No, you are wrong. You cannot DSP away the fundamental attraction and repulsion of the rotor to the magentic poles of the stator. You have to remove the poles to get rid of cogging. Kenwood designed a coreless/slotless motor for its L07-D masterpiece. Control electronics become very important then. You can probably smooth it a bit but you cannot eliminate it. A lot of the best tape machines had coreless motors...at least for the computer industry. The motor I bought for my own TT experimentations is in fact such a motor, which is coreless with 156 slots (it is a brushed not brushless motor so is truly DC). The motor that TechDas is using seems to be a slotted AC motor that they drive with 3 phase supply but the speed will be locked by a synthesized frequency most likely. OR it is a brushless DC design, which is really AC with 3 phase sinusoidal commutation. That lessens torque ripple but doesn't eliminate cogging. Back when I had a Voyd it was 3 motors with split phase powersupply it had 3 Papst AC motors that were each 120° out of phase with each other. That worked quite well and minimized these effects as well but still not eliminate them. BTW, it does affect the sound but unless you compare the same TT but with different motor drive it is tough to decouple from other aspects.
High end Munich 2017
- Thread starter flyer
- Start date
No, you are wrong. You cannot DSP away the fundamental attraction and repulsion of the rotor to the magentic poles of the stator. You have to remove the poles to get rid of cogging. Kenwood designed a coreless/slotless motor for its L07-D masterpiece. Control electronics become very important then. You can probably smooth it a bit but you cannot eliminate it. A lot of the best tape machines had coreless motors...at least for the computer industry. The motor I bought for my own TT experimentations is in fact such a motor, which is coreless with 156 slots (it is a brushed not brushless motor so is truly DC). The motor that TechDas is using seems to be a slotted AC motor that they drive with 3 phase supply but the speed will be locked by a synthesized frequency most likely. OR it is a brushless DC design, which is really AC with 3 phase sinusoidal commutation. That lessens torque ripple but doesn't eliminate cogging. Back when I had a Voyd it was 3 motors with split phase powersupply it had 3 Papst AC motors that were each 120° out of phase with each other. That worked quite well and minimized these effects as well but still not eliminate them. BTW, it does affect the sound but unless you compare the same TT but with different motor drive it is tough to decouple from other aspects.
For someone who’s had a passive disinterest in most hi-fi shows based on what previous exposure I’ve had, I can honestly say I went to the High End show with only a modicum of expectation. Compounded by the fact that many if not most systems would be subject to “show conditions”, and with it being my first ever trip to Munich, I tempered my heart and prepared for two days of being underwhelmed.
I was so wrong.
Let’s talk about those “conditions”…
Where else in the world would I be able to casually bump into Michael Lavorgna, shake his hand and tell him to his face how much I enjoy his “Lovely Recordings”? Where else can you walk into a room and hear Mark Lanegan’s “Sphinx” from Black Pudding as the first song of the show (thanks to Sean Casey from Zu)? Where else could I share a U-Bahn carriage with Aesthetix’s Jim White and his son Ozzy and chat about Munich being the only show they always attend and have done so for the last 10 years? Where else would I get to meet Joe Roberts of Sound Practices/Silbertone fame and spend half an hour consumed in conversation not limited to the joys of the Garrard 301 relative to the Lenco, the hazards of practising the blues in your bedroom, and the general decline in the quality of Amsterdam’s marijuana compared to the early 80’s? (Joe seemed to know a lot about the latter.) Where else could I talk to Thomas Schick about the merits of the Commonwealth relative to his still-in-development Schick 14? Where else is there to hear the Kronos Pro in not one, but four different systems (Goebel Epoque Ref/CH, Nagra/Wilson, Absolare/Rockport and VAC/Von Schweikert)? Where else could I listen to the EMT950, the Thales TTT-Slim II, the SME, the Kuzma, the Döhmann, the Reed, the Kondo Ginga, replinthed TD124’s and 301’s and the Primary Control? Where else would I get to hear the Stax SR-007 Mk II, the Audeze LCD-4 and LCD-XC, the Abyss AB-1266 Phi and Diana (which I really liked) all within spitting distance of one another? Where else could you see people of all ages, nationalities and genders sit down and listen to music? Where else could I go to dinner and enjoy a fantastic Thai meal (on Friday) and Indian meal (on Saturday) in the company of some of the nicest, most down-to-Earth guys (audio-nerds) you could ever meet? Where else in the world can you spend two days listening to the greatest collection of assembled hi-fi trophy systems and not hear a single instance of either Diana Krall or Eva Cassidy?
And those systems?
Well, first the ones I didn’t get to hear. I had hoped Noble’s line of IEMs might be at the show but either I missed their booth (very possible in Munich) or they didn’t attend. Queued a couple of times to hear Final Audio Design’s Sonorous X but their booth was really busy. Would have liked to hear the Gryphon stuff but the two times I went in not a single note of music was playing. Hoped the Living Voice room might have played the NeoDio Origine CD player rather than the Canary Audio CD-300, but they didn’t despite have two Origine’s in the same room. Would have loved to have heard one of the Acoustical Systems cartridges, but they were all on static display along side the Apolyt and new phono stage, the Evocator. Would have been great to hear Graham/Chartwell’s LS3/5a but they were only playing the LS3/5, which aside from being “better sounding” isn’t the reason I would choose them over the LS3/5a. Telos Audio was showing its Grounding Noise Reducer and giving technical demonstrations, but was unable to hear a before/after demo, despite the GNR being used in the Absolare suite. Didn't hear a single Tech Das, for some reason, and being a newbie, didn’t realise the Marriot was its own thing, so didn’t get to hear anything there, sorry.
Potential? Thought the Thomas Mayer/Primary Control room with Wolf von Langa’s Audio Frame Chicago model had a lot of it. I listened to a Neil Young track that was really convincing in terms of the force applied to the acoustic guitar and the delineation of individual up-down strokes, but wasn’t quite as coherent in the mid-low bass. Stenheim is a brand I’ve wanted to hear for a while, but despite showing their Reference Ultime with Wadax’s Atlantis Transport, Server and DAC failed to connect for me for whatever reason. Possibly a mismatch of amplification? That also seemed to be the case in the Kaiser Acoustics/Kondo suite, in which I thought the Kawero Classic C3 showed promise but the G-1000/Kagura seemed to not quite give the sort of dynamics and resolution the speaker could be capable of. Living Voice showed the Vox Palladian and Palladian Basso (powered by their own 500W MOSFET amps) and also seemed short on dynamics, despite scaling quite well and being quite coherent for a 5-way, and came across as overly insipid and saccharine. I’ve had LV OBX-RW’s in the past, and have a great deal of respect for Kevin Scott. Despite the claims to the contrary, the OBX’s needed a lot more power than their on-paper specifications suggested, and though I wanted to like the Vox Palladian/Basso system for what it did well, there wasn’t enough force and tension in the music to be really convincing. But hey, that’s just me, on that day, in a packed room, off-centre, and y’know, under “show conditions”.
My favourite rooms?
Zellaton showed their Stage, a 2.5-way that is possibly my new dynamic speaker crush (sorry YG). With an amp and pre from YS Sound (who I’d never heard of), a Reed Muse 3C turntable, a small village of Schnerzinger cables, power distributors and Giga Protectors, I loved the way it dealt with smaller, more gossamer sounds, and had a coherence, suppleness and vitality that never got edgy or hard. They also had the Refent Audio Gramophone Unit (who I’ve also never heard of) that looks quite a lot like the Physical Emotions Caeles turntable, but I only got to hear one track before they switched over to the Reed.
Yep, what can I add to the Silbatone/Western Electric room that hasn’t already been said? With Schick’s Commonwealth, Schröder’s Neumann, a DCS Scarlatti feeding Silbatone’s SQ-102 Mk II phono, DAC100 Silver Edition converter, L-101 pre, and bi-amped with a RP-300 Mk II for the mids and highs and a pair of RP30W monos for the two field-coil 4181a 18” drivers in W-cabs, I visited and re-visited several times just to experience the sheer awe of scale, force, ease and sublimity that the Mirrorphonic 3 (a half-sized version of the 2) conferred to every piece of music they played. Talking to a few in attendance, the 12a/13a combo of 2014 still rates very highly, but Joe Roberts is adamant the Mirrorphonic is still his favourite, and who I am to disagree with a man that’s heard every single piece of vintage WE gear ever to find its final resting place at Silabtone HQ?
I absolutely loved Sven Boenicke’s little W5 paired with his own newly revised e2 integrated that has eschewed its original Class A/B output stage for a Class D design (!!), albeit with a Holborne no-gain input buffer, a purist volume control with only ever a single resistor in the signal path, a 2:1 step-up transformer combined with the switching output stage producing 400W into 8ohms. My Lord In Heaven, this little system paired with CAD 1543 MkII DAC and Transport, with a slew of Ground Controls, was seriously one of the most expectation-defying systems I heard. The W5 is tiny, with a single 3” widebander mated to a 5.25” long-throw woofer on the side, all with 1st order crossovers, but for me, at least, one of the most enjoyable, weighty, punchy, dynamic and vivid systems I heard. The W5 is not inexpensive (3500 CHF), but as a second/office/apartment system option where space is limited, I can’t think of anything else I’d be happier with. Still my most preferred small speaker regardless of price.
All the above three rooms from Zellaton, Silbatone and Boenicke had me return multiple times, despite attempts to bask in the other SOTA systems present. But the one I returned to most? Are my biases that transparent? Flyer’s and Stavros’ Aries Cerat suite, with the Symphonia’s I heard several weeks ago dragged from Brussels to a tiny but actually okay sounding room, was - for the things I most value in reproduction - still the high-water mark for me personally. And why? Though I experienced many emotions and thought many thoughts throughout the weekend, the AC room was the only one that most explicitly articulated the intent and visceral sense of force and touch of individual musicians crafting and emoting via their breath, fingers, hands and feet. Having just heard Manicini’s Pink Panther theme in another room featuring tubes and horns, I returned to hear the exact same rendition via the AC stuff and was shocked - shocked I tell you - at how the materiality of the vibes that follow in unison with the piano during the intro were rendered as individuated solid bars of aluminium played (not ‘hit’) with little rubber mallets wound in cord all with their own dynamic volition and sense of expression that was completely glossed over in the previous system. The propagation of energy was also suspended in space in a way that was totally different to the piano, the triangle, bass and hi-hat. There was just a much more palpable sense of musicianship in every note, and when the sax came in around thirteen seconds, I got more of a sense of the bio-mechanical mechanism of diaphragm, throat and tongue shaping each phrase as if the saxophonist was trying to create art rather than merely make sound. I tried very hard to like a lot of supposedly very good, very well-respected systems during those two days, but none came close to the Aries Cerat Talos Limited Edition phono stage, Kassandra Signature DAC, Impera II Reference pre, Concero 65 monos and Symphonias. At least, not for me, and not with regard to my sensibilities, preferences and biases, contextualised within the limits of my perception, for whatever that might be worth.
Will I go next year? Maybe. Munich is an amazing city - people on bikes wait at intersections for lights, pedestrians wait to cross the road, people on the U-Bahn wait to get on until the people getting off get off, people are okay talking English with you and there’s plenty more great restaurants to uncover. I also didn’t have a single bratwurst, so that alone must be remedied.
It was also fun meeting User211, Jazzhead and Bonzo75, as well as spending a really enjoyable evening with Morricab and his beautiful family. Much appreciation toward the kind and gracious hours I spent with Stavros and Flyer, who continue to impress me with their straight-up, no-BS approach to music, life and hi-fi. To those I did not meet, well, there’s always next year, right?
Best,
853guy
I was so wrong.
Let’s talk about those “conditions”…
Where else in the world would I be able to casually bump into Michael Lavorgna, shake his hand and tell him to his face how much I enjoy his “Lovely Recordings”? Where else can you walk into a room and hear Mark Lanegan’s “Sphinx” from Black Pudding as the first song of the show (thanks to Sean Casey from Zu)? Where else could I share a U-Bahn carriage with Aesthetix’s Jim White and his son Ozzy and chat about Munich being the only show they always attend and have done so for the last 10 years? Where else would I get to meet Joe Roberts of Sound Practices/Silbertone fame and spend half an hour consumed in conversation not limited to the joys of the Garrard 301 relative to the Lenco, the hazards of practising the blues in your bedroom, and the general decline in the quality of Amsterdam’s marijuana compared to the early 80’s? (Joe seemed to know a lot about the latter.) Where else could I talk to Thomas Schick about the merits of the Commonwealth relative to his still-in-development Schick 14? Where else is there to hear the Kronos Pro in not one, but four different systems (Goebel Epoque Ref/CH, Nagra/Wilson, Absolare/Rockport and VAC/Von Schweikert)? Where else could I listen to the EMT950, the Thales TTT-Slim II, the SME, the Kuzma, the Döhmann, the Reed, the Kondo Ginga, replinthed TD124’s and 301’s and the Primary Control? Where else would I get to hear the Stax SR-007 Mk II, the Audeze LCD-4 and LCD-XC, the Abyss AB-1266 Phi and Diana (which I really liked) all within spitting distance of one another? Where else could you see people of all ages, nationalities and genders sit down and listen to music? Where else could I go to dinner and enjoy a fantastic Thai meal (on Friday) and Indian meal (on Saturday) in the company of some of the nicest, most down-to-Earth guys (audio-nerds) you could ever meet? Where else in the world can you spend two days listening to the greatest collection of assembled hi-fi trophy systems and not hear a single instance of either Diana Krall or Eva Cassidy?
And those systems?
Well, first the ones I didn’t get to hear. I had hoped Noble’s line of IEMs might be at the show but either I missed their booth (very possible in Munich) or they didn’t attend. Queued a couple of times to hear Final Audio Design’s Sonorous X but their booth was really busy. Would have liked to hear the Gryphon stuff but the two times I went in not a single note of music was playing. Hoped the Living Voice room might have played the NeoDio Origine CD player rather than the Canary Audio CD-300, but they didn’t despite have two Origine’s in the same room. Would have loved to have heard one of the Acoustical Systems cartridges, but they were all on static display along side the Apolyt and new phono stage, the Evocator. Would have been great to hear Graham/Chartwell’s LS3/5a but they were only playing the LS3/5, which aside from being “better sounding” isn’t the reason I would choose them over the LS3/5a. Telos Audio was showing its Grounding Noise Reducer and giving technical demonstrations, but was unable to hear a before/after demo, despite the GNR being used in the Absolare suite. Didn't hear a single Tech Das, for some reason, and being a newbie, didn’t realise the Marriot was its own thing, so didn’t get to hear anything there, sorry.
Potential? Thought the Thomas Mayer/Primary Control room with Wolf von Langa’s Audio Frame Chicago model had a lot of it. I listened to a Neil Young track that was really convincing in terms of the force applied to the acoustic guitar and the delineation of individual up-down strokes, but wasn’t quite as coherent in the mid-low bass. Stenheim is a brand I’ve wanted to hear for a while, but despite showing their Reference Ultime with Wadax’s Atlantis Transport, Server and DAC failed to connect for me for whatever reason. Possibly a mismatch of amplification? That also seemed to be the case in the Kaiser Acoustics/Kondo suite, in which I thought the Kawero Classic C3 showed promise but the G-1000/Kagura seemed to not quite give the sort of dynamics and resolution the speaker could be capable of. Living Voice showed the Vox Palladian and Palladian Basso (powered by their own 500W MOSFET amps) and also seemed short on dynamics, despite scaling quite well and being quite coherent for a 5-way, and came across as overly insipid and saccharine. I’ve had LV OBX-RW’s in the past, and have a great deal of respect for Kevin Scott. Despite the claims to the contrary, the OBX’s needed a lot more power than their on-paper specifications suggested, and though I wanted to like the Vox Palladian/Basso system for what it did well, there wasn’t enough force and tension in the music to be really convincing. But hey, that’s just me, on that day, in a packed room, off-centre, and y’know, under “show conditions”.
My favourite rooms?
Zellaton showed their Stage, a 2.5-way that is possibly my new dynamic speaker crush (sorry YG). With an amp and pre from YS Sound (who I’d never heard of), a Reed Muse 3C turntable, a small village of Schnerzinger cables, power distributors and Giga Protectors, I loved the way it dealt with smaller, more gossamer sounds, and had a coherence, suppleness and vitality that never got edgy or hard. They also had the Refent Audio Gramophone Unit (who I’ve also never heard of) that looks quite a lot like the Physical Emotions Caeles turntable, but I only got to hear one track before they switched over to the Reed.
Yep, what can I add to the Silbatone/Western Electric room that hasn’t already been said? With Schick’s Commonwealth, Schröder’s Neumann, a DCS Scarlatti feeding Silbatone’s SQ-102 Mk II phono, DAC100 Silver Edition converter, L-101 pre, and bi-amped with a RP-300 Mk II for the mids and highs and a pair of RP30W monos for the two field-coil 4181a 18” drivers in W-cabs, I visited and re-visited several times just to experience the sheer awe of scale, force, ease and sublimity that the Mirrorphonic 3 (a half-sized version of the 2) conferred to every piece of music they played. Talking to a few in attendance, the 12a/13a combo of 2014 still rates very highly, but Joe Roberts is adamant the Mirrorphonic is still his favourite, and who I am to disagree with a man that’s heard every single piece of vintage WE gear ever to find its final resting place at Silabtone HQ?
I absolutely loved Sven Boenicke’s little W5 paired with his own newly revised e2 integrated that has eschewed its original Class A/B output stage for a Class D design (!!), albeit with a Holborne no-gain input buffer, a purist volume control with only ever a single resistor in the signal path, a 2:1 step-up transformer combined with the switching output stage producing 400W into 8ohms. My Lord In Heaven, this little system paired with CAD 1543 MkII DAC and Transport, with a slew of Ground Controls, was seriously one of the most expectation-defying systems I heard. The W5 is tiny, with a single 3” widebander mated to a 5.25” long-throw woofer on the side, all with 1st order crossovers, but for me, at least, one of the most enjoyable, weighty, punchy, dynamic and vivid systems I heard. The W5 is not inexpensive (3500 CHF), but as a second/office/apartment system option where space is limited, I can’t think of anything else I’d be happier with. Still my most preferred small speaker regardless of price.
All the above three rooms from Zellaton, Silbatone and Boenicke had me return multiple times, despite attempts to bask in the other SOTA systems present. But the one I returned to most? Are my biases that transparent? Flyer’s and Stavros’ Aries Cerat suite, with the Symphonia’s I heard several weeks ago dragged from Brussels to a tiny but actually okay sounding room, was - for the things I most value in reproduction - still the high-water mark for me personally. And why? Though I experienced many emotions and thought many thoughts throughout the weekend, the AC room was the only one that most explicitly articulated the intent and visceral sense of force and touch of individual musicians crafting and emoting via their breath, fingers, hands and feet. Having just heard Manicini’s Pink Panther theme in another room featuring tubes and horns, I returned to hear the exact same rendition via the AC stuff and was shocked - shocked I tell you - at how the materiality of the vibes that follow in unison with the piano during the intro were rendered as individuated solid bars of aluminium played (not ‘hit’) with little rubber mallets wound in cord all with their own dynamic volition and sense of expression that was completely glossed over in the previous system. The propagation of energy was also suspended in space in a way that was totally different to the piano, the triangle, bass and hi-hat. There was just a much more palpable sense of musicianship in every note, and when the sax came in around thirteen seconds, I got more of a sense of the bio-mechanical mechanism of diaphragm, throat and tongue shaping each phrase as if the saxophonist was trying to create art rather than merely make sound. I tried very hard to like a lot of supposedly very good, very well-respected systems during those two days, but none came close to the Aries Cerat Talos Limited Edition phono stage, Kassandra Signature DAC, Impera II Reference pre, Concero 65 monos and Symphonias. At least, not for me, and not with regard to my sensibilities, preferences and biases, contextualised within the limits of my perception, for whatever that might be worth.
Will I go next year? Maybe. Munich is an amazing city - people on bikes wait at intersections for lights, pedestrians wait to cross the road, people on the U-Bahn wait to get on until the people getting off get off, people are okay talking English with you and there’s plenty more great restaurants to uncover. I also didn’t have a single bratwurst, so that alone must be remedied.
It was also fun meeting User211, Jazzhead and Bonzo75, as well as spending a really enjoyable evening with Morricab and his beautiful family. Much appreciation toward the kind and gracious hours I spent with Stavros and Flyer, who continue to impress me with their straight-up, no-BS approach to music, life and hi-fi. To those I did not meet, well, there’s always next year, right?
Best,
853guy
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spiritofmusic said:
Hey Spirit,
It’s the High End Show, right? So while yes, I agree there was a lot of expensive stuff there, that had almost nothing to do with the level of performance relative to the price tag. In fact, in many cases, I’d argue it’s almost inversely proportional. BTW, the Aries Cerat DAC, pre, monos and speakers cost less combined than a pair of Cessaro’s Air Two monos, and the same as a pair of Kondo Kagura monos. And even if you included the EVO server and went for the fanciest finish on the Aries Cerat Symphonias, the complete AC system would still be 135K € less than a pair of Vox Palladians/Bassos. Yes, the high end is expensive, but expensive isn’t necessarily a synonym for over-priced.
Be well,
853guy
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The insane pricing may be pushing you away from high-end audio, it does push me towards cheaper solutions in high-end audio, ones that bring tremendous value for the money. My gear purchases the last few years have mostly been factory direct, and included, apart from acoustic upgrades and audio furniture (all not terribly expensive either), 2 external power supplies for my amps at $ 2K each, a CD transport at $ 2K, speakers at $ 3K, a very high quality interconnect at $ 1K ($ 1.5 K because I needed a longer version), and a DAC at $ 2.3K. All those items perform way past their 'price point'. Things like the dCS Rossini (at $ 24K) that I lusted for a year ago are out. But my system seems to perform rather well, if you look at what others have said about it recently on my system thread.
Hi Diapson, I posted this elsewhere, so I am reposting it without customizing much for this thread. But to look at price for anyone is pretty shallow.
Street Price over retail price: Many 100k speakers sell at 1/3rd that price. So, first let’s look at street price, not RRP. One guy asked me how a 30k restored Apogee Full Range can compare with a 100+k cone. Well, it was more of a 30k to 50k comparison.
Manufacturing cost: Now, the next thing is, where is it manufactured? Had a dac been made in Zurich or the UK instead of suburbs outside Warsaw, the cost would have been much higher for the same sonics.
Distribution and Service Costs: Next, are you a consumer who prefers to pay for close proximity distribution, service, and resale value? Resale value requires the brand to have a high marketing cost. If you are such a customer, then all these convenience costs which do not add to the sonics but will add to the price. And that is fine as long as you know it is for distribution and service, not for sonics. As opposed to a cottage small operation in a far flung continent where you might get better sonics at lower cost but risk high service costs. The American brands are much better at doing an all-round effort on distribution and service and marketing as opposed to many EU brands which focus on sonics and stay small. They don’t want to pay for the admin overhead of a bigger company either.
Design itself: Then, let’s take into account the design. If your speaker works on OTL rather than SS, you will likely save a lot buying your dream amp. The quality SS amps are extremely expensive, while the Tenor 75, especially used, is relatively free, should you be lucky to get one with its problems sorted. Nature of the beast. Similarly, if you prefer a cone speaker as opposed to a planar, the costs run higher. That is because there is a lot of cost to make the baffle resonance free (which is not such an expensive consideration for a planar because it is baffled free in the first place), and the cost of shipping a heavy cone around by DHL and UPS to various distributors, dealers, taking returns, taking them to hifi shows, is pretty high and all adds to price. So you can own the best planar at a much lower cost than the best cone, in which case the debate is not Price X vs Price Y, but is cone better than planars, which is an entirely different debate.
Manufacturer’s objective: What does he want? Not all are about profit maximization, like big corporate. Some just want an easy business that pays for their manufacturing and audio hobby. They want to make enough to keep themselves sustainable, or are subsidizing their own audio hobby. The more pro companies may want profit maximization. The price will change as per the objectives.
So for a customer, unless he knows the breakdown of what goes into the RRP, including the margins, objectives, there is no way a customer will know what he is paying for – what part sonics, what part service, etc. Not to mention there are ego price and comfort prices (the tendency to be comforted by thinking that by paying more one has got a better sound).
So, pricing is more complex than RRP. Best to stick to ears. As tip, any gem that has been discontinued but well-restored, and sans distribution costs, marketing costs, munich entry price requirements, will have way superior value and will probably beat any off the shelf commercial stuff. Latter will have better service and distribution and be easier to stumble upon.
Good stuff. But you weren't so jazzed about the Odeon room? I really thought that sounded great as well. Other than the speakers it was even a somewhat reasonably priced room...
That is a very nice report, 853guy.
I went to the Munich show last year, probably my one-and-only time.
I thought it was amazing, too! Almost everyone and everything in high-end audio can be found there!
I went to the Munich show last year, probably my one-and-only time.
I thought it was amazing, too! Almost everyone and everything in high-end audio can be found there!
It depends where you are. Price in USA for my beloved DMA 260 was 10K$. Here in Europe was 24.000 $ (2013 exchange rate).
Yes, I liked them very much. I have to admit that it did sound a bit like home...
It is my annual pilgrimage...being going (almost) every year since it was still in Frankfurt! It has grown significantly since then...
I don't have either of those models. I have the La Boheme. However, I also didn't think it sounded so different from those models. It had a lot of familiar characteristics.
Is it typical at the Munich Show that American tube companies do not have any significant presence? Audio Research, VTL, Lamm, CJ, etc. Is this an inherent Euro show bias, or do these American companies just do not think the expense of exhibiting in Munich is productive? Or were they there but nobody was impresses with their rooms?
Wilson, VTL (with Stenheim and one other room), AT is usually there, last year with Wilson, didn't see this year. Have never seen Lamm here but EU is big on SETs. Joseph audio was there, Rockport every year.
bonzo75 said:
Hey Morricab, hey Bonzo,
Hmm. I think the Odeon showed potential, but personally, I felt like the level of dynamics and resolution the two horn-loaded drivers had weren’t as well matched by the forward-firing driver below, nor the active low bass modules on the side. I was off-centre and back, so perhaps wasn’t on-axis enough to appreciate its strengths, leading to a balance that emphasized the midrange and upper-mid range disproportionately in both dynamics and frequency. But again, not in the sweet spot, up against the false wall, show conditions, etc, etc….
853guy
Thank you, Ron!
Yeah, I came away actually really impressed, and not just by the show but the city and the people too. Planning to go back again, just to explore more of what Munich has to offer, even if not on the dates of the show.
Best,
853guy
This is possible. In those conditions I can neither confirm nor deny, just say it has potential to be checked out.
Hi Marty,
VAC, McIntosh and VTL were there. I saw Luke Manley in the hall, but no, didn't see Audio Research, Lamm or Conrad Johnson in any of the suites, nor on any of the literature. Jim White of Aesthetix commented to me that Munich is great for them, but they have a dealer/distributor network that may serve them better in Europe than other parts of the world, which may not be so true of AR, Lamm, CJ, etc, although I'm not sure why that would be the case given the sheer number of Asian brands and audiophiles I saw attend the show.
853guy
EDIT: Just saw Bonzo's reply. Sorry.
Great report, 853guy.
Weighty, punchy, dynamic and vivid? Being a monitor guy, this doesn't surprise me at all.
Weighty, punchy, dynamic and vivid? Being a monitor guy, this doesn't surprise me at all.
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