Hifi Pig in Munich, The Final Report

For those of you that don’t know, High End is, arguably, the most incredible audio show on the planet — imagine CES, but only for audio. If that doesn’t curl your hair, you’re wearing a wig — or haven’t been to CES. Anyway, the short of it is that there just isn’t a US-based audio show that can hold a candle to the sheer size, scale, and impact of this European behemoth.

Seems that this show is just fundamentally different in the way that it’s seen by the hosting city — there are billboards and signs everywhere. Folks bring families. It’s a regional event, unlike some of the hi-fi shows I’ve been to, which sometimes feel more like a fetishist conference. Ah, well. Lessons still need to be learned. As for me, the lesson I’ve learned is to schedule my personal vacations a bit better — I’m going to Germany next year.

In the meantime, feel free to enjoy this final part to the High End Show coverage from Munich, Germany. Stuart Smith over at Hifi Pig has graciously “syndicated” his reports — many thanks for letting folks on the wrong side of the pond in on the action!

The Final Report

Well there’s a massive amount to see at Munich High End and there’s no way that we could have hoped to have visited every room and every exhibitor but we did see a lot and we did manage to spend time listening in many of the rooms. Overall we thought the show to be very well organised and we met some very nice people.

So in this final part of Hifi Pig show report of Munich High End 2013 we’ll give you a mixture of photographs and brief write ups of some of the rooms where music was played.

Ayon

Hugely impressive loudspeakers with ribbon tweeters that delivered the music in an airy and incisive manner. However, the room did divide opinion with Mrs Hif Pig not been quite as enthusiastic as I was.

Tune Audio, Total Dac

One of the standout rooms for me. I’d spoken to the manufacturer of the Total Dac previously as he lives just up the road in Brittany, France but never had the opportunity to hear his creation. It’s a clever thing being a DAC with an inbuilt crossover. The Tune loudspeakers are a 3 way horn design distributed by Jack at BD Audio in the UK with whom we had a good chat in the beer garden…in the rain.The sound in the room was very impressive indeed being deep, controlled and insightful and “sweet” with solo instruments – my notes say beautiful! Definitely a sound I could live with…but where to put that sub?

Zeta Zero

Zeta Zero are a Polish manufacturer who make the Picolla and Venus Edition loudspeakers pictured plus a handful of other speakers, the 1175W 1175 power amp and the 1176 six channel home cinema and stereo preamp.

Avantgarde

Hugely impressive as Linette has already stated with the Trios and six Bass Horns but equally impressive was the much smaller Zero 1 which retails at €9000. Interesting concept the Zero 1 which includes onboard DAC and power amps meaning all you have to do I plug them into the mains, plug in the source (Airport Express for example) and that’s it. No speaker cables as the two units communicate wirelessly…simple and an ideal solution for those wanting great sound with minimum fuss.

Acoustic Signature

Very impressive looking turntables indeed!

Audio Research

Thoress

German amps and pre amps that just oozed quality! I may have mentioned these before but please excuse if I do so again.

There’s a lot more over at HiFi Pig!