HIGH END 2023 Show Report
High End Society's HIGH END 2023 Event In Munich Germany
HIGH END 2023 Show Report By Carlos Martin Schwab

  For someone with a background in professional sound, immersing myself in an insanely expensive home audio fair, or High-End (a term that defines the branch of audio that has no limits to reaching sonic perfection), is as interesting as fun, and that's why I've been doing it since 2014. This year, most of the 550 exhibitors did their best and the fair received more than 22,000 visitors.

Audio Group Denmark
Audio Group Denmark launched a new brand, Axxess, and its first product, Axxess Forté, a streaming amplifier series that comes in three versions, Axxess Forté 1, 2, and 3. It has a streamer and a DAC section, as well as an integrated amplifier and a headphone amplifier.

Børresen launched 2 M-series loudspeakers, the M3 and M6. The technologies of the M3 and M6 are the same as those of the M1 but with a larger cabinet size and shape, which allows the use of more driver units. The M3 is equipped with four unique 4.5" M-series speaker drivers connected in series in pairs so that one pair act as a bass/midrange and another pair acts as a bass speaker driver. The same principle applies to the M6, which features 6 unique 4.5" M-series speaker drivers.

The larger cabinet has also improved the ventilation behind the bass/midrange drivers. This provides less compression and thus a much faster and more agile speaker driver, with a better sound image. Furthermore, the bass speaker drivers are equipped with a bass reflex section inside the cabinet, which ensures a dynamic and harmonious balance between midrange and bass.

They launched a X-series loudspeakers too: the X6. It features the Børresen ribbon tweeter and is equipped with 6 of the 4.5" X-series drivers. Compared to the X3 speaker, all technical elements are the same in the X6. The main difference is the larger cabinet, which allows the use of more driver units. These drivers are interconnected so that 2 units work together as bass/midrange and four units work together as bass speaker drivers. Similar to the M-series speakers, this approach ultimately results in increased speed, precision, and depth enriching the speaker with much more musicality.

Another launch was the third generation of the Ansuz PowerSwitch series and Mainz8 Power Distributors, a result of the dedicated and persistent pursuit of ultimate, flawless sound quality. And Aavik launched the SD-880, a streamer / DAC device in close collaboration between Michael Børresen (CEO) and Flemming Rasmussen (CEO of Gryphon Audio). This is a non-switching continuum processing DAC that effectively eliminates problems with time delays and unwanted noise.

The incoming signal from the streamer to the DAC is sampled at 11 MHz, minimizing the influence of noise on the music signal. Ansuz noise reduction Tesla coil technology is utilized to eliminate any remaining noise. Its high-quality capacitors and no microcomputers allow for a powerful signal processing system that significantly reduces unwanted noise.

Crystal Cable
Crystal Cable entered the loudspeaker market with the Minissimo Forte. Its cabinet is machined from a single PU aluminum alloy block with a design to prevent resonance and standing waves and to eliminate parallel walls and common dimensions, resulting in natural resonant decay without resorting to damping materials. Other characteristics: acoustically inert aluminum stand, passive-active crossover, and The Scala, an aluminum spatial form placed at the top of the loudspeaker for sound improvement.

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