Over the past decade or more there has been one consistent date in my diary: the German High End Show, first in Frankfurt, at the Gravenbruch Kempinski Hotel, and subsequently, after it outgrew its home there, the M.O.C. exhibition centre in Munich. When the show moved to its very different – non-hotel – home there was some hesitancy about the suitability of the new venue. However, these concerns turned out to be groundless because the spacious and airy M.O.C. proved itself to be a near perfect home for this kind of show, offering facilities for both static and dynamic displays, and, just as importantly, an excellent beer garden.

The show has in recent years broadened its remit and is no longer exclusively focused on high-end audio. While that remains the main drawer, AV has also entered the proceedings. This year I steeled myself for an introduction to 3D TV. I did not find it at all a rewarding experience and concentrated instead on my search for ‘new media’ components; network audio players, USB DACs, and, I confess, for my own personal interest, high quality active desktop computer speakers.

I felt the most outstanding sound of this year’s event, though, came from the unlikeliest of loudspeakers: a modified single-unit, stereo, horn-loaded enclosure fashioned around a rare, 1928, Western Electric 16B cinema enclosure driven by a pair of single-ended, 18 Watt, valve amplifiers. Silbatone Acoustics had added a pair of 1930’s WE 597A tweeters and an in-house designed subwoofer using four Altec 515B drivers in a push-pull isobaric configuration to the speaker to create a performance optimized for contemporary listening. There was, as one would expect, a hint of coloration to the sound but this was completely outweighed by the dynamism, subtlety and sheer presence the monster satellite and subwoofer created. I visited the room several times, hoping to find it empty but I had no luck: on each visit the room was packed with eager listeners… and justifiably so in my opinion.

Excellent sounds were also emerging from the new and far more conventional, floor-standing, NEAT Ultimatum XLi. I am usually impressed by NEAT speakers because they seem unfailingly to put listeners in touch with the message or feeling that the musicians are trying to communicate. That is a quality that eludes most loudspeakers. NEAT designer, Bob Surgeoner is himself a very capable multi-instrumentalist semi-pro musician and always seems able to inject that extra degree of musical communication into his speakers. Having a recording studio set-up in his factory doubtless helps, too. And a business partner who also plays guitar and is an experienced songwriter and recording engineer is quite useful, I’d imagine. The Xli will be available in July and will cost around £6000 a pair.

Also impressive were the curvaceous Dali Fazon F5, aluminium enclosure loudspeakers at €1499 per unit. They sounded appealing and looked extremely attractive. Their industrial design was superb right down to the specially designed speaker terminals and cable management.

They were smaller but none too dissimilar in shape to the KEF Blades, which were shown as a concept last year. These, however are in production but come with a £20,000 price tag, just like the Boston Acoustics flagship model, the aXPERIENCE, tweaked by celebrated loudspeaker guru, Karl-Hienz Fink and Marantz Brand Ambassador, Ken Ishiwata. (Mordaunt-Short is no longer Marantz’ loudspeaker partner. That role has now been taken by Boston.)

Visit any show in the UK and a horn loudspeaker tends to stand out from the crowd: in Munich the reverse is true. Some examples are good; some are bad; some are as coloured as a completed Jackson Pollock canvas; some are as dynamic as Daley Thompson; and many simply quack like angered geese. All of which seems to appeal to the ear brought up on oompah bands. I wonder why?

Among some of the worst sounding at the show I felt were those from Cessaro, which were in a room heavily treated to room treatments. My only question was how awful had they sounded before all those treatments were applied.

Also falling worryingly low on the satisfaction scale – and, I presume on the Health and Safety scale if the Germans are bothered by such rubbish – were the Farber Equilibrium loudspeakers. Not only were they quacky-sounding but the ‘duck’s beak’ protrusions poking through the horns seemed ideally placed to remove the eye of any inquisitive child or dog.

Moving away from loudspeakers for a moment, I caught sight, but could not hear, the new network streamer from Pro-Ject. As part of the ‘box’ series of electronics it seemed a little more expensive than I had imagined it would be with a suggested price of €1050. Nevertheless, it still is not a King’s ransom and one can only hope its performance will be up to scratch.

I also had a look at the forthcoming Burmester Reference 111 Line Music Server. The pre-production model on display included high quality CD-ripping, a mirrored 1TB hard disk for storage of approximately 1500 uncompressed CDs , support for FLAC, WAV, AIFF, and MP3 files at up to 24-bit/182kHz, and six digital and three analogue inputs. A spokesperson revealed that the price is likely to be somewhere between €20,000 and €30,000.

Also on display back on Planet Normality was a London Taxi fully kitted out as the control room for a mobile recording studio. It is a brilliant concept and was at the show as part of the Adam exhibit, whose loudspeakers you can see in the internal photograph.

Talking of Adam, I have ordered a pair of its ARTist 5 active, nearfield/desktop 50 Watt monitors to see just how much performance I can squeeze out of them with my office system powered by a Naim UnitiQute.

Also high on my ‘I want to hear that at home’ list is the Signature music server by YBA. I was fortunate to meet its designer, Yves Bernard Andre, who treated me to a demonstration of an unusually efficacious tweak involving a square of material placed on the top surface of a pair of loudspeakers. With the material in place the sound quite markedly gained transparency and clarity over the untreated enclosures. Apparently, the cloth removes vibrations in the top plate that muddy and diffuse the reproduction.

MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS

There was a section of the show floor dedicated to Italian high-end gear, much of it rather striking in its appearance. The picture of the rear of one loudspeaker, however, shows that a healthy price tag and a swish real-wood cabinet can sometimes conceal horrors such as bell-wire internal cabling all nicely coiled to improve its function as a radio aerial.

M2Tech currently manufactures my favourite, mid-price DAC, the Young, and has now produced an optional power supply upgrade to replace the original, supplied wall-wart. The company was also showing a prototype of the ‘Young on Steroids’ top-of-the-range DAC, the Vaughan. Twice the size of the Young, one can likely expect some world-beating performance from it when this new unit appears.

Munich would not be Munich without an outrageous turntable or two. There was the Transrotor model featuring the famous Bachman Turner Overdrive switch… Let’s Rock!

And here is one of Transrotor’s fabulous floral displays surrounding the Zet 3 Gold deck.

For the absolute antithesis of the Transrotor design ethic look at this horn loudspeaker that appears to have a chimney. How could any sentient human being imagine that anyone would want to have that monstrosity in their living room unless it were generating massive heat?

The opposite of the above approach was the simplicity and cleanliness of the design of the Shanling DAC-50 where its function elegantly exploited its form: the top caps of the front support pillars, for example, were the on/off and volume controls. The simple design uses a 24-bit/96kHz Burr Brown PCM 1796 chipset.

Several companies really pushed the boat out with their industrial design this year producing hi-fi and systems that looked truly innovative and funky. One such was Revox with its Re:system M100.

If, however, you prefer typical teutonic over the topness, look at the photograph of the jewellery shop display of cables below…

Finally and much to my dismay, many exhibitors were using a favourite track from the Nils Lofgren Acoustic Live album for demonstration purposes. They clearly had not witnessed his live performance of Keith Don’t Go: had they done so they would have realized that he plays a steel-strung amplified acoustic guitar rather than a plank with rubber bands stretched along it. They would then have further realized that the latter was what their systems made his performance sound like, along with the nasal colouration they added to his voice. I must have run from half-a-dozen rooms playing this track, which rather shows the lack of imagination and musical understanding among many hi-fi company demonstrators.
 

In spite of any negative comments I may have made, though, I shall most definitely return to Munich next year, for another helping of music, modernism, and totally mad products!

Malcolm Steward