ERIC REPORTS FROM LAST WEEKEND’S SHOW IN GERMANY

Süddeutsche HiFi Tage 2023 Show Report by Eric van Spelde

For the fourth time, the show season after the summer break in Germany started with the Süddeutsche Hifi Tage (South German Hifi Days). After being held in Stuttgart in 2018, 2019 and 2022, this regional show – there are counterparts in the middle and north of the country courtesy of the same organisation – moved to Karlsruhe, where the Radisson Blu hotel offered better conditions for music reproduction than most. The rooms may not have been that much bigger than in Stuttgart or elsewhere – at least, they had a significantly better balance between reflective and absorbing surfaces, especially the ones on the second (and uppermost) floor. 

The larger, mostly German brands and a couple of big distributors, however, as always were to be found in the bigger conference halls around the hotel lobby and entrance hall, while the ground floor one level below this large open space, was home to a few more demo rooms along with some ´market stands´ selling records and accessories as well as demonstration headphones and associated equipment. Is bigger better? In this case, mostly not. While the presentations of the big hitters with corresponding marketing budgets and rooms were as always professional and there were no sonic disasters to make fun of this time, the real gems were mostly found in the smaller rooms. As a bonus, the music being played there was rather more diverse and adventurous than the more ´corporate´ presentations in the bigger rooms…

However, there were exceptions. German distributor Hoerzone brought their usual set up of Grimm Audio streamer and fully active loudspeakers along with two pairs of digitally controlled, active bass traps from PSI Audio put in the corners. A live performance of Dead Can Dance sounded very natural, relaxed and free of ´digital´ artefacts, but also involving and rich of tonal colours. Although heavy on the technology and far off the mainstream, this outfit does seem to know what they´re doing and consistently delivers regardless of the conditions.

Another safe haven when it comes to good sound and interesting music: Sieveking Sound, German distributor of Verity Audio, Octave, Cardas, TW-Acustic – brands that are very highly regarded here. Jan Sieveking is one of the ´music´ people in the business and an entertaining communicator when it comes to telling short stories about the music about to be played – which can be decidedly non-audiophile stuff such as Bruce Springsteen´s Nevada which was recorded on an 8-track! The system built around Verity Arindal speakers (46.000 euro/pair) featured a TW-Acustic Raven Black Night turntable (29,500 euro) with TW-Acustic Raven 10.5 tonearm (4,500 euro) and pre-production Kagami KG1 cartridge (not priced yet), Octave HP 700 SE preamp with IN6 phono module (16,650 euro) and MRE 220 SE monoblock power amps that premiered here (24,500 euro/pair, Super Black Box PSUs (5,780 euro per pair) and Cardas cabling. Equipment support was by Quadraspire and a Sieveking Sound Quantum Noise Resonator (1,400 euro) was also in the room. A high-calibre ensemble running into six figures but right sized for the room – insightful, immersive, not overblown.

The big news at Audio Reference, of course, was the Wilson Audio Sasha V (62.000 euro/pair), successor to the Sasha DAW.  The list of improvements is broadly similar to that of the Alexia V introduced last year. Sitting on the end of a dCS/Dan D´Agostino set up, this was one of three systems taking turns in the ´Karlsruhe 3´ conference hall, one of the largest spaces here. The other systems were a pair of largeish Perlisten floorstanders supported by VPI, dCs and Krell equipment and the Wilson Audio TuneTots with VTL tube gear and a Velodyne sub.

Lyravox from Hamburg showed off their flagship Karl II speakers (euro 62,800/pair) which like all Lyravox speakers are fully active with built-in Class D amplification and full DSP control. Mains conditioning was courtesy of Puritan – which product line is distributed by Lyravox – and turntable systems courtesy by AMG. 

Fulda Audio demonstrated the Albedo Agadia 2.5-way floorstanding speakers from Italy (23,000 euro/pair) with the Linn Klimax DSM 3 streamer/preamp and Klimax Twin power amp. The speakers are a transmission line with Helmholtz resonators and offer ceramic drivers, hard wired crossovers with Mundorf components as well as an impedance that is said to be above 8 Ohms across the board, easing the job of the amplifier driving them. 

Two absolute classics renewed at Reichmann Audiosysteme: Musical Fidelity showed off their reborn A1, and their version of the LS 3/5A speakers in a lovely reddish veneer. We have lost count of the number of manufacturers that have had this classic BBC nearfield monitor design in their portfolio by now – which says something about their enduring appeal.  This pair would make the basis of a very nice system for small rooms. 

Inside, the Triangle Magellan Cello 40^th Anniversary speakers (11,000 euro/pair) – the middle model in the top-flight line of this Frenche manufacturer – were being driven by Musical Fidelity gear -the amp being the Nuvista 800.2 – with a Music Hall MMF 11.3 turntable performing analogue front-end duties. We´ll be having the Cellos in for review shortly, which promises to be highly interesting. 

Matthias Böde, chief editor of German magazine Stereo, made a workshop tour along a number of rooms on both days. Here, on Saturday morning in the Esoteric/Audiaz room, Böde demonstrates the sonic differences between a ´normal´ cd and several audiophile versions – among which one made of crystal glass instead of plastic! That sound here was of high calibre anyway, goes by itself… 

In the souterrain, the Deutsche Schallplattenmuseum – German Record Disc Museum – was among several exhibitors with ´market stall´ stands. Among the fascinating exhibits were an original Edison wax role player, a Telefunken record changer from the 1950s, a Transcriptor Reference famous from the 1971 movie A Clockwork Orange and a huge (and gorgeous) American Russco studio turntable.

´Now that I´ve given you this apple, can you hear that my speech is much clearer than before?´ Yes, that was an actual conversation at the Phonosophie stand – this being  not only a manufacturer of equipment, but first and foremost an producer of accessories, mostly centering on mains products but bordering on the esoteric with their ´Activator-technology´…

Qualio is a Polish brand, made by the same people that gave us the Cube Audio single driver speakers. The Qualio IQ, however, is a three-way, open baffle design which Hifi Pig head honcho Stuart has already enthused about. In Karlsruhe, the IQs sat at a minimalist system consisting of a Lampizator DAC and a positively tiny Aiyima desktop amplifier – didn´t seem to hold the system back a bit…

Another Polish loudspeaker brand, Intrada demonstrated its new 2-way D´Appolito floorstanders. They don´t feature an outlandish design or any obvious ´breakthrough´ technologies – just a properly developed and tuned bassreflex speaker in a box made of natural and man-made compaosite materials that, in 2023 high end terms, won´t break the bank given the price range of the other speakers in Intrada´s portfolio and did an admirable job on the end of the new B.Audio Alpha One integrated streamer/DAC/amplifier (16,000 euro).

The Manger P2 driven by SPL electronics and a Scheu Analog turntable – another classy performance, as usual with Daniela Manger herself at the controls.

Showtime at Neuron Acoustic with a massive array of stereo, surround, center and subwoofer speakers going all out on Mad Max movie footage. The speakers themselves were nothing if not distinctive, with circle arrays of midrange drivers surrounding a single tweeter. Later on, actual music was being played – albeit rather loudly – but with so many speakers in a relatively small space, it was never going to be a particularly audiophile experience….

Another set up that German show goers can depend on to provide a satisfying musical experience every single time: As per usual, Bernd Hömke of Input Audio built his demo system around Harbeth loudspeakers with a Manley phono stage, Creek CD player and Parasound amplification (although the little Creek 4040 amplifier made an appearance too). The particular twist this time round was that Input Audio, which hitherto had distributed an upgraded version of the entry-level Michell turntable under their own brand, is now a fully-fledged Michell distributor, so for the time the Gyro SE deck fronted the system – as before, with a Michell Tecnoarm and the Cusis MC cartridge. This is also the place where you can expect to hear some wonderfully offbeat but at the same time kind of catchy music – this time the German brass band Meute from Hamburg, who play something that sounds more akin to techno than the usual thigh slapping beer garden stuff.

Entering this room, which was dominated by a huge Tone Tool turntable sitting up high on the rack like an audio altar, from some distance we thought the speakers were probably Klipsch Heresys. In fact, however these are from Polish manufacturer Pylon Audio and called Jade Twenty – a retro-inspired two-way system featuring a 12-inch paper cone woofer and a horn-loaded tweeter playing from 1,200 Hz upwards. Dead Can Dance made another appearance here via the CEC belt drive CD player, and sounded spooky as ever in the sparsely lit room, with excellent tone and stereo depth. 

Nomen est omen: German brand Dynamikks! is known for offering loudspeakers with a high ´live factor´ that can also be easily driven by valve amplifiers. The right one on the picture was a Thivan Audio Labs integrated, but playing was the one on the left, coming from an ´experimental research fun kitchen´ and featuring a single Telefunken EL156 per channel. Fun it most definitely was!

Live Act Audio were playing the Viola, which has been touted as one of the very best compact monitors by several reviewers here, on Mal Valve amplification. Alas, the pair here is one of the very last, as it turned out to be a bit too elaborate and costly to build at its retail price of 5,000 euro a pair, an updated version is on the cards but will be more like 7-8 grand in euros. A lady in the audience had a particular eye (and ear) for these and it would not surprise me at all if she´d struck a deal during or in the aftermath of the show….

Dietmar Hölper of the eponymous hifi distributor demoed two systems in Karlsruhe, the ´bigger´ one built around the Atohm GT2 HD speakers – being the smallest floorstanders of the high-end ´Absolute´ line at 5,000 euro a pair, driven by a Klimo Merlino valve preamp and a pair of AMC 2100 MK2 stereo power amps in bridged mode – a new addition and probably the most punch per pound one can get at a mere 998 euro apiece – and fronted by a Scheu Analog turntable with Rega tonearm and Rega Ania MC cartridge, while the entry-level system featured a Rega P1 turntable, AMC integrated amp and some smallish floorstanding Indiana Line speakers. At the time of visiting, the more elaborate set up was playing the room and sounding rather lovely, having no problems at all letting its hair down with Led Zep´s Whole Lotta Love– one of the highlights of the show for us. 

Simple cooking with extraordinary ingredients: Request Audio The Raptor music server, Absolare The Integrated hybrid amplifier, Stereokonzept Model 2s speakers. The shallow and not all that wide, minimalist design speakers were filling the room with ease: classy, expressive and with ample clout when called for. 

Some interesting, hitherto not that well known equipment took the limelight at Lenhifi. The most profilic brand here is undoubtedly J.Sikora whose Standard Max turntable, resplendent in white, sat on top of a Divine Acoustic vibration absorbing platform in one of two lime green racks. The right hand one of these was home to a Closer Acoustic Provocateur 300 B Signature amplifier (7,915 euro) and a Merason DAC I Mk2 digital/analogue converter. Speakers were the Soundspace Systems Robin (UK price 45,000 GBP/pair), featuring a Mundorf AMT tweeter, 7” midbass and a pair of 10” woofers mounted in the side panels. Efficiency is being quoted at 96 dB with impedance dipping no lower than 6.4 ohms, making this a very tube amp-friendly design in theory as well as in practice. 

A well-known stalwart in the German high end scene is Andrej Staltmanis, distributor of Reed tonearms and turntabels as well as builder of some extraordinary tube amplifiers containing some of the biggest, baddest, most efficient output transformers around. This time, Andrej used some Manger P2s to complement his amplifiers and the Reed Muse 3c turntable to great effect.

Perpetuum Ebner, along with Elac and Dual among Germany´s world beating turntable manufacturers from the Wirtschafswunder years and revived little more than a decade ago, showed off two of their current models through a pair of very yellow Audio Optimum active monitors. The latter brand also put a selection of their cables and mains products on display. 

One of Germany´s oldest high-end artisan brands, Symphonic Line, was founded in 1984 by Rolf Gemein who still is running the company. The brand offers a complete portfolio of equipment from MC cartridges and CD-players to home cinema. In Karlsruhe, his RG5 two-way speakers being built around the exotic Podszus-Görlich bass/mid drivers with a very stiff and ultralight aluminium sandwich cone membrane, were the only pieces of equipment, facing the hearer, Gemein choosing to sit in the back of the room surrounded by his electronics. This is no-bullshit, extremely well-built equipment that has been carefully honed over the years and decades and carefully avoiding the excesses of current ´high end´ pricing practices – i.e., the items aren´t cheap but it is obvious where your money goes. 

Wireless, sustainable, made in Germany – this is how newcomer speaker brand Econik presents itself. Direct marketing to the end consumer keeps prices down and judging from the show performance, the sound isn´t half bad either…

A newcomer in the scene is Dess Akustik – so new apparently, that several pages on their website still feasture placeholder texts and images… Anyway, their speakers all have the same, outlandish shape as pictured – a bit blurry, soz for that – here, and are actively powered by a 6-channel, DSP- controlled ´Space Amp´ – the cumulative power of which runs well into four figures. Alas, the music played was of the generic ´impressive soundscape´ type which leaves one without something to reference to, so all we can say is that it did sound impressive and that there were no catastrophic flaws to report on. 

What´s a German show without big frickin´ horns?  No A Capella, Avantgarde or Cessaro in sight, but Hornfabrik (Horn Factory) held the fort for all things horn-y in Karlsruhe. These large three ways with wooden midrange horns were driven by a large Cayin integrated, and were wholly enjoyable. To a large degree, these are bespoke – the customer has a large say in the end result and you can even get some of the models in kit form. 

As per usual, Klangloft from Munich brought a floor-filling array of top flight Aries Cerat equipment, this time driving a pair of Kaiser Acustics (Kawero) Furioso Mini standmounts (15,400 euro/pair). 

Eric van Spelde