Munich High End Show 2017

[matthias]

3 hours ago, monteverdi said:

 

The z-man is that module and they said there are other DAC manufacturer interested but I got no names!

Any computer with Gb ethernet can be a sever with the right driver software (even my MacBook Pro TB which has only USB-C with the right adapter).

Apparently the ZMAN is a daughterboard without any sockets so it must fit in a Ravenna motherboard. 

It would be nice to get a picture about the costs of Ravenna vs. USB.

 

Matt

[m5sime]

9 minutes ago, matthias said:

Apparently the ZMAN is a daughterboard without any sockets so it must fit in a Ravenna motherboard. 

It would be nice to get a picture about the costs of Ravenna vs. USB.

 

Matt

I would assume that all that is required is a suitable edge connector on the DAC PCB for this self contained board 

 

 

[bibo01]

2 hours ago, m5sime said:

I would assume that all that is required is a suitable edge connector on the DAC PCB for this self contained board 

 

 

ZMan is PCI. It would need a backplane, like a PC motherboard, with Ethernet input.

What I would like to understand is what this board actually does. I do not see a clock on it. I2S output has to be built on the backplane?

[bibo01]

7 hours ago, Miska said:

Something that left a trace in my mind apart from the Estelon and Sound Galleries systems (I'm probably biased regarding those anyway ), were three systems:

- Gato Audio

- Martin Logan speakers (as usual)

- Focal Utopia Evo III Maestro Special Edition (with Naim electronics)

 

Audiovector and Piega offered again nice ribbon driver sound I like. Too bad I didn't find Magnepans playing anywhere, just on static display.

 

Magnepan?! We have something in common!

[louisxiawei]

I see Audiobyte also introduced its incoming so-called true 1-bit DSD1024 DAC powered by programmable PSU.

 

Any comment on "how true it is?" 

 

 

 

[TubeLover]

13 hours ago, wgscott said:

 

 

I almost miss him.  Verily, they definitely added an element of surrealism.

 

I don't think he was ever entirely in this dimension. He reminded me of snippets of a French art film, all shown completely out of context. 

 

JC

[AudioDoctor]

9 hours ago, Ajax said:

Many thanks Chris and Nikhil for the photos - the SHOW is certainly on my bucket list for the near future, but along way for Aus.

 

Sorry for the OT but the photos of the Porches, and references to their upgraded stereos, made me feel the need to report that the "standard" audio systems in both the Porsche and BMW are abysmal. I have had several BMW X3 and have just purchased a Porsche Macan and the sound in both is terrible. I bought new speakers for the BMW, which helped greatly, and will move them across to the Porsche. For two German companies that pride themselves on their engineering (the Porsche is sublime to drive) I'm surprised they don't place more emphasis on their audio.

 

Before I get accused of name dropping and being a tosser, I buy my cars second hand with a few kms (miles) on the clock and simply prefer an older well engineered European car (with the added safety) than a new light weight Korean toy.

 

Keep up the great work Chris - I read CA everyday and love it but don't post often.

 

 

I have the base radio in my Cayman GT4 and I can confirm this, it would be laughably bad if the car weren't so expensive.  Good thing I didn't buy it for the music coming from the speakers...

[Duke40]

12 hours ago, Nikhil said:

Here are some more panels that I was looking at ...

 

@Nikhil, thank you for that, it gives me some ideas, I am grateful.

 

Enjoying your efforts reporting on the show, I, along with many others I am sure appreciate your effort.   Though at times it seems like you and Chris are in a race on who can cover the most ground !   

Good on both of you.

[Nikhil]

22 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

 

You guys should be able to run into each other by tracking where you are by means of the photos.

 

We should have but I was posting from Munich Airport yesterday.  Due to the size of the show, it was just a lot of walking since I only had two days.  My timetable was main halls sweep on Friday morning and browsing the setups in the Atrium rooms in the afternoon,  On Saturday I revisited the Atrium rooms that I liked and made one more sweep of the main halls after 3:00 pm.  Frankly if I was from the industry and looking to make contacts etc I would need every single minute of all four days and then some.  

 

Looking back I focused mainly on the Atriums in Hall 3 and 4 where there were setups for listening.  In the main Halls 1 to 4 downstairs the displays were mostly passive and would appeal more for people in the industry looking to meet each other,  Also due to the many restrictions, many of the demo rooms that were setup in the main ground floor halls had issues.  

 

 

[mjb]

1 hour ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

 

I have the base radio in my Cayman GT4 and I can confirm this, it would be laughably bad if the car weren't so expensive.  Good thing I didn't buy it for the music coming from the speakers...

 

Range Rover has Meridian! Sounds pretty good, though, no MQA. 

[Miska]

My Volvo has pretty Ok sound. Uses Dirac for the optimization...

[PeterSt]

8 minutes ago, Nikhil said:

  22 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

 

You guys should be able to run into each other by tracking where you are by means of the photos.

 

8 minutes ago, Nikhil said:

We should have but I was posting from Munich Airpo

 

Anyway I am sure it's much appreciated by everybody. Thanks !

[Miska]

8 hours ago, bibo01 said:

ZMan is PCI. It would need a backplane, like a PC motherboard, with Ethernet input.

What I would like to understand is what this board actually does. I do not see a clock on it. I2S output has to be built on the backplane?

 

PCI, not PCIe? I would guess it acts like a "sound card". AES67 endpoint doesn't need traditional oscillator, because clock is distributed on the network using PTP protocol and then regenerated using DPLL. For "grandmaster" clock you would probably want to use one. Since the grandmaster broadcasts the clock message periodically, the AES67 protocol interface itself doesn't need to have the clock on board, but nowadays number of ethernet adapters support timestamped PTP.

 

PCI bus itself has 33.333... MHz clock.

[bibo01]

4 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

PCI, not PCIe? I would guess it acts like a "sound card". AES67 endpoint doesn't need traditional oscillator, because clock is distributed on the network using PTP protocol and then regenerated using DPLL. For "grandmaster" clock you would probably want to use one. Since the grandmaster broadcasts the clock message periodically, the AES67 protocol interface itself doesn't need to have the clock on board, but nowadays number of ethernet adapters support timestamped PTP.

 

It's mini-PCI.

[m5sime]

30 minutes ago, bibo01 said:

It's mini-PCI.

Yes. With a couple of RAM chips and an Xilinx 7010 SOC (2 ARM9 cores). It is quite close in design to the Zedboard that Xilinx have for system builders. https://www.xilinx.com/products/boards-and-kits/1-58nuel.html

Sale price of this is circa 170 USD

 

I assume that everything that is needed is in this SoM including the SW. The main question is how much this module costs an OEM integrator (with Ravenna licensing etc)..

 

I would love to see this in the hands of the chinese integrators offering a Ravenna/AES67 AOIP to AES/I2S/SPDIF interface adapter and of course also native AOIP DACs..

[Maldur]

18 hours ago, Miska said:

Something that left a trace in my mind apart from the Estelon and Sound Galleries systems (I'm probably biased regarding those anyway )

Some biasing is not problem. I ask about Estelon's - what trace in Your mind they left? How that "bridge" sounds? Someone mentioned that sound was not so bright, only serious HiFi, not HighEnd...

[skatbelt]

First time visitor to the Munich High End. I expected big but it was even bigger. I managed to complete 75% of my to-do list in my two-day visit. My main focus was loudspeaker reproduction. Good (or promising) sound to my ears and taste:

 

- Lumin / WestminsterLab with Vivid speakers

- Bryston room although I thought it was held back by Bryston's own speakers

- Kharma room

- Trinnov room with Vivid speakers

- Illusonic (this room was more concept oriented but if you - like me - aim for ultimate transparency in living room listening environments this is the way to go)

- EAR Yoshino room

- Boenicke room

- Marten room

 

Most other rooms I visited, including Nagra, Magico, MSB, VAC, Joseph Audio, Harbeth, Wilson and T+A where underwhelming. A lot of them featured unrealistic sound, singers heads with the dimensions of elephants heads and instruments all over the place. Often no depth, no focus, muddiness, harshness and no real definition in the bass region although bass overkill was a problem in most rooms. 

 

On a meta-show-level, I totally agree that something has to be done about the music being played. Let's start a petition to ban Nils Lofgren, Diana Krall, Norah Jones and all the other 'audiophile' rubbish including compositions for timpani's and Irish flutes. I also noticed that almost every room played safe and simple stuff. No big orchestral, symphonic works for example. And in most rooms there was no chance to influence the playlist.

 

Another thing that always bothers me in these shows is the one-brand or fixed brand combinations. I understand this for commercial reasons but if I want to listen to, for example, a loudspeaker I would like to listen to it with a very good source and matching amplification instead of forced (partner) products.

[Miska]

3 hours ago, Maldur said:

Some biasing is not problem. I ask about Estelon's - what trace in Your mind they left? How that "bridge" sounds? Someone mentioned that sound was not so bright, only serious HiFi, not HighEnd...

 

Did you listen to the other speaker pair (YB) too with the electronics outside? They were playing both in turns. It will get even better for the LYNX too, this was preview. Do you want brighter sound (would that make it more high-end)? As always, some recordings are also darker and others are brighter, for classical, DG's releases are typically brighter than some others. Depends on mics and recording distance, etc.

 

I've heard this HQPlayer + electronics (Direct DSD amplifier) on other occasion too, and it sounds good to me.

 

[Miska]

5 hours ago, m5sime said:

I would love to see this in the hands of the chinese integrators offering a Ravenna/AES67 AOIP to AES/I2S/SPDIF interface adapter and of course also native AOIP DACs..

 

Protocol galore, Ravenna, RAAT, NAA, AirPlay, etc... Each serving a bit different purpose.

 

[AudioDoctor]

7 hours ago, mjb said:

 

Range Rover has Meridian! Sounds pretty good, though, no MQA. 

 

That's right, they do.  I have heard it too, it sounded pretty good.

[Ralf11]

Time for a car stereo thread

[AudioDoctor]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

Time for a car stereo thread

 

You'll only get the music coming from my exhaust pipes.   ;-)

[semente]

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...

[Ralf11]

Yes, I often think my air-cooled 911 is too big and I should be in an RS-550 instead.

 

But I'd just like a decent head unit for my 911 - good SQ, reads an ipod and has good distance AM/FM but does not look like a blinking light millennial wet-dream, and is easy to use.

[rando]

I've got your car stereo thread all wrapped up.  "Danger and Distraction; Android and Apple Play are so awful customers are paying extra not have to them added as stock."  Ferrari's ordeal with Apple might be worth two or three more sentences.

 

Ok, merit vs cost/time/devaluing a car adding a comparable sound system to a new car would be interesting.  Audio for cars meet a very different set of criteria and regulations than any other application.  A motivated person could outfit their car with personally constructed equipment far surpassing current safety codes that would effectively bring their ecosystem into the audiophile sphere the above mentioned mass produced ones are drifting further from.  Quad DSD on the trot sounds just fine.