HIGH END MUNICH 2022 – Ø AUDIO, EXTREME AUDIO, HIFI ROSE, HEGEL, TONA, IO DESIGN, FUNK FIRM

Ø AUDIO Icon loudspeakers are designed in Scandinavia by Sveinung Djukastein Mala, come with a 12” woofer and horn-loaded 3” tweeter and I reviewed them a couple of years ago for HiFi PiG describing them thus – “I never found the Icons wanting in any way: Bass is tight and low, mids are languid and nicely presented and tops are incisive and precise, though they can get quickly fatiguing in poor recordings/formats.” At Munich they were presented with a Line Magnetic amp which I believe was the LM-845 delivering a modest 2x30W. Line Magnetic are an interesting brand and was founded by two brothers who were somewhat enthusiastic about classic American audio kit such as Western Electric. Personally, I love their looks and they did sound to be an excellent match for the Ø AUDIO Icon loudspeakers they were partnered with.

Extreme Audio does what it says on the tin and had Sigma Acoustics speakers are from Italy which have a design all of their own and I believe the speakers shown are their Eclipse 2.3 model.  The amps are from AGD and the server is from Pink Faun 2.16. The turntable is a Tourbillon and is also made in Italy. This too was a very nice sounding room and to some extent, I think it’s a bit of a shame that these kinds of systems are forced to take the smaller cubicles on the ground floor as I really do think they deserve to be given more space. However, Munich High End is what it is and the demand for space is obviously very high. Whatever, the Extreme Audio team did a great job at High End 2022 and the sound was excellent.

Now, without a doubt, the HiFi story of this (so far) has been the launch of the Korean brand HiFi Rose’s new amplifier, the RA180. When we ran the first images of this exciting and very different amplifier the HiFi Pig website went crazy with traffic. Never before in the ten years that we have been doing this have we seen such a level of interest in a sing product launch.

HiFi Rose launched with their streamer the RS250 which seemed to be everywhere too.

This was the first opportunity I’ve had to sit in front of the new amplifier and judging by the sound in this booth it’s going to continue to be a highly in-demand product.

The amps styling is VERY different with people describing it as a mash-up between Nagra and SteamPunk and I know that it’s looks will divide opinion with the usual naysayers suggesting that it’s all style over substance. That’s for you to decide, but personally I loved the look and the sound of the amplifier at Munich.

Each channel of the RA180 amplifier is equipped with an AMP module specialised for bass and balance and one module specialised for treble and super tweeter. Each AMP module supports 200W (8 Ohms) and can output up to 400W per channel. The two independent modules per channel divide the high and low frequencies respectively so that the speaker is bi-amped. This is cool and innovative stuff!

The HiFi Rose RA180 integrated amplifier features three line inputs, one balanced input and one phono. The volume control is motorised and adjustable remotely. Tone control allows treble, bass and balance adjustments. There are also controls for the active crossover, AB speaker switching (to switch between two connected pairs), a subsonic switch, sound reduction switch and an  LED brightness adjustment switch. Pure Direct allows the input signal to be bypassed without balance, tone control, and active crossover.

Price is about £5,500 and I imagine there will be a waiting list as long as your arm.

Norwegian brand Hegel used High End Munich to launch their Hegel P30A and H30A pre/power amplifiers which they are calling the Conductor and the Orchestra. Hegel have been reviewed a number of times by HiFi Pig reviewers and on pretty much every occasion the reviewer has gone on to buy their products with Glasgow-based Alan McIntosh who writes for us having at least a couple of systems based around the brand’s products.

I went past the Hegel stand a good number of times throughout the show on the way to meetings and on every single occasion it was absolutely packed. I did go back to the stand for a proper look round and a chat to Anders Ertzeid who is the VP of Sales and Marketing for the Norwegian company but he was hectic and I had to “make do” with the wonderful Bill Leigh who runs Auden Distribution in the UK and is the distributor for Hegel (and others) in that sceptred isle. Great to see Hegel adopting a toy pig for their display.

I am genuinely looking forward to reading about the new products when we get to review them to hear what improvements the new products bring over the old. Watch this space.

It’s worth wandering around the smaller stands at Munich High End because you often come across some pretty interesting products, or brands that you never new existed. One such brand was TONA from Denmark which had a stand manned by Dan Sallinboe from Sallingboe Audio.

OK, these are just Step-Up transformers aimed at those using Moving Coil cartridges and giving either 1:40 or 1:20 step up. I thought these looked rather lovely and are obviously very well made. Price is €3,295.

Here’s the specs:

• Two inputs 1:20 and 1:40
  • Connectors can be customized as well the choice of balanced / unbalanced operation
  • Laminated soft iron case with 8 to 20 mm overall thickness
  • Wideband toroidal nanocrystalline transformers wound inhouse
  • Primary resistance 0.13 Ω (1:40)
  • Secondary resistance 35 Ω (1:40)
  • The transformers are induction matched in stereo pairs before and after winding
  • Low noise and wide frequency spectrum -3dB 5Hz-90kHz at 4Ω/10KΩ
  • Matched in stereo 0.2 dB 20Hz-20kHz
  • Litz primary winding
  • Connectors : Rhodium plated RCA connectors, gold plated XLR connectors
  • Stable heavy base accepts all XLR and RCA cables
  • Tested individually
  • CE and ROHS approved

This is how Italian brand IO Design introduce themselves on their website “ IO DESIGN is an alliance. A strong team of professionals from different and highly respected companies in several industries, sharing the same vision of perfection in audio reproduction, innovation and a deep team-working approach.

Technically speaking IO DESIGN is a new brand, but the roots carve deep down into 35 years in the hi-end market, jointly with more than 30 years of R&D, engineering and manufacturing in hi-tech and biotechnologies for civil and military industries. Nothing that audio fans are used to see in high-end.”

And just look at what they come up with by way of a loudspeaker design. I love it!

It’s called the NAKED and it’s designed to completely do away with the negative influence of the box on the sound of the loudspeaker. It’s an open baffle design then…but how cool a looking open baffle is this?

The sales bumph for NAKED mentions aerospace aluminium and military grade CNCing, laboratory grade anti-vibration structures, and a proprietary crossover design. NAKED is also finished in non-animal leather which I approve of and wish would be adopted more widely by manufacturers.

Here’s the basic spec:

2 Woofers 12″

1 Custom magneto-planar Midrange

1 Custom ribbon Tweeter

Sensitivity 91 dB

Nominal Impedence 8 Ohm (minimum 4 Ohm)

Frequency response 22-35.000 Hz

As I’ve tried to stress throughout the coverage I’ve done of High End Munich 2022, a show is no place to form a solid opinion on a product but I did like these, despite the room being too small for them to really get on song.

Made in the UK, this is the FUNK FIRM Kepler turntable but sadly it wasn’t playing at the show – though I can’t wait to hear it. However, I did bump into Arthur Khoubesserian, the guy that runs Funk on the Wednesday before the show and he was very eager to tell us about the turntable. If you don’t know Arthur or the Funk brand then you will remember the Pink Triangle turntable, I’m sure.

The Kepler has fantastic styling with Arthur’s stated aim being to “get as close to the master tape as possible.” And it has no less than five patents on it.

It’s innovative in that you have three arms with the entire top section being able to rotate so you can get at the arm you want. Cool. You won’t need to choose between buying a direct drive turntable or a belt-drive turntable as Kepler will allow you to switch between both. The suspension is said to be able to isolate in all directions and there’s a vacuum to hold your record down onto the platter.

The new arm from Funk Firm is the Raptor-Z which like the turntable has lots of innovative features I’m sure we’ll report on at a later date.

Stuart Smith

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