Munich High End Show 2017

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7 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

More Constellation Audio Leo. I really like this product. The sound quality really is something the other products in the category haven't matched. I listened for quite a while this afternoon. 

 

Edit: Constellation is shooting for fall 2017 release and less than $5,000 MSRP. 

 

The silver color is wonderful. 

 

Did someone drop it?

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14 hours ago, manisandher said:

I’m now on my way home from the show. I managed to sit down and take a good listen to many systems, including: Living Voice/Kondo, MSB, Einstein, dCS, Göbel, Wilson Benesch, Aries Cerat, Sound Galleries, Avantgarde Acoustic, Cessaro, Kawero/Kondo, Magico/Spectral, MBL, Thöress, Tune Audio, Silatone/WE, Elrog, soulution, hORNS, Tidal, Mark Levinson, Marten, Stein and TAD, among others.

 

All my photos came out horribly, so I’ll leave others to post their photos instead.

 

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t do this, but because they were amongst the most expensive systems at the show, here are my biggest disappointments of the last two days:

 

3. Living Voice. This is the first time I’ve listened to the Vox Palladians, but have heard the Vox Olympians a few times before. I wasn’t that impressed with the Olympians, and am even less impressed with the Palladians. Mind you, so I should be – as displayed, the Palladians only cost 2/3 of the Olympians’ $800,000 price tag!

 

2. Cessaro. This is the second time I’ve listened to the Gammas at the Munich show. I forced myself to sit through 30 minutes or so of ‘music’. In that time, most people came in, sat down for all of 30 seconds and walked back out. I was mightily tempted to do the same myself many times.

 

1. Magico/Spectral. The last time I heard Magicos was when they partnered with soulution a few years ago at Munich. I was underwhelmed back then, and unfortunately, partnering the S3s with Spectral hasn’t seemed to help one iota. A totally dead sound, as far as I’m concerned. How people can rant and rave about them is totally beyond me.

 

OK, on to the cool-sounding stuff. My top systems were:

 

3. Aries Cerat. Wow, what a dynamic and totally immersive sound. Slightly edgy off centre, but in the sweet spot were massively impressive. Finally, a system with a bit of life!

 

2. Silbatone/WE. So easy on the ear, and yet so detailed and intricate. I would have liked a bit more ‘kick’ from time to time though. But really can’t complain... for an 85 year-old pair of speakers!

 

1. Tune Audio/Trafomatic. OK, I’m probably a bit biased... This year, Tune Audio left the Animas at home and instead brought along the newer, larger and more expensive Avatons, mated with a gorgeous pair of Trafomatic Elysium SE tube amps. I heard the system on the Friday and wasn’t overly impressed. But I went back today and really, really enjoyed the sound. I stayed for an hour or so, and everything Manolis played sounded great. Only a handful of systems I’ve ever heard have matched this level of performance IMHO. My only criticism was that the sound was a tad too bright, but this could be easily solved.

 

Overall, I phenomenal two days. It’s a shame I didn’t bump into any other CAers though. Oh well, maybe next time.

 

Mani.

 

A serious show report cannot mention how good sources sound, not unless two were compared using the same system (although most magazines critics would like us to believe they can listen).

It's all about how certain speakers sound in particular rooms with the parnering amplification.

Good work!

 

R

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4 hours ago, Nikhil said:

Kaiser Kaweru -  superb sound!

 

I wonder why the tweeters are pointing forward instead of being toed-in like the rest of the cabinet.

Where the speakers overly bright outside of the sweet spot?

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16 minutes ago, Solstice380 said:

This thread is like "Playboy" for audiophiles.  If you are a gear slut, that is. LOL

 

Yep, gearhead heaven.

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1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

Time for a car stereo thread

 

High performance car stereo could makes a bit more sense with electrically powered cars, but some cars are getting so big nowadays that they might make suitable man-caves...

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On 24 May 2017 at 6:34 PM, Albrecht said:

I wish I would've been able to attend. I wonder if the Marten's sounded so good because they copied Kharma designs. Or, is Kharma gone now?

 

I've never listened to Kharma speakers but my listening experiences with Marten we're less than positive, something which I would partly attribute to the use of ceramic drivers and first order filters.