HIGH END MUNICH 2022 PMC, KRELL, WILSON, PERLSITEN, TAD, TECHNICS AND VPI.

We had a little time to kill before going along to a PMC press conference that Lin will tell you more about and I won’t mention other than to say that Ollie Thomas did a great presentation of the iconic British brand and the Fenestria speakers sounded absolutely fantastic – another speaker that is most certainly on my “must own” list. Also a special mention to Tom Barron who retires this year and for who Munich High End will likely be his last show. Tom has always been really lovely to us and even when we were first starting out on the great HiFi Pig adventure and knew no one, he treated us very kindly and offered us the same courtesy as the then more established magazines. From all of us at HiFi Pig, we wish you all the very best in your retirement, though I for one have a sneaking suspicion that Tom will be a regular sight at many of the UK shows in the coming years, though this time as a regular visitor. Again, thank you, Tom, you made have always made us feel very welcome and you have been a real ambassador for PMC!

So, as I was saying, we had a little time to kill before popping along to PMC and so nipped into the massive corner suite that Audio Reference takes every year. This is a German distributor that offers some of the highest of the high-end products available at this time. We are talking Wilson loudspeakers, Krell and D’Agostino amplification, VPI turntables…the list goes on but you get the drift. Here are a few photos from the room by way of…well, whatever you do with the pictures in the comfort and confines of your own home is your own business and nothing to do with us – we won’t judge…well maybe a little bit.

Walter and Rondi from Krell were both keen to show us the latest addition to the Krell stable, the Krell KSA i400 amp. It’s 400w/ch into 8, 800 into 4, 1600 into 2 and it is stable at 1 ohm. The target price is 35K per chassis as there will also be a monoblock version at 800w/ch and same doubling as the stereo amp – the mono will be the KMAi800.

All this lottery win kit is all very well and good and it does make excellent “passing the time” fodder to look at, but one product that really caught my attention was a relatively new brand called PERLISTEN, that were showing off their S5t tower speaker ($6,995/each in piano black; $7,995/each in a custom finish) which is a smaller version of their S7t.

The S5t features a three-way design that uses something Perlisten call a Directivity Pattern Control (DPC) waveguide, which has three 28mm “beamforming” tweeter and midranges to control vertical and horizontal dispersion.  All the speakers are a very clever design that aims to give a wide sweet spot both in the horizontal and vertical planes which I was told is ideal for tiered cinema spaces. The three 28mm beryllium drivers and two 28mm TeXtreme® drivers are complemented by two 180mm TeXtreme® woofers, featuring carbon fibre cones.

There’s also the S5c centre channel monitor that features similar technology.

Whilst I didn’t get a chance to listen to these speakers, the market for them is clear – the home cinema market that wants great sound quality without breaking the bank, though they certainly aren’t bargain-basement fodder.

There’s a huge amount to get around at High End Munich and quite often it’s the case that you just don’t have the time to give something the amount of time that it perhaps deserves, perhaps that was the case here in the TAD room and their EVOLUTION 2 loudspeakers, a bottom ported 2.-way design with a pair of 6.5inch mid/bass drivers and a 1inch beryllium dome tweeter that is mounted in a waveguide that’s made of aluminium costing around €14,250. There’s absolutely nothing the speakers weren’t doing right, but at the sae time there was nothing that really grabbed my attention  – but then that may well be that they were playing some music that just didn’t appeal to me personally when I went in. And herein lies a problem for exhibitors at shows. There is just so much to see and the potential audience may be into a million and one genres and sub-genres of music that they get bypassed to an extent just for playing music that doesn’t stand out.

The next room along was Audionet and Wilson Benesch with the most interest for me being the new turntable that they had playing. Now I had a good chat about this turntable and it really does sound like it’s going to be the dog’s danglies with regards to the state-of-the-art of vinyl playback. However, that dog’s dangliness is going to come at a price when it finally becomes available with a good few people I met throughout the Munich High End 2022 talking playing guess the price. For the record guestimates ranged from around £75K to £300K – I’m not sure my collection of Black Lace records really warrants that kind of outlay but I’m sure the turntable will sell like the proverbial hot-cakes. The room did sound very good again and that sub you see was doing a good job of really energizing the room without being overly obvious. Anyway, here’s some images for you to drool over…

On to the next room and Technics who had a lovely display of their new 1200M7L costing around £900 a pair and available in a range of funky colours, though I don’t believe HiFi Pig Pink is one of those colours. The 1200M7L is a limited edition turntable to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the iconic (and still fabulous Technics 1200 record player.

They come with a gold-coloured arm with the serial number on them and with special golden Technics slipmats. Clearly aimed at the DJ market the 1200M7L has a reverse play function and a variable speed controller. Don’t be surprised if you see a pair of these here at HiFi Pig Towers in the near future!

The rest of the room had the Japanese company’s home-oriented products playing and I have to say that whenever I have heard Technics systems there’s a feeling that this is proper HiFi in the 80’s sense of HiFi, and I mean that as a massive compliment. The Technics separates and speakers are honest, no bullshit products that should appeal to an audience that wants great sound but doesn’t want to be doing with all the fannying about that audiophilia in its OCD sense brings to the table.

Stuart Smith

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