Munich 2019

Pretty eye-catching, eh? Such was the class act from Göbel High End, who even brought their own room treatment panels to the show.

When Dynaudio’s Mike Manousselis told me that the new Dynaudio Confidence 30 ($20,000/pair) has a new Esotar3 tweeter, I thought of John Atkinson, who praised this company’s tweeters in a review some years back. The new tweeter includes a Hexis inner dome to help dissipate back wave energy and, as with all the other new drivers in the speaker, uses new “ultra-powerful” neodymium magnets.

I was never able to take a photo of Octave’s full system, because so many people were walking up to the equipment rack and Focal Scala speakers to ogle Octave’s new Jubilee 300B amplifier (54,000 Euros). (That’s what happens when you display in one of the big glass-entranced spaces surrounding three sides of the first floor Atriums in the MOC.) You’ll have to settle for this photo, taken of a static display on the other side of the room divider from the active system.

Without forethought, at every audio show I attend, I inevitably end up smiling, relaxed, and happy in the Gershman Acoustics room. Especially lately, when the always-cheerful Ofra Gershman is playing the $13k/pair Grand Avant Garde floor-standing loudspeakers.

I quit smoking before cigarettes hit $5/pack. I sold my last car, a nickel green 1977 Mercedes 300D, for $500. But I have sold a lot of six-figure audio amplifiers, and clearly, the juicy audio good stuff—the super-exotic—blows everybody’s mind. 1893 Chateau Lafite Rothschild gear is out of the reach of the lumpen proletariat. But so what? It is still cool and spectacularly wild and a blast to listen to, which anyone can do at an audio show. Take the all-out Aries Cerat system Joshua Masongsong of Believe High Fidelity was showing at Munich 2019. Have you ever heard anything like this?

Playing in Room F210 on the top level atrium of Hall 4: Two pair of Focal Scala Utopia EVO loudspeakers ($39,995/pair) with lots of Naim electronics and cabling. Also in the system was a VPI Prime Signature turntable, but it wasn't in use when I was in the room. The key items in this room, though, were humble footers: specifically, IsoAcoustics GAIA-Titan Theis isolators—not so humble after all, on second thought, since they cost $899.99 for a set of four. The loudspeakers—white and green—were arranged in alternate pairs, their acoustical centers shifted by a few degrees.

In Munich, electronics company Constellation Audio was demoing with Magico M2 loudspeakers ($63,000 / pair with M-Pod footers). Spinning vinyl was the Continuum Audio Labs Obsidian turntable ($35,000) w/Viper Tonearm ($10,000) and Ortofon A-95 Cartridge ($6,000). Phono preamplification was by Constellation—their Andromeda phono stage ($18,000). On the digital side, the source was Constellation's Cygnus Media Player/DAC ($38,000). Constellation's Pictor preamp was in use ($18,000), as was a pair of their Taurus monoblocks ($39000/pair).