My Munich 2016 notes

bonzo75

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The TAD compact evolution smokes them all.....in fact they are good enough to best floorstanders of repute. In fact, I think just to prove the point they were playing large scale orchestral pieces through the compact evolutions, and they sounded nothing short of astounding to me! I didn't hear the CR1s but I guess they will be in another league altogether, if partnered with the right electronics

Cheers

But you didn't hear the Stenheims :)
 

bonzo75

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Agree.....not the small ones:). The big ones sounded very dynamic and huge! But you should have heard the TADs ( assuming you didn't). They are really very impressive for their size

I did last year and have heard the big TAD once at an UK show
 

gian60

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I am interesting to buy TAD cr1
I have 2 Kondo Souga and i would like to try to biamp them
I spoke with mr. Frank,Tad ambassador,and told me is sure power is ok,he listen one time with Ongaku and the sound was fantastic.
I had also Ongaku but Souga seems same power
We see
 

gian60

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The big TAd R1 i dont like
Too much bass and midbass,and disappear the beauty of the mid
The CR1 has less low but mid is fantastic
 

bonzo75

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I am interesting to buy TAD cr1
I have 2 Kondo Souga and i would like to try to biamp them
I spoke with mr. Frank,Tad ambassador,and told me is sure power is ok,he listen one time with Ongaku and the sound was fantastic.
I had also Ongaku but Souga seems same power
We see

Good choice. But compare it to Stenheim monitors if you can
 

bonzo75

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The big TAd R1 i dont like
Too much bass and midbass,and disappear the beauty of the mid
The CR1 has less low but mid is fantastic

I agree with you there. I didn't like the bloat either
 

gian60

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other choice is stenheim,
I have to check first if Souga power is ok,and second if there is special price being not imported in Italy.
Tad i can have new at very very special price
 

KeithR

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I wish Stenheims were distributed more in the US. I think they only have a single dealer - they are efficient and beautifully made.

i would never pair TADs with Kondo fwiw
 

tunes

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I've heard the Stenheim Alumine 3 combo with Nagra VPA and Audio consulting phono/pre. Was very impressed by them. They are in a small footprint and beautifully designed. I hope to be able to hear the Alumine 5 later this year as they are more realistic to be a good fit for my medium-sized listening space. Bonzo, what size room were the Alumine 5 playing in?
 

gian60

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I know Tad with Kondo is a strange and crazy idea,but is a second system and i am looking for a good small speaker for them.
I have now elecrovoice sentry III with a Be Yamamura supertweeter,a TAd 703 modified

My first system is CH Precision with one italian speaker,Montagna speaker that Bonzo listened at home of one my friend,and you can triamp this speaker.
I have L1,C1,X1,P1 and 2 A1,and i am buying,M1 to triamp this speaker
 

bonzo75

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I've heard the Stenheim Alumine 3 combo with Nagra VPA and Audio consulting phono/pre. Was very impressed by them. They are in a small footprint and beautifully designed. I hope to be able to hear the Alumine 5 later this year as they are more realistic to be a good fit for my medium-sized listening space. Bonzo, what size room were the Alumine 5 playing in?

Check post 6 on this thread for pics. It is an extremely small room, speakers on either side of the rack almost in the corner.
 

Rhapsody

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Thanks, rvisinta. I thought I had read somewhere that the Magico M3 would be debuted in Munich. I must have been mistaken. Do you know when and where they will have their first public demonstration?

Hi Peter,

Honestly I don't. I doubt Newport Beach, but I could be wrong. We shall hear shortly probably, I will ask Peter from Magico if they have a public showing planned at this time. I have my pair on order!
 

Elberoth

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I wish I found those lil Stenheims. I have only heard the big ones, but didn't care about the sound. Too hard and mechanical sounding for me.

My personal best list was:

1. Magico M-Project / Soulution (Saturday only, when they were using the 701 monos)
2. Sound Galleries demo off site in BMW Welt, with Sound Galleries music server, T+A DSD DAC, Hypex NC500 based monos and Vivids Gyia G1s.
3. Magico S5 mk 2 / Constellation room.

Further on that:
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?20612-New-Q3-mini-M-Pro&p=394442&viewfull=1#post394442

On the budget end of things, I liked the new cheap TADs, the Totems Element 5s and the Auditech Horns bonzo mentioned.

The Kondo room was very soft/warm/intimate sounding. Definately not for large scale music - the room was way too big.

The rooms that disappointed me most were the big Stenheims, Cessaro and Zellaton.

The Cessaro and Zellaton are an interesting examples. I go to those rooms every year to understand the hype, but I'm still not there yet. The Cessaro to me has all the problems assiociated with (bad) tube designs, and Zellaton just sounds very unnatural and 2D, with the only high point beeing the speed of the speaker. Maybe next year I will be more lucky.
 

Elberoth

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Again to make sure anyone reading this hears the complete story as to not be confused by one person's opinion, I worked in the Kondo/Kaiser room for four full days.

I wish I knew that ! I was there many times, chatting with the Masaki San and Richard. We will have a chance to know each other in June, when I visit NY.
 

Rhapsody

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To all concerned, I am not saying the the sound of the Kaiser/Kawero was good or bad, what I am saying all that I witnessed in the room. If you pick any particular room and ask 10 different people there would be a divide, unless something was REALLY great. Again, judging sound at a show with any system that is set up in one day is not on my radar, I just don't comprehend how the specific sonic evaluation is all that useful. BUT there is nothing wrong with people having their opinions on the sound in rooms....again I just said what I witnessed.

I do NOT want people to think that Kaiser/Kondo are novices....they do understand:) We knew it was "pushing" it with the Kaweros in the size of the room that we acquired. MOC is very difficult to get a good room and Kaiser has only been there exhibiting for a few years, as well as Kondo. The space this year was huge, but available and so Kaiser brought in three large truckloads of Kaiser woodworking to bring the room down to a more realistic size, although you still had to "pressurise" the full volume of the room.

Possibly next year Kaiser will have a speaker that they have been working on that WILL fill up the size space that was used this year. Although the Kawero was being asked to do yeomen's duty as I've stated, and it was my only point that a LOT of people loved the sound. People understood that it was a large space but they still appreciated the music that the Kondo/Kaiser system offered. Even though for many this room was not their cup of tea for a whole lot of the visitors it was. This was my only point.

As a dealer I am biased so I definitely would not offer my personal opinion on the sound, although I do know what the sound is like in client's homes who own the Kaweros. Not the Kondo and Kaweros, but the Kaweros. I know MANY people on this forum didn't like the set up, but I'm telling you there were a LOT of people that did, per the post below from Europe.

Here is a post (#86) from http://www.euphonia-audioforum.se/forums/index.php?showtopic=11918&page=3#entry206489 in Europe (I translated it)

Now I can not keep it anymore.

The best room at the fair. I thought it already on day 1 and had this room as the clear favorite for day 2, but after day 2, I was floored.

Kaiser Kawero and Kondo wins the fair's best sound in place 1 and also 2. No one was really around in my opinion. This year Kawero pimped to somewhere between 900,000 and 1.000.000kr. Starting at approximately SEK 500,000 then you can pimp it to about 1.500.000kr. It was what it cost last year, but it sounded better this year with turntables and electronics from Kondo.
Esoteric accounted for CD games the year. On the approximately 2 hours I was in the room in total, we heard a bar pianolåt CD and it sounded great.

They had much effort to make the room good. It was a room that was large, certainly more than 100sqm.

This system does everything I want in a system.
Dynamics both micro and macro is good. Really good .I will be amazed at these relatively small speakers that play credible in scale 1: 1. Very unusual, I think.
The dynamics are linear in the frequency range which means that everything stays together. As levels. That sounds believable. You miss måååånga other manufacturers ..
Klang Balance is good. The instruments have a credible sound.
Transparency is top, free airy and soft where it should be, hard where it should be, a little there it must be there, big where it should be.
I tried to find something that could be better but it could not defend himself because I was so taken by the music that I fell head over heels. Maybe it is the best system I heard that music is central. I have heard more spectacular systems and more brutal in different ways, but no better as music mediator. And this at a trade show !!!

The soundstage was great. It had pulled apart the speakers more than normal for that reason. You can increase focus and tight to sound a bit if you move it all together a bit.


Thanks Kaiser Kawero that I got this experience.

Possibly it could be a bit more depth strained base if you were playing something challenging electronically. But there is nothing I would just cry over.


The summary is that it plays music I want to hear music.

DIFFERENT STROKES FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS....keeps the world "spinning round".
 
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Rhapsody

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I wish I knew that ! I was there many times, chatting with the Masaki San and Richard. We will have a chance to know each other in June, when I visit NY.

Sounds great Adam, looking forward to it!
 

wisnon

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I wish I found those lil Stenheims. I have only heard the big ones, but didn't care about the sound. Too hard and mechanical sounding for me.

My personal best list was:

1. Magico M-Project / Soulution (Saturday only, when they were using the 701 monos)
2. Sound Galleries demo off site in BMW Welt, with Sound Galleries music server, T+A DSD DAC, Hypex NC500 based monos and Vivids Gyia G1s.
3. Magico S5 mk 2 / Constellation room.

Further on that:
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?20612-New-Q3-mini-M-Pro&p=394442&viewfull=1#post394442

On the budget end of things, I liked the new cheap TADs, the Totems Element 5s and the Auditech Horns bonzo mentioned.

The Kondo room was very soft/warm/intimate sounding. Definately not for large scale music - the room was way too big.

The rooms that disappointed me most were the big Stenheims, Cessaro and Zellaton.

The Cessaro and Zellaton are an interesting examples. I go to those rooms every year to understand the hype, but I'm still not there yet. The Cessaro to me has all the problems assiociated with (bad) tube designs, and Zellaton just sounds very unnatural and 2D, with the only high point beeing the speed of the speaker. Maybe next year I will be more lucky.

Which big Stenheims? The Reference or the Refernce Statment ($500K retail with 4 boxes at 300kg each)?

I LOVED the latter when I heard it in the Valais..
 

wisnon

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To summarize, the smaller stenheims and Horns autotec are potential purchase choices for small to medium sized rooms (needs further auditions in proper settings), unless one can get a decent sized room for big apogees or big horns. Feickert Firebird seems pretty good for the price.

Yes, the baby Stenheims and the Trenner&Freidl ARt speakers are great small room speakers that are extremely difficult to beat.
 

wisnon

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You can see how small the Stenheim room with audio consulting.ch is.

Also attached the direct drive TT
Clement Perry of Stereo Times covered Serge/Audio-Consulting in the past. I think he has made more than 2 in home visits to A-Consulting (in Commugny, Switzerland).
 

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