I recently visited the High End Show in Munich for the first time in three years. I used to be a regular attendee when the event was held in Frankfurt but my health took a downward turn after the final show at the famous Gravenbruch Kempinski that curtailed my plans to witness the show’s subsequent transition to its new venue. You can read my show report elsewhere in the magazine but I mention the event here because after recent UK shows it went a long way to restoring my confidence in the hi-fi industry. It demonstrated that there is still a healthy market for genuine, performance-led products rather than just plasma- and portable-led commodities. Don’t get me wrong: I have no problem with either of the latter categories apart from the fact that they make life difficult for retailers, who find themselves battling with internet resellers and having to compete on price to sell them. It was truly rather heart-warming to walk into exhibition rooms and be confronted by hordes of music fans sitting quietly and attentively listening to recordings being played on top-end CD players and, surprisingly, even in Germany, on ultra high-end turntables. Very few manufacturers didn’t have a turntable in use in their rooms. Although many of these were outrageously expensive, some quite hideous-looking, and some super-tweaky, they were still turntables nonetheless – and even among the weirdest–looking of the bunch there were a few that didn’t sound at all bad. It seems to me that this corner of Europe is, in this respect, at least, ahead of the UK in that its home entertainment community doesn’t appear to have forgotten its origins and how it became established with its public – by selling them what I suppose I should call today ‘an enhanced music enjoyment experience’. Quality – along with a passion for what you’re selling – is still important, it seems, and can co-exist with plasma displays and whole-house ‘solutions’. And, on that subject, I imagine that at the next show I’m planning to visit, CEDIA UK Expo 2006, there will be a host of HDTV evangelists – many of whom I imagine will be frustrated by the troubles surrounding Sky HD’s launch. I guess many potential HD fans might just have to settle down with some LPS and CDs instead of watching Rooney and Beckham cavorting about in all their high definition glory, which strikes me, at least, as being a more rewarding pastime anyway.