HIFI PIG RETURNS FOR PART 2 OF OUR COVERAGE OF THE FANTASTIC DUTCH AUDIO EVENT HELD IN EINDHOVEN, THE NETHERLANDS

Wrapping up HiFi Pig’s coverage of the excellent Dutch Audio Event, Eric van Spelde takes a look around the last of the rooms.

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Rammstein from two different rooms (incidentally, the very first and the latest album, Giorgio Moroder both ‘pure‘ and as a Daft Punk guest, and Yazoo´s ´Situation´ emanating from behind other half open doors. This is not your average HiFi show fodder and all the better for it. But hey, it´s only half past nine – half an hour before opening time – and surely the room operators are just letting their hair down before the public streams through the halls and the usual diet of noodly jazz and girl-with-acoustic-guitar takes over…? Well, erm, no. Throughout the day, the music turns out to be more varied and more aligned with what is likely to feature in music collections of ´normal´ listeners than what´s part of the proverbial two test records and eight audiophile ´reference´ recordings that some say cover the entirety of some hardcore audiophiles´ collections. “When I play AC/DC, I get a round of applause,“ notes one of the room operators.

But then again, the Dutch Audio Event (formerly X-fi Show) is not your average HiFi show. It´s bigger, bolder, more varied, more fun. The presentations were on a high level throughout sonically, and often also visually. After all, few things communicate ones brand values better than an inviting, cosy room that makes visitors feel right at home and instils a sense of fun. It has to be said, even though I´ve been at the Koningshof many times, the numbering of the rooms still tends to baffle yours truly and requires careful study of the ground plan in order not to get lost indefinitely…

Here´s the remainder of the rooms from the show – not because they were an afterthought or somehow ´lesser´ than those that made it to the first report of Stu and Lin, but purely for logistical reasons…

LINN

The Scots were one of the two Rammstein peddlers in the morning, playing their latest album ´Zeit´ from vinyl on the endlessly rejuvenated classic LP12 in its middle ´Selekt´ version giving its signal to the Selekt DSM network player with integrated power amp, which made for a very clean and compact overall system. The loudspeakers weren´t Linn´s: Kudos´ Titan 707s performed business-end duties to good effect. The overall sound was ´classically British´ in optima forma: communicative and holistic with a high toe-tapping factor.

HAVONED: DUAL, KLIPSCH, MELODY

The smallest speakers of the Kipsch heritage line may look like something you buy more to fit in with a mid-century design theme than for their sonic prowess but that would do them a giant disservice. Few speakers in the 4.000 euro range offer dynamics and immediacy on a level with the Heresy Mk4s, and no – they won´t cut your ears off with classical music either. Dual´s top-of-the-line, limited-to-100-pieces Primus Maximus turntable and the Melody AN300B MAX tube amp proved to be an excellent supporting cast, together forming a system that doesn´t cost the world nor takes up too much real estate but delivering a chunk of musical satisfaction. Also, this was a very cosy and ´ home-like´ room.

ARPEGGIO ACOUSTIC

Design a speaker that forms an ideal partnership with any amplifier in any room. That´s the brief Björn Jeroen Tidström gave himself. `And I succeeded, if I may say so myself´.  Well, we didn´t bring a 0.8 Watt single-ended triode or a 1000 Watt Class AB PA amp to put his theory to the test, so for now we´ll just assume he did. The Opus 1 and Opus 2 speakers are classically shaped loudspeaker boxes, and sounded quite inviting, showing ample scale and openness driven by Audio Research amps (PH9 phono preamp, REF6 line level preamp and REF80 power amp) with a Lumin X1 streamer and Transrotor Fat Bob turntable with Audio Technica ART1000 MC cartridge performing front end duties. By the way – both designer and company are Dutch, not Scandinavian as one might assume.

MODUS AUDIO

Another Dutch company and a newcomer on the electronics front, presenting the SPR01 pre- and SPA01 power amp. Materials and finish of the outer casings are highly customer configurable, as some to a greater or lesser extent ´exotic´ examples on display testified. The chosen partnering equipment – Indigo Audio digital front end, a top-end Wilking turntable with Audio Research phono preamp and Magico speakers – was a clear statement of intent regarding the level of ambition of this new company and suffice to say, they didn´t fall flat on their face. Another room that left nothing of note to be desired and where I could have stayed for rather longer. The digital front end in this room was the new x-odos xo|one special edition and the Infigo Audio Method 4 DAC. Cables were a mix of Signal Projects and Purecable.

DALI

The flagship of the Danish Audiophile Loudspeaker Industries, the 80,000 euro/pair Kore, had its  Benelux première in Veldhoven, after having been launched into the world at the Munich High End show. The Kore is and will remain a standalone product – there will be no smaller versions – featuring lots of large and smaller innovations that will trickle down into the ´cooking´ product lines some time down the road. For attending the introduction, show visitors had to get tickets at the door beforehand and every single one of the half-hour sessions was booked full. What greeted those lucky enough to attend was a pair of huge, but not outlandishly sized and shaped floorstanders with a spectacular wood finish and sporting many basic principles of existing Dali speakers taken to eleven. For the first time, Dali constructed a pure midrange speaker even though its diameter suggests a midwoofer (the main visual difference being a much thinner surround).

The Kores sat on the end of a quartet of NAD M32 amplifiers that cost a mere fraction of the speakers´ price and was demoed with mostly ´own´ recordings, but first impressions were favourable nonetheless. Most impressive was their ability to ´scale´ themselves to the actual performance; yes, they can sound BIG and overpowering if the music played asks them to – a bout of techno played at high volume towards the end of the presentation showed them to be storming party speakers if required – but they also ´do´ small and fragile.

YAMAHA

A brand that is often overlooked in HiFi circles depending on who sells it – to be honest, most punters nowadays will be confronted with it in big high street electronics shops rather than stand-alone HiFidealers – but carrying a large and honourable tradition – they do make music instruments after all. My first ´real´ HiFi system back in the 1980s was built around the ´purist´ A320 amp, a competitor to the likes of NAD and Rotel that got good reviews and was very competitively priced.

At the Dutch Audio Event, Yamaha introduced their ´2000´ line, with technologies adapted from their higher-end 3000 and 5000 product lines.  On show were the R-N 2000A network receiver and NS-2000A floorstanding speakers, the latter of which shared demo duties with a smaller pair of standmounts. On the left side of the room, several pairs of headphones were demonstration ready for people to try.
This was more of a presentation room than one that was acoustically optimised to the nth degree, but despite that the gear sounded well enough to warrant further investigation.

IAD/QUAD-RAAD: WILSON BENESCH, SOUL NOTE, WARWICK ACOUSTICS, BEAUDIOFUL

The Wilson Benesch Endeavour speakers may be ´mere´ standmounts; with a list price of 29,900 euros per pair, they sit on the front row of the manufacturer’s grid, next to the 64,900 euro Cardinals. Of course, high-tech composite materials feature heavily in the construction of the Endeavours, along with an extra driver unit hanging out the underside of this distinctively styled speaker! Driven by a stack of Soul Note electronics sitting on a Beaudioful rack that did its name proud, the Endeavours were possessed of scale, weight and dynamics that belied their physical size while retaining all the hallmarks of a highest-grade mini monitor. Also on show: electrostatic headphones from Warwick Audio (which we didn´t get to try).

MORE MUSIC: ESTELON, PASS LABS, MOON, GAUDER AKUSTIK

Another very high end set up was built around the new Estelon XB Diamond Mk 2 speakers – not only aesthetically works of art – driven by Moon electronics with dCS providing the digital front end. Scrumptious sound. On static display were Pass Labs amplification and Gauder Akustik speakers.

NETWORK MEDIA SYSTEMS: SENNHEISER, ROON, HIFI ROSE, SYVGA

A room that majored on head-fi and streaming, but in the middle of it all a smallish but rather beautiful system consisting of the all-in-one HiFi Rose RS 520 network player with integrated amp driving a pair of modestly sized Sonus Faber speakers. The Beatles´ ´Come Together’ in the remastered edition left a convincing impression, not just by streaming standards.

The Holland Foyer was home to the ´market stall´ area with cable makers  John van Gent and Purecable, music labels STS Digital and TRPTK, and audio magazine Music Emotion all presenting (and selling) their wares to a steady stream of punters…

The Utrecht Foyer was the domain of CDVINYL4U where one could rummage through many hundreds of (mostly audiophile) CDs and LPs to their heart´s content.

Eric van Spelde

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Read part 1 of our Dutch Audio Event 2022 report, from Stu and Lin, here!