HIGH END MUNICH 2022 – VITUS AUDIO, SOUNDSPACE SYSTEMS, J SIKORA, ALLUXITY, JOSEPH AUDIO, SCANSONIC, MOON, ODEON, AURALIC, STEIN MUSIC, ARIES CERAT, TOTALDAC.

Hans Ole Vitus was pretty much the first person we bumped into at the High End in Munich, though that was in-passing on the stairs from the underground carpark at the MOC and so not really conducive to having a proper natter. However, we did say hello and despite Hans Ole stepping down from the position of CEO I get the idea that he thinks he will be as equally busy as he has been for the last 20 years.

The first step in a ‘generational takeover’ was initiated on May 1st 2022. As a result, AVA Group A/S now has two new co-owners. First of all, Alexander Vitus Mogensen’s company AVM-TEC (which includes the high-end lifestyle brand Alluxity) has been consolidated into Ava Group A/S. AVM-TEC was founded in 2010 by Alexander at the age of 17. Secondly, Lukas Birk Eriksen, a long-serving and member of the Vitus Audio ‘family’ has become a shareholder. Lukas joined the Group in 2014 as a trainee and in 2017 gained an Honours Degree in Engineering. Since then he has become a driving force in the company’s Production, Sales and Aftersales functions.

Together, Alexander and Lukas now hold 50% of the shares in AVA Group A/S, and have been welcomed to the Board of Directors. As the Founder of the business, Hans-Ole Vitus will retain ownership of the remaining shares. You can read the full story here.

The Vitus electronics were partnered with a new brand to me, Soundspace Systems, an interesting loudspeaker brand headed up by Dr. Michael Plessman and based in Germany. I believe the speakers we were treated to at Munich High End were the company’s Aidoni which features an AMT tweeter housed in a Tractrix horn and which is adjustable from the rear of the speaker. The bass on these speakers is said to go down to 20Hz, with the last three octaves being controlled by DSP. They are highly efficient at 101dB and as such can be driven by pretty much any amplifier you choose to mention. Each speaker weighs in at 240Kg meaning that your floor will need to be able to take the best part of half a tonne  – perhaps not for us given our suspended wooden floor that I believe was fitted just before Noah set sail in the Arc.

Also in this room was the awesome J Sikora Reference turntable (around £30K). This is a Polish-made turntable and the Father and Son brand is making big waves in the analogue reproduction world. This particular turntable weighs 108Kg with the Platter alone weighing 18Kg and there are 4 DC motors onboard. Now 30K for a record player is a lot of money but when compared to the competition this actually doesn’t look to be terrible value at all!

Next door to Vitus, naturally, was the Alluxity room and if you read the link I posted above (and here) you will know that this is a Lifestyle brand, though with a high-end price tag.

The speakers in the Alluxity room were by Joseph Audio which is headed up by Jeff Joseph. These speakers are relatively unknown in the UK but really do deserve to be much more widely recognised as they are excellent. I’ve had the pleasure of hearing them a good few times now and I’m always really impressed with their natural presentation of the music they are playing. They are also really beautifully finished.

On to the next room, some of this really was a whirlwind and the Danish brand Scansonic that were partnered with Moon electronics. The speakers in the room at High End Munich this year were the MB6B which is the company’s flagship loudspeaker. They feature a ribbon tweeter, 2 x 5.25” midrange drivers and 4 x 5.25” woofers. These are part of the DANTAX group of companies that includes Raidho and anyone familiar with the latter will immediately see the family resemblance. However, the Scansonic offerings seem to offer what I would consider being excellent value for money with this particular speaker costing around £9000, which seems a lot of speaker for the money.

Odeon horn loudspeakers were being powered by a New Audio Frontiers valve amplifier and making a very nice noise. The cables in the room were from Esprit which is a French brand that has been on our radar for a few years now and judging by Janine’s recent review, seems to offer excellent products at prices to suit most pockets.

I make no excuses for being a huge fan of the Auralic brand. They offer excellent digital products with genuinely clever engineering – I’ve been a long time user of their Aires streamer. Auralic didn’t have anything new to show at High End Munich 2022 but I suppose this is a case of them not seeing the need to add to an already excellent portfolio of products…yet.

German brand Stein Music makes BIG loudspeakers, but they also make smaller and more affordable models right down to a standmount that still has a horn driver. The system on show at High End Munich 2022 was the flagship Topline Bob XL in black with a very bling gold horn. This is a combination of horns and open-baffle with each speaker having an integrated DSP-controlled sub and amp with 3000watts output, though the rest of the speaker is passive and going down to 35Hz – with the subs it goes down to 14Hz. Drivers are 24 x 12”, 10 x 10”. 2 x 4” and 2 x 1” – that’s a LOT of drivers. This is an impressive system that I’ve heard sounding phenomenal, but sadly whilst we were in the room the bass was clearly exciting the room adversely and it sounded quite poor. This I suppose is one of the pitfalls of trying to judge a product at a show and why I mentioned in my opening article that an audio show isn’t the best place to judge a system’s capability in the real world – as I say, I have heard this same system sound excellent in the past! Price? Yep, it’s high and to put it into context you could buy an Audi Q4 E-Tron for similar money (about €45K).

Next up was undoubtedly one of the High-End highlights from the Munich show this year. This system from Aries Cerat (from Cyprus) and their designer Stavros Danos (pictured) was utterly breath-taking, with the stars of the show for me being the Aurora horn loudspeakers. Just look at them, they are utterly bonkers but at the same time utterly brilliant! Really, this is a speaker that looks like it shouldn’t work at all, but it does…magnificently so. Dynamic and detailed this system was definitely one of the standouts for me, though it is lottery winning money should you fancy taking it home. The speakers have 4 x 12” drivers, an open baffle mid ribbon and inside that horn a compression driver. The electronics are all Aries Cerat too but the star of this room has to be the speakers. Stunningly good!

Day one was nearly over other than a press conference for the launch, or should that be the relaunch of the well-loved EPOS loudspeaker brand. Linette will be covering that in a later article! This event was rammed and there is clearly a whole load of interest from the world’s audio press for this brand with there being standing room only.

After the EPOS launch event, we hot-footed it over to the Hifi DELUXE show over at the Marriot where we had an appointment to meet with the French brand TotalDAC.

The HiFi Deluxe show is not connected to the main High End Munich show but has been in existence for years and hosts some, as the name would suggest high-end brands. TotalDAC had a small room on the first floor of the hotel and whilst the sound was good, I don’t think the room acoustics or the lighting in the room did them any favours. I sincerely hope that the High End society that runs the main High End Munich show will somehow manage to accommodate TotalDAC in 2023 as I genuinely believe that the main show is where this brand belongs and where it will be most appreciated. Speakers are the Dp100 that we reviewed and subsequently bought. They don’t look anything special but they are a fantastic speaker that at around 10K offers a seriously high-end audio experience for mid-fi kind of prices – depending on your pockets. The amp (we have one on order based on previous listening sessions) is the AMP-1 stereo (also available in mono versions) and will soon take up residence in our main reference system – it’s stunningly good and beautifully finished! Really, if you get a chance to check this brand out then take it! As an aside, Vincent who heads up TotalDAC had a small team of audio folk going around the shows and recording in properly done high-quality audio many of the systems on show.

We also went out for dinner with the TotalDAC team which was fab!

And that was the conclusion for day one of our High End Munich 2022 adventures. Keep posted for much, much more.

Stuart Smith

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