Munich High End Show 2017

[manisandher]

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.

[manisandher]

13 hours ago, MarkS said:

How were Kondo and dCS systems?  Did Kondo show with the Kaiser Kaewero speakers?

 

 

Yes, Kondo with Kaiser speakers. I liked what I heard, but it occurred to me that the guys only tended to play 'simple' music when I was there. Nothing very challenging. Not sure how efficient the Kaeweros are, but I'm always a bit suspicious whenever I see tube amps driving non-horns.

 

dCS were mated with Wilsons (can't remember the amplification). A pretty uninteresting sound to my ears, I'm afraid.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

1 hour ago, semente said:

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

 

Yep, agree.

1 hour ago, semente said:

Good work!

 

Cheers.

 

They're only my preferences though. I was in the Sound Galleries room when Srajan Ebaen happened to be there (I was totally overlooked as a result ) and when they had the Metrum DAC connected. We listened to some nice Brazilian tracks, the sound of which the others in the room all ranted and raved about. I couldn't believe what I was hearing - both these comments, and the sound, which was truly awful to my ears. I can only concur with what Nikhil and Chris have already said - it was the speakers that were letting the side down massively... or at least I hope that was the case. (Massive apologies to Edward and Geoffrey, but I feel I have to say it as I heard it.)

 

Mani.