HIGH END MUNICH 2022 –  AKU, YUKI, TROY AUDIO, ATLAS CABLES, ESPRIT CABLES, B.AUDIO, DEVORE, LAB12, AUDIUM, BOULDER, PEN AUDIO, SVEGA and LAMPIZATOR, SOULNOTE and FINK..plus a whole load of photographs for you to drool over.

I’m going to jump ahead, or back depending on how you look at it, to our last day at High End Munich where we split up and took a look around the halls. For me, the halls are perhaps one of the more interesting areas of the show because it’s where you get to see brands and kit that is often new to the market or a little bit more niche than the upper floors where you find the more established brands. The simple fact of the matter is that in four days, even with a team of people, there is no way to cover every single exhibitor and so I’m going to write about the products that caught my attention the most and then lots of images to give you, dear reader, an idea of what a wonderful event the High End at Munich really is.

So this is AKU and their Talos active system that I thought was a really interesting design, though it’s not going to appeal to everyone. The system I heard was the larger of the two red speaker systems which is an active 3-way design using a really interesting multi-layered design that AKU say is “amplitude, time and phase” aligned. I’s assumed this was all made of metal but it is, in fact an MDF composite. Talos comes as standard with 3 Hypex amps with DSP and has the following driver compliment: a 12” aluminium bass driver, two 7” mids and a 1.34” aluminium/magnesium dome tweeter, though a Beryllium tweeter is available in the premium version. The premium version comes with a sic channel Hypex amp. AKU say this will go down as low as 33Hz (25(-10db)). A younger couple in the room were having a demonstration and so I couldn’t change the music, which was Elton John, but this did sound pretty nice, though I’m not really much of a fan of Mr John. Had time allowed I’d have certainly sat longer and asked for some different tunes. Aku also produce a whole load more funky designs that were on show outside the booth and the more conventional-looking Enarghia speakers you can see in black in the booth.

This is the YUKI AP-01 turntable system. It’s an open-frame belt drive design with all the electromagnetic noise and vibration inducing parts of the design (the control unit) housed in a separate but integrated housing. Likewise the main arm and second arm base are also mounted on the cabinet with a “floating structure” to reduce vibration. This was generating a good deal of interest and I believe is around €30K, but awaiting confirmation on that one.

These are the Troy Audio Acapulco loudspeakers, a new interpretation of the famous 1960 classic Altec Santana speaker. It uses a Biflex 415-8C driver manufactured by Great Plains Audio and a compression driver tweeter with the crossover being as simple as possible so as not to interfere with the audio signal. It’s a 97bB sensitive speaker and it did sound excellent in Troy’s booth, though when we talked about this on social media the €36,000 price tag did surprise a few people.

The wonderful folk from Scottish cable manufacturer Atlas ( in use in at least one of our reference systems) were out in force and whilst they didn’t have anything new for the show they were clearly delighted to be back at the coalface and meeting people.

French cable manufacturer Esprit Cables may well be a new brand to you but they have been making cables since 1997 and were in evidence in at least a couple of the higher end rooms where the big systems were playing. HiFi Pig’s Janine recently reviewed their Celesta range of cables and really enjoyed them. I think you will be seeing a lot more from this brand in the not so distant future!

France-based B.audio was created after more than ten years of research and development by a family team of engineers whose professional experiences enabled them to take a fresh look at the challenges of sound reproduction. Since then B.audio’s products received numerous awards from the international audiophile press. They say that the sound from digital media is often perceived as harsh, although extremely detailed. On the contrary, the sound from analogue media is perceived as more natural but lacking micro-details. While many attempts have been made to resolve this dilemma, the B.audio team found that none of them had proven to be completely satisfactory. B.audio’s reference range was on show at High End Munich and showing off their B.dpr EX:  streaming DAC with full analogue pre-amplification stage and B.amp (pair): ultra-low distortion bridgeable stereo power amplifier (class AB).

This was an excellent sounding room and having posted an earlier show report from High End Munich I received an email telling me that if I had heard and enjoyed the MSB Discrete DAC ( I had and I loved it) then I really ought to get hold of a review sample from B.audio.

We’ve covered Belgian brothers  Tom and Jef Nuyts’ loudspeaker brand Ilumnia in the past at shows and they do have a very interesting design concept in that their speakers use no spider and instead rely on electro-magnetic suspension. This was a cool sounding room I wish I could have spent longer in.

Another room I wish I could have spent a lot longer in was the DeVORE Fidelity booth. These speakers are handmade in in Brooklyn (US) and design by John DeVore with whom I chat frequently on social media and was gutted not to get the chance to speak at Munich…though I’m sure we would have nattered about vintage camera lenses rather than HiFi.

I’ve enjoyed DeVore speakers only on a couple of occasions but really enjoyed their clean reproduction both times. The speakers shown ae the Orangutan O/Baby, that use a horn-loaded .75” textile dome tweeter and a new 7” woofer that uses the same uncoated German paper found in DeVore’s O/96 and o/Reference speakers.

My friend David Cope that runs Old Forge Audio in Connecticut swears by them and I know from the ancillary gear he uses we have very similar taste in sound reproduction. I’m really champing at the bit to get a pair of the DeVore speakers hee at HiFi Pig Towers to give them a once over and let you know my thoughts.

Stratos at LAB12 was celebrating his birthday (21 I think) and so it seemed rude not to give him a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday. Regular readers will know that I’m a big fan of LAB12 and have a good few bits of their kit. The aforementioned David Cope is a massive fan too and it’s nice to see the company being recognised in the States. Where I believe that LAB12 scores highly is offering a great sounding product that is a little out of the ordinary for not a ridiculous asking price.

There’s a new KT170 based amp I really want to hear and they have a new range of cables too.I also think I heard mention of a 300B amp.

I bang on about this brand a fair bit but I do reckon they offer that high-end experience for mid-fi prices. If you haven’t heard them then they are worth checking out!

Audium are from Germany and the prize for best dressed man at High End Munich has to go to our good friend Klaus who was sporting a fab shorts suit and long socks – after all “ he was in Bavaria.”

Sartorial elegance aside, the Audium room sounded absolutely brilliant with French brand Atoll electronics. The Audium speakers playing are semi-active in that the wide band driver is driven passively by an external amplifier, whilst the bass is driven actively. I heard a wide selection of music on these speakers, some of which you can find on our Qobuz playlist made up of some of the music we heard whilst at High End Munich.

That mix of a widebander and active bass is very clever and offers the speed and point surce imaging that a small wideband driver gives you plus a very well-integrated bass response. The sound is exciting and engaging, with a delicacy I the tops and through the mids that is allied with a strong, fast and powerful bass.

These are a loudspeaker I am looking forward in our system and I really do reckon they wil be a fabulous match for the LAB12 amplifiers that we have here and were one of the highlights of the show with regards to reasonably priced audio on offer.

Atoll are a French brand and I have seen and heard them a lot at shows but they don’t seem to have got a foothold in the UK market, which is a shame as they are very good and well-priced products.

Boulder are based in Colorado and make some furiously expensive kit. We visited their facility when we went to the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest before the Corona outbreak and it was a wonderful experience with their listening room being one of the best audio experiences I;ve ever had.

For High End they had brought along a few products but the one that caught my eye was this 812 DAC Preamplifier. It can be used as a preamp, a DAC, a headphone amp or any combination of these and costs around €12,000 which in Bouder terms is bargain basement. I didn’t get to listen to the 812 but the build was the same superlative quality as their other products and I can see this being very, very popular. This is their first headphone amp and has a separate headphone amplifier circuit, four types of connections, and headphone sensitivity settings within the Boulder Controller app. The headphone outs can be covered by a nifty cover which is a small touch but an attention to detail that inspires confidence.

These are the PenAudio Karelia that cost €99,000 a pair and sounded very nice – as they should for that kind of money.

Sveda Audio and Lampizator make a terrific partnership and I’ve heard them really singing at the Warsaw show in the past – If I’m not mistaken I may well have said that these were the best sound of the show a few years back at that show. It was a shame not to be able to hear the here at Munich as I really do like these. The Blipo speakers from Sveda are an active design (we are seeing more and more of this coming into home audio) and cost a relatively modest €14,500 a pair.

Lampizator should be well known to anybody with a passing interest in home-audio and have a cult status in the HiFi world. I have one of their Big 7 DACs and it is a wonderful sounding piece of kit. I’ve heard their Horizon flagship now a few times and it does bring its own magnificence to a system.

SoulNote may be a new name to you but they shouldn’t be as we reviewed them back in the early days of HiFi Pig and raved about their products. They are back with higher-end products now and at Munich partnered in this room with the fabulous FINK BORG speakers.

I like the attitude of SoulNote with their emphasis being not on the measurements and whatnot of making audio kit, but rather on the sound. This ties in very much with my personal way of reviewing equipment with me barely ever looking to see what specifications a product has or what it measures like. For me the final analysis of a product is I how it sounds and judging by the music in this room SoulNote have certainly got something right! Watch this space for more news about what I consider to be a very exciting brand.

For those interested in reading further the models in the room were the S-3 ver.2 SACD Player, P-3 preamplifier and a pair of M-3 monoblocs.

This Japanese kit caught my eye and I did get to listen to some opera. Not my cup of tea but this is a very cool looking (and sounding) 300B amp with the AER horns.

And now a whole load of photos for you to drool over!!!

Stuart Smith

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.