Acoustic Signature
German analog powerhouse Acoustic Signature roared into High End Munich with a trio of new products: two feature-packed phono stages and a cutting-edge tonearm. Their booth was a showcase of gleaming AS equipment, from precision tonearms and turntables, including the behemoth Invictus Neo, to meticulously crafted, matte-finish phono stages.
Air Tight, Wolf Van Langa, Zafino, Cardas
Air Tight Managing Director Yutaka "Jack" Miura was in Munich to introduce the new Air Tight Stereo Power Amplifier ATM-1 (price TBD).
AudioNec, DarTZeel, Hemingway, Graphite Audio
“Hitting the ground running” is a suspicious phrase at High End Munich. The show is humongous, a beast, four large buildings with three floors apiece crammed to the rafters with every imaginable audio brand, many unknown to me and most American hi-fi fans.
Baun Audio, Ideon Audio, and JMF Audio
My second press day at Munich High End began with an intimate press conference at the Ideon/Baun loudspeaker booth in Halle 3. Benno Baun Meldgaard, former speaker designer for Gamut, Raidho, and Gryphon, was not on hand to discuss the latest developments in his forthcoming speaker line. I didn’t have time to view the latest prototype of those speakers, which I first encountered at the 2023 Pacific Audiofest, but the first speaker in the Baun line-up is due by the end of 2024. Designed to sit very close to the rear wall, the speakers will range upward in price from about $23,000/pair.
Benny Audio, Thoress, Java, AudioSolutions
Benny Audio, founded in 2017 and based in Gliwice, Poland, produces massive turntables that recall TechDas and Acoustic Signature. BA’s flagship Odyssey model, including 14" tonearm with direct wiring and power supply (€24,000), drew every eye in their Munich room as it spun vinyl with muscularity and deep-earth, saturated tone.
Borg.Audio
The electronics of Borg.Audio’s Christian Gunther look like they're straight off the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. With their retro-futuristic visual style, you’re bound to either love or hate them. Though I didn’t hear them at Gunther’s static display, I’m already in the first camp.
Brilliant Corners #18: Adventures in Schwabylon, Ortofon Cadenza Mono Phono Cartridge
Meeting up at High End Munich: Grover Neville (left), a contributor to Stereophile's late headphone blog InnerFidelity, with his dad, Craig, a civil engineer from Chicago.
"Schwabing isn't a neighborhood, but a state of being," declared the Countess Fanny zu Reventlow, an early feminist who scandalized German society by parenting out of wedlock, carrying a revolver, and practicing what today tends to be called ethical nonmonogamy. Thomas Mann described the fellow denizens of this northern corner of Munich as "the most singular, the most delicate, the boldest exotic plants." At the turn of the last century, Schwabing was on its way to becoming the artistic epicenter of Europe, a laboratory for the most progressive social ideas, and arguably the birthplace of modernity. Kandinsky made Western art's first abstract painting while living there; local cafes once patronized by Lenin would soon host a young Adolf Hitler. Some called it Schwabylon.
These days, Schwabing's spotless, freshly paved streets are lined with the glass-and-steel facades of Hiltons and Marriotts. Its proximity to MOC, Munich's titanic convention center, has turned the neighborhood into a destination for business travelers from near and far.Cessaro, Döhmann, Acustica Applicata
Big components need a big room and a big man to explain it. Nick Döhmann talked turkey and then some regarding his new Döhmann Helix One Mk3 turntable ($70,000) with a new 10.5” Supatrac Nighthawk tonearm (£12,500), and Air Tight Opus 1 cartridge.
Daryl Wilson (re)introduces the re-envisioned WATT/Puppy (Video)
Mansour Mamaghani’s Audio Reference, one of Munich’s top high-end showrooms, again filled a massive exhibit space in the MOC with multiple display areas dedicated to major brands.
Dynaudio’s new loudspeakers
As it has done in previous years, Dynaudio opted for a huge ground floor foyer area that, in addition to a huge, divided space in which to exhibit new and forthcoming models, offered a large meeting room for distributors and press. Ably assisted by Michael “Mike” Manousselis and John Quick of Dynaudio North America, I spent a dizzying half hour or so receiving an overview of four forthcoming models.