Munich HighEnd 2024

[Rhapsody]

The 2024 Munich High-End Show: Robert Harley on Loudspeakers - The Absolute Sound

The 2024 Munich High-End Show: Robert Harley on Loudspeakers - The Munich show is traditionally the coming out party for many new speaker models, and this year didn’t disappoint. As is typical of Munich, most of the speaker introductions were of the upper-end variety, but there were some...

www.theabsolutesound.com

 

[Argonaut]

Considerations from Oz :

SoundStageAustralia.com - SoundStage! Australia’s Favourite Exhibits at High End Munich 2024

www.soundstageaustralia.com

 

[davidavdavid]

The term "black market" pre-supposes that there is some corner of the online world where such videos would be trafficked for profit. There might be some die-hard Fremer fans/acolytes out there who cannot get enough...their appetite being insatiable. I'm not about to judge.

The video has been officially published by the High-end Society, here is the link on Youtube:

And for those for whom YouTube just isn't good enough, for a limited time you can download the video to your hard drive
High-End Vinyl Overkill

 

[AudioLibertarian]

Considerations from Oz :

SoundStageAustralia.com - SoundStage! Australia’s Favourite Exhibits at High End Munich 2024

www.soundstageaustralia.com

Yet another audio influencer's rehash of what has been written about the same brands&rooms over and over again...

 

[andromedaaudio]

Yet another audio influencer's rehash of what has been written about the same brands&rooms over and over again...

Lol , Was andromeda audio reporting better ?

 

[AudioLibertarian]

Lol , Was andromeda audio reporting better ?

At least u provide some variety

 

[AudioLibertarian]

Does anyone have recent listening experience with the AudioData Salzburg Master One speakers? I reckon they did not exhibit this year, but still... Thanks in advance!

 

[orfeo_monteverdi]

Yet another audio influencer's rehash

Stereophile's coverage.

 

[gleeds]

Did anyone hear the large Thrax new speaker release?

 

[RCanelas]

Did anyone hear the large Thrax new speaker release?

We did. These were superlative. The bass, dynamics and extreme detail, while being relaxed at the same time, haunt me and those from my team.

 

[gleeds]

I thought they would be very good, as are most of Thrax's products, yet I did not see a single piece of coverage in the US or European press. That's unfortunate!

 

[AudioHR]

A few final comments on Munich 2024.

I really enjoyed the High End Show, Hifideluxe and various other off site shows. It was a celebration of all things audio!

As we all know show conditions are taxing on the exhibitors and not the place for final purchasing decisions but I must commend the many that put their best foot forward! Personally I will give most exhibitors a pass on settling up. Where I was critical it was because of playing the system to loud, not setting up, curating and cleaning the vinyl selection properly thus playing noisy vinyl and demonstration selection. On the last nitpick I realize that tastes vary and one should play a variety of music but I found a preponderance of electro pop and elevator music was played. In 2022 I came back searching for some of the music I heard at the show, not at all this year.

The hi lights for me were in no particular order: the number of exhibitors using vinyl and it was often exceedingly good; I heard Wilson speakers sounding very good more than once, a first for me; I really enjoyed the Xpert Stage panel discussion on vinyl; the offsite Martion demonstrations were enlightening and displayed the passion we need to move our hobby forward ; getting to meet, albeit briefly, some other WBF members and obviously to hear some systems that I would never have had exposure to!

Best of, who knows? I enjoyed being introduced to quite a few and have I think already commented. The Acapella system stood out for me! The Diptyque speaker, the larger one, stood out to me as a dark horse as I felt it deserved further audition against other very nice planars like the Alsyvox and Clarysis!

 

[christoph]

Did anyone hear the large Thrax new speaker release?

We did.
Easily in my top ten, if not top five

 

[christoph]

I thought they would be very good, as are most of Thrax's products, yet I did not see a single piece of coverage in the US or European press. That's unfortunate!

They did not make clear that this is their speaker.
No badge, no price, no nothing.
Pity, I really liked the sound and would have liked better coverage for them.

 

[RCanelas]

I thought they would be very good, as are most of Thrax's products, yet I did not see a single piece of coverage in the US or European press. That's unfortunate!

No one understood what we were looking at just by going into the room. There was no documentation, no flyers, posters, descriptions, links. The room was tiny and the music was so good nobody wanted to interrupt it to chat and pose questions. Even if we did, we didn't know who to aim them at, nobody was unambiguously identified. I eventually found a single Mono & Stereo article about these, days after, while actively searching.

Take away points for future exhibitors: it's not enough to bring the best system in the show, you need to focus on marketing, unplanned chats, interviews and take-home materials! Maximize your contact surface area!

 

[matthias]

No one understood what we were looking at just by going into the room. There was no documentation, no flyers, posters, descriptions, links. The room was tiny and the music was so good nobody wanted to interrupt it to chat and pose questions. Even if we did, we didn't know who to aim them at, nobody was unambiguously identified. I eventually found a single Mono & Stereo article about these, days after, while actively searching.

Take away points for future exhibitors: it's not enough to bring the best system in the show, you need to focus on marketing, unplanned chats, interviews and take-home materials! Maximize your contact surface area!

They have now info on their HP, dated from May 14 after the show. What I dislike is that it is a typical DSP speaker with ADC/DAC in the chain.

 

[RCanelas]

They have now info on their HP, dated from May 14 after the show. What I dislike is that it is a typical DSP speaker with ADC/DAC in the chain.

I read you. Listening to them though, several times through the show, we started rethinking our position towards full dsp type actives. The implementation was better than anything we have heard so far, and the dsp+servo bass disturbed us, to this day. This coming from us, that do hybrid loudspeakers with dsp for the bass, for much of the same reasons as Thrax.

 

[matthias]

I read you. Listening to them though, several times through the show, we started rethinking our position towards full dsp type actives. The implementation was better than anything we have heard so far, and the dsp+servo bass disturbed us, to this day. This coming from us, that do hybrid loudspeakers with dsp for the bass, for much of the same reasons as Thrax.

I listened for quite some time to these and didn‘t found them natural sounding, I don‘t know why.
Regarding the DSP imagine you spend a lot of effort on your DAC and then all get converted two times again

 

[morricab]

Did anyone hear the large Thrax new speaker release?

Yes, I liked this one quite a bit. I mentioned in my show report (way back in this thread) and said that while awesome in many ways it is not clear if it would become fatiguing with long exposure as the sound was pretty intense (ok it was also probably too loud).

 

[D.Duttilleux]

I listened for quite some time to these and didn‘t found them natural sounding, I don‘t know why.

Perhaps because, from the midrange and up, you were listening to this:



which sounds different from this: