Copenhagen HighEnd 2018 Show Report
Show Coverage By Clive Meakins

HiFi-freaks.dk were the organizers of the show, they chose to present Triangle Magellan Grande Concert speakers and the brand new Densen B-180150W integrated amplifier, 150W is into 8 Ohms, it's good for 300W into 4 Ohms. The B-180 includes a DAC with optical, coax and USB inputs, streaming such as Tidal, Spotify, Deezer and DLNA is supported via a Densen app. Now that DAC technology development has probably peaked, it makes a lot of sense to have the DAC inside the amplifier and offer the ability for multiple digital sources. It's welcome to see that a number of manufacturers are now following this trend. There was a topless B-175 amplifier showing the production quality of Densen.

The $70,000 Triangle Magellan Grande Concert speakers make real a statement. They are 2.15m high, each channel has four bass drivers, two tweeters and two mid-range units. The mid and tweeters are configured in a bi-polar arrangement so whilst their configuration looks normal from the front, the drivers are doubled up by being replicated at the rear of the center cabinet. The speakers are nominally 4 Ohms, minimum is 2.5 Ohms with a sensitivity of 91dB/W/m. They are specified as going down to 28Hz. Weight is a crushing 100kg but fortunately the speaker comprises three cabinets which are locked together when installed. The locked pressure is said to be 1.6 tons. There's nothing that's under-engineered with these speakers, indeed they are beautifully designed and lovingly crafted to a very high standard.

Out in one of the open areas was the beautiful Bergmann Audio $12,000 Magne turntable with the Odin linear tracking tonearm, this turntable was provided by audiolabs.dk. I'm very much interested by linear tracking arms and the clean simplicity of this deck is a true delight. It's an object lesson in design from the Danes at Bergmann.

Audiolabs.dk also had on static display the German tw-acustic tri-motor Raven AC. This is an example of extreme engineering with tolerances of around 1/100mm. Again it's a beautiful if more purposeful turntable.

Mag-Lev Audio hail from Ljubljana, Slovenia. Their turntable is the result of Kickstarter funding of over $820,000 as well as out-of-box thinking, or is that above-the-box thinking? The levitating turntable comes with a Pro-Jet 9cc tonearm and Ortofon OM10 cartridge. UK pricing is £2,250. Is it a stroke of genius? It would be interesting to put this TT through its paces in a home environment.

The "marketplace" area was busy and comprised vendors with appealing products to sell. It was good to see various record cleaning machines including an ultrasonic machine being promoted.

Being shown for the first time was the Well Tempered Amadeus 254. This is this successor turntable to the Amadeus. The new turntable comes with an LTD 10.5" tonearm, acrylic platter, servo controlled motor with vibration controlled mounting. The plinth is multi-layer and double isolated. Price is €8,500. It's a very attractive design and very much at home in a Scandinavian setting.

---> Next Page.