiFi Profis and Home Tech Plus (we´ll be getting back at the latter one in due course, with (largely) static presentations of German brands AudioBlock (based in Oldenburg and specialising in the affordable end of the quality HiFi market), Elac and Clearaudio. Both latter brands did share a ´proper´ demo room on the second floor, too.

Alongside their regular HiFi Bluetooth speaker doubling as a posh coffee table.

USA speaker manufacturer Perlisten has been making a full-on attack on the European speaker market in the months right after the Munich High End, or so it seems. The fact that Perlisten took a couple of this year´s EISA Awards, surely helps. Their presentation on the ground floor here concentrated on home cinema. After barely half an hour of being subjected to particularly spectacular clips from war and action movies (and one musical for balance), we emerged thoroughly stirred and somewhat shaken…

Climb the wide stairs to the next level up, and one would find ´market stall´ stands of magAudio (being Helmut Biermann, creator of the excellent Levar magnetic resonance dampers, turntables, tonearms and record cleaning machines) with their distributor Live Act Audio demonstrating their high end Viola S standmounts in a small presentation at the back of the stand, (mainly) valve amp manufacturers Cayin, Sieveking Sound who brought a cubic boatload of analogue records both second hand and new, and BetonArt, builders of concrete speakers and subwoofers. The larger of the two sensible sized floor standers on display weighs 110 kg with the 18-inch sub tipping the scales at 120 kg, so you might want to check permissible floor loads at home before committing…

A bit further back at the same floor level, a large table with chairs and a corresponding number of headphones ´stations´ awaited head-fi enthusiasts courtesy of specialist retailer Hörbar.

And on the opposite end, Deutsche Telekom offered workshops around home cinema under their ´Magenta TV´ banner, as well as two table football, er, tables. The heavily cosmetically ´enhanced´ young lady that greeted us from the couch in front of a TV screen when entering the room might have been some kind of Youtube star, but we´re not sure…

All of the conference halls where the serious stuff happened, were on the second and third floor. The size of the individual rooms might have been considerable, (as a result) their number was, well, manageable. No chance of running around all day and still missing out on several rooms here. Claus Bücher Audio´s room (2.09) concentrated on a trio of interesting loudspeaker designs that all provided a fresh breath of air diverting from the ´three way loudspeaker tower with ceramic drive units´ norm: Gradient Revolution 5 (not pictured), Larsen 9 and Geithahn ME 180 were on rotation. While we were there, Dr. Christian Feickert of the eponymous turntable company (well, without his Christian name) presented ´analogue pearls´ – among which Creedence Clearwater Revival in what the man himself called ´authentic ´60s clattersound´. It was enjoyable nonetheless, and about as close to regular, non-audiophile ´music´ music as we would get on the day. The supporting cast – among others Electrocompaniet CD-player, CanEver preamp/DAC and valve power amps, all on Creaktiv equipment supports – was of high calibre, too.

Here´s where it got really, really serious. Audio Reference (room 2.07) presented the Wilson Audio Alexia V speakers (in a lovely shade of dark blue) partnered with the Dan D´Agostino Progression pre and M550 power amps, a Krell phono stage and VPI Avenger turntable, all strung together with the grandest of Nordost cabling – which amassment of big-ticket items would have been all for nought in this large, overly bright sounding hall if a sufficient amount of care hadn´t been taken in placement and set up. Fortunately for us, care had been taken with the speakers toed in to the point that they crossed over somewhere before the first row, which not only took much of the room acoustics out of the equation but also made sure everyone seated at least had a semblance of a stereo panorama – there were one or two other rooms here that could take a leaf out of this particular book! Although it´s always difficult to make a true assessment based on unfamiliar ´audiophile´ music, the resulting sound was all you could hope for with such a star-studded cast of items that obviously belong together – yes, this is, after all, the sort of system that concentrates on ticking all the audiophile boxes before pulling at heartstrings, but there is no denying a very high overall level and the sheer ´play everything, play anything without ever getting flustered´ majesty of it.

Elac and Clearaudio joined forces for the Darmstadt event in room 2.06 to present the Concentro S 507 speakers (built around a dual-concentric unit containing a ribbon tweeter in its centre, partnered by a midbass unit and two side-mounted woofers) driven by a big integrated AVM amplifier (which brand has quickly become the de facto standard as the weapon of choice for German loudspeaker manufacturers of very diverse origins and philosophies, judging by the number of demos featuring AVM gear) and fronted by Clearaudio´s Reference Jubilee turntable with Smart Power 24V power supply and Smart Phono phono stage, all on another Creaktiv rack. Elac obviously spent some time on both the acoustic and aesthetic aspects of their show presence and the result was an inviting room coupled with rather more subtle sonics than some of their competitors´ efforts, playing some blues and classical mostly from their own demonstration LP and pleasant (and not overly long) explanations from both Elac and Clearaudio personnel in-between. A good effort all round which was clearly appreciated by the audience as the room remained full throughout.

Reichmann AudioSysteme (room 2.04)  is the German distributor for brands such as Triangle, Musical Fidelity, Music Hall and Rekkord (the latter of which offers a range of affordable, automatic turntables). There was lots to see here, but not so much to hear – although a system consisting of one of the larger Music Hall record players, Musical Fidelity electronics and largeish Triangle floorstanders was clearly set up for demonstration purposes with three rows of seats opposites, the three times we were in the room it was either silent or playing so softly that it was barely noticeable in a room full of people engaged in various conversations…

Hörzone (room 2.03) brought the same set up to Darmstadt as it demonstrated in Stuttgart the month before: LS1be integrated D/A converter/amp/speakers with SB1 bass enhancement units fronted by the MU1 music server. Clever placement of a large acoustic panel ´wall´ across the room behind the speakers and in front of the huge glass frontage made sure room acoustics were well contained, and just like at the Southern German event this was a very pleasant, almost unassuming room where the music was allowed to come through in a natural, unspectacular manner. A good palate cleanser if you will.

On the first day of the show, it was exactly 50 years ago that Canton opened its doors in a former school building in the German Taunus region. Like in Stuttgart, Canton (room 2.02) had three pairs of floorstanders on demonstration taking turns, this time in a half-hour presentation that saw all three pairs playing two tracks (but not the same two as the others so a direct comparison wasn´t possible if you wanted to do such a thing in show conditions…). From inside to outside these were the Smart Townus 8 (3,300 euro/pair), the Ergo GS Edition (a modern reimagination of Canto´s first floorstanding speaker from 1979 with modern units and technologies from Canton´s Reference line, ´GS´ stands for Günther Seitz who founded Canton fifty years ago; 7,000 euro/pair) and the Reference 3K (10.700 euro/pair).  The first, active speaker was driven by Canton´s Smart Amp (850 euro) and the other two by another big AVM power amp. The music was from Canton´s own demo cd (also available as a double slice of vinyl) and quite obviously chosen to put the speaker in the most impressive light in a display of audiophile box ticking, which was kind of a shame but not unexpected. A very professional and entertaining little show nonetheless.

Distributor IAD (room 2.01) had the Luxman PD-151 Mk II record player (5.900 euro), D-10X SACD-player (17.000 euro) and L-507Z integrated amplifier (9,500 euro) delivering the goods through a pair of Italian Albedo Agadia floorstanders (23,000 euro/pair) in one of the ´smaller´ rooms. This is as close to a ´traditional´ HiFi system as it gets nowadays, with the Lux equipment embodying typical Japanese high-end values, being of an internal layout and build quality bordering on the compulsive-obsessive. And fine did the lot sound too, relying on rather more subtle charms in its finely detailed and naturally lively rendition of events than the majority of other rooms, too.

Another pleasant experience was to be found at Seta Audio (room 3.10) whose large Finesse 6.10 floorstanders (38,500 euro/pair) were driven by a Soul Note front end and Audionet Max power amps. The Finesses are made from bamboo in a particularly complex shape containing fourteen(!) angles; all crossovers are first order (6 dB/octave) throughout and there´s a thing or two to be told about the drive units, too. Despite the imposing size of the speakers and big transistor amps driving it, this was not another overblown, look-Ma-without-hands performance. The operators did complain of the reverse rake of the outside windows sucking the low bass performance out of the system, but I don´t think many of the visitors will have care, as there was much to be enjoyed, most of all a natural, unforced, enveloping sound. It did rather brutally expose the compressed-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life mastering of a ca. 1990 Carlos Santana cd (the one with the US number 1 hit ´Smooth´ on it, which indicates the audience it was aimed at), though.

Since the early ´80s at the least, German manufacturer Backes & Müller (room 3.09) majors on fully active (and mostly fairly large to sodding huge, with price tags to match) loudspeaker systems. After haven found itself in the limelight of the German HiFi press during most of that decade, B & M seems to be mostly happy to live within its own universe these days, relying on word of mouth and the odd ´we´ll buy your existing equipment for an unusually high proportion of its retail price if you go active with us´ advertising sweepstake. I must say this room was a bit of a let-down for us, relying heavily on orchestral fireworks to show off the systems´ prodigious ´outer´ dynamic capabilities, but there was no escaping the fact that even sat ever so slightly left of centre, pretty much all that we heard was the left loudspeaker with the right loudspeaker being barely noticeable, and pretty much nothing happening in between. Which reeks of a fairly basic set up mistake to us; maybe they could ask the people at Audio Reference how it´s done…

Audio Trade (ATR) had turned room 3.08 into a veritable lounge with low, deep sofas, a standard lamp and a bit of art, just like the Cabasse room in their villa at Eltville am Rhein. Colourful accents were provided by the all-singing, all-dancing and very yellow Pro-Ject turntable HiFi system, a dark green Zavfino turntable and the single, red/gold DartZeel amplifier on display. Doing the talking were Cabasse´s The Pearl Pelegrina wireless speakers (25,000 euro/pair) looking like a pair of big robot eyes on artfully curved stilts, although we couldn´t quite escape the feeling that here, they sounded a bit too present and borderline shouty at times. Maybe they would have fared better with a bout of Daft Punk?

The other big force in German high end electronics, T+A (which stands for Theorie und Anwendung, very German that, room 3.07), brung out the big guns in the shape of their high end HV series electronics playing the new Solitaire S 430 speaker, at 24,000 euro for a pair the entry point in T+A’s new reference loudspeaker series that launches this fall. Just like the first Solitaire series speakers back in 1983, the new loudspeakers feature a planar magnetic high frequency unit, in the case of the S430 a 5 cm unit combines with mid speakers above and below it to form a d´Appolito configuration. Here, too, a slick and professional presentation went hand in hand with a promising sonic performance even though the room acoustics were far from optimal.

A far more modestly sized and priced system was, to be found in the adjacent room 3.06 where the Denon DCD 900NE CD player and PMA-900HNE amplifier, fresh from winning an EISA Award for ´best affordable HiFi components´, were placed on yet another Creaktiv rack and playing through Polk R400 floorstanding speakers. The set up looked a bit lost in the large and undecorated room and the operators did need to be a bit careful with the available dynamic headroom but the results belied its modest dimensions and price tag to a considerable extent, all the same.

Loudspeaker stalwarts B & W occupied another very large room (3.05), however, chose not to bring the big, reference series 800D4 speakers or anything like that. Instead, the rather more attainable 702S3 floorstanders were driven by Rotel´s RA-6000 integrated amp and DT-6000 DAC/CD-transport – surprising that, given the amount of Marantz gear on display in the same room! The listening session was enhanced by a clear, concise and most of all fun presentation of what we were about to hear, and it must be said this decidedly non-multibuck system performed its function of communicating music to a rather large audience with aplomb.

Audio Components (room 3.04) is another big, long-established player in the German high end market, being distributors of brands like Magico, Martin Logan, Sonus Faber, Audio Research, Pass Labs, McIntosh, Aurender and dCs. The featured loudspeakers, however, were Paradigms top of the range Persona 9H´s that retail for a comparatively modest 21,000 euro/pair, driven by some big 40,000-euro Audio Research monoblocks and a top-of-the-line preamp from the same brand. Front end duties were performed courtesy of Aurenderand the lot sat on yet another white Creaktiv rack. This, too, provided a very respectable performance that was difficult to pick holes in, with the usual disclaimer that the music being played was unknown to us and very probably picked for showing off the system´s capabilities rather than musical content.

Walking into Manger Audio´s room always provides an element of surprise; you know the music played will be tasteful, but the partnering equipment for their speakers can vary from a single streamer/DAC feeding their active speakers directly to a more elaborate set up containing both analogue and digital sources with pre and power amps driving the passive versions. Brands tend to vary, too. This time, a Transrotor Rondino Nero FMD turntable was partnered with a suite of SPL electronics, a brand that crosses over from recording studios to domestic environments, playing the passive floorstanders P1 (Manger´s product range is as easy to understand as they come – there´s a stand mount speaker and a floorstanding one which both come in a passive and an active version and that´s your lot). Again, equipment support was provided by Creaktiv but at least this time the rack wasn´t white…. As usual, Daniela Manger herself was directing the performance and the whole affair had a relaxed and supremely musical ´Sunday morning´ vibe even though we were well into the afternoon by now.

The room of Panasonic (Technics, 3.02) was another one where there was much to be seen but actual demonstrations were playing a distant second fiddle. Earlier on the day, there had been a presentation in word and PowerPoint about the new ´full-digital´ amplifier concept, there were a quartet of SL-1200 Mk7s in colourful 50^th anniversary edition on display as well as the other members of the Technics direct drive family including the mighty SL-1000 RE that fronted the (mostly mute) demo system as well as several amplifiers, speakers and ´lifestyle´ systems, and of course it´s good to see the Technics brand being back in full force. Still, we wouldn´t have minded a bit of actual music…

On the third floor, the back room at the end of the aisle (3.01) was Audium´s (officially Audium/Visonik but there seem to be no more products being marketed under the latter brand name). The Audium range of loudspeakers consists of wide band, single driver speaker designs with integrated (sub)woofers, and even the larger models as featured here cut a decidedly slim and living room friendly figure. They were driven by an Ayon Spirit V push-pull integrated valve amp, with Atoll providing digital front end duties. It made for an interesting combination and to an extent, another palate cleanser in relation to the big ´n loud presentations of the larger brands. On static display were, amongst other, a pair of Fezz Audio tube amplifiers from Poland.

Yes, we promised were going to get back on this one… Home Tech Plus is a large HiFi and home cinema retailer/installer based in Viernheim and judging from the website their brand portfolio is as serious as it is wide and deep. So quite where these huge wardrobe-like erm, things branded with coaxial units in silver spheres hanging in the middle branded ´Grand-Acoustics´ came from, we don´t know. The internet doesn´t return anything on them, they looked not just brash but also a bit unfinished, they were driven by a quartet of huge Rotel Michi power amps and frankly, when they turned the wick up later in the afternoon in the big, glassy and stony entrance hall it all sounded rather too much like a PA system. We still don´t know how seriously we should take the whole thing and can only assume the shop brought these along for a bit of fun (as well as attention value) …

Yes, this is a tree. Well, not an actual one and we assume it won´t be capable of turning nitrogen into oxygen like real trees do, but at least this man-made CityTree provides cleaner air by means of filtration – and also a place for Darmstadtium visitors to sit after a long and exhausting conference day.

Eric van Spelde