Munich 2024

Walking around this show, your brain blurs. So much information. So little time. But occasionally, a flash of light reflecting a gold hardware detail catches your eye. Consider, for example, amplification products from HSE Swiss Huber, which are beautiful to behold and beautifully made.

Brand Ambassador Johnnes Farkas showed the HSE Swiss ML-7 Masterline Phono Preamp, the HSE Swiss ML-8 Masterline Preamp, and the dual HSE Swiss Reference Phono Preamp and Power Supply.

The dual mono Masterline 7 Phono Preamp (€30,717) is a stunning piece of class-A machinery, from its stepped, gold tinted pairs of Impedance, Capacity, and Gain (84dB) dials to its dual VU meters. Various switches address one of three balanced inputs, subsonic filter, invert, mute, VU light, VU scale, and impedance.

The Masterline 8 Preamp (€92,147) is equally robust and flush with options. It includes large, stepped dials for balanced input selection, EQ High and EQ Low, Balance, and Volume. Switches control EQ, invert, LSA and LSB, VU light and VU scale. And a headphone jack.

HSE Swiss’s smaller set, the Reference Phono Preamp and Power Supply, also features balanced inputs and outputs and is class-A, offering a diminutive version of its larger siblings’ prowess.

Designed by a former Studer engineer, Robert Huber, who holds 14 international patents for Studer, Soundcraft and Harman, HSE Swiss Huber products may have sat in static display, but craft and beauty were apparent even if they weren't playing music.