KL International AV Show 2017 Report
Kuala Lumpur International AV 2017 Show Report
KLIAV 2017 Show Report By Christopher Tan

  Now whither art the Danes? Ahh, having a soiree by themselves with an odd mostly-American in the mix. The Danish brands Raidho, Aavik and Ansuz have been grouped together with a Swedish-American-German alliance in the form of Döhmann turntable.

The Döhmann Helix 1 turntable is outfitted with a Schroeder CB tonearm and Lyra Etna cartridge. Aavik's U-300 integrated amplifier does the RIAA equalization, pre and powers Raidho's D2.1 loudspeakers. Wiring are from Ansuz, in keeping with the Danish heritage. Dear readers, apparently the high end audience in Malaysia are avid vinyl enthusiasts as most of the highest end rooms plays vinyl. The seemingly fuss free and simple setup is actually rather sophisticated sound wise. There is much detail retrieval and soundstage width and depth whilst never ever being construed as forceful or fatiguing. Your dear reporter is getting rather jealous of the Scandinavians now, first their hot blonde women and how this. *Reminds himself to check on immigration requirements to the Nordic kingdoms.

The recently released Yamaha NS5000M was at the show as well, being well into the middle of the room and clearly the dealer took much effort to tune them to sound great in that ballroom. Over a dozen granite slabs were strategically placed in order to balance out the overly dead room. And thus, your intrepid reporter has finished traipsing through the main ballrooms and ventures forth up to the 12th floor where much more rooms awaits.

Not all Hi-Fi made in Asia is from China for the mass market or OEM for name brands for I discovered a Gem in the form of a Singaporean made single driver fullrange loudspeaker. I do not mean ordering drivers with their own brand from OEM factories and slapping it into a box dear readers, oh no. For the fullrange loudspeaker is custom designed from ground up and from scratch for what the designer hopes to be the final word on this matter.

Gamut Magnetic Laboratories Loudspeaker or GML Loudspeakers has their FA80 loudspeaker on demo with a 8" fullrange driver entirely made & assembled in Singapore. Ok that would not be entirely true, the cone material is Japanese washi paper, specifically Mitsumatagami. It is extremely resistant to water damage and was used as currency in ancient Japan. Sporting phenolic dampers (like the old Axiom 80), voice-coil of the same washi paper, foam surround and custom phase plug, the FA80 was powered by 24 watt Line Magnetic LM219 Premium edition that sports a separate power supply with the source being a Line Magnetic Tube CD player CD515 and a Rockna R2R Wavedream DAC.

Here, GML Loudspeaker owner shows off his newest product, a field coil version of their 8" full-range driver.

Another Asian loudspeaker surprise. SB Acoustics, the high end arm of Sinja Baja Electric has the entire manufacturing vertical in Surabaya, Indonesia. Their speakers & loudspeaker drive units are all designed by a Danish team previously with DST (Scan-Speak). Their local distributor also has an array of drivers on display to prove their point.

Silbatone South East Asian representative has not one but two rooms on show with the same unique high efficiency speakers from Horns.pl aptly named Mummy. The white Mummies are powered by an all Silbatone setup featuring the DA100 amplifier, L103 transformer coupled line amplifier, SQ102 phono stage and is fronted by a Light Harmonic Labs' Source Premium Music Server and Silbatone's DAC105 DAC and for the dark side, a PE 4040 turntable mounted with a DS Audio 002 optical cartridge and the Silbatone SQ102 Phono Amplifier. The entire setup draws power through an Audience AR6P power conditioner.

The black Mummies in turn are partnered with the same Light Harmonic Labs' Source but with the VI DAC, same PE 4040 turntable & cartridge. Amplification comes from an Encore7 Single ended integrated amplifier.

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