Munich Germany High End Society 2005 Show

Part 1

  Live Bavarian music courtesy of Hinterber Musikanten greeted visitors at the entryway. A truly grand way to begin the show!

 

Focal had their Utopia Beryllium Kit No. 7 in a VW Golf. The drivers/passenger doors held the tweeter, midrange, and midbass drivers while in the rear hatchback was a pair of 8-inch long throw woofers powered. The multi-channel amplifier was the Audison VRX6 420. Audiophiles looking to upgrade their car audio system should seek out both Focal and especially Audison. There are two top names in the business. See Enjoy the Music.com™'s review of the Focal.JMlab Grande Utopia Be here and Mezzo Utopia here.

 

Audion by Fischer, not to be mistaken with another company by nearly the same name, has been in the market for the past few decades and now produces their Preamp 6922 (€2,900, or €3,200 with MM or €3,600 with MC phono stage) proves five inputs and naturally uses a quad of 6922 tube for preamplification. The monoblock Mono 300B amplifiers seen on the floor (€5,200) share a separate external power supply (center), though you can decide to use a pair of them to achieve a separate power supply for each unit. A pair of 300B tubes operating in single ended produces 16 watts per channel.

 

Ergo headphones make use of air velocity transformer in their top line AMT unit (€1500 including dedicated amplifier). They also offer headphones with standard dynamic drivers for those who live in the less-than-ultra-fi-esoteric headphone land.

 

The noon press conference welcomed journalists and provided us with some very interesting information. In 2003, Germany's High End Society show, while successful in Frankfurt, was moved to its now permanent Munich home in 2004 and experienced an outstanding 40 percent increase in consumer attendance. As for today's 2005 show, an expansion of 24 percent in exhibition space allowed for approximately 167 exhibitors with 500 brands filling 14,000 sq. meters. Over 1,800 trade members (not including press) have pre-registered for the show, an 8 percent increase. After chatting with a few other members of the press who felt other consumer shows have been on the decline for exhibition space and consumer attendance, the Germany High End Society is very much on the increase and this was quite evident as i walked through the venue.

 

Acoustic Plan may not be known in America, yet their Sarod preamplifier (€6,000, add €2,500 for transformer-coupled MC stage) has four inputs with one being balanced (XLR) and could be a giant killer! Both balanced (XLR) and singe ended (RCA) outputs included and i must say, this looks to be an amazing unit. The D3A tubes for the MC stage, EZ81 for rectifier, EL86 for series regulation, EF80 for regulation, 75C1 for voltage stabilization, E288CC for line amplification... and 10 transformers. WOW!

 

Cayin's cute little two input, 10 watt per channel MT-12A stereo integrated amplifier (€1,000) uses electronic front buttons for input selection and volume adjustment. A pair of EL84 per channel, 12AU7, and 12AX7 round out the tube compliment.

 

Cayin also caters to headphone junkies (count me in) as their Spark Audio HA-1A (€890), benefits from a pair of EL84 in triode for 2.2 watts of output power. Yes, i asked more as only 2.2 watts appears quite low for a pair of EL84 tubes. It has a single input, preamplifier output, and a pair of loudspeaker binding posts for use with loudspeakers... though headphones may be more to its specialty.

 

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