Munich 2017 |
Munich 2017 was pretty much a repetition of 2016, thus only a few comments and pics, mostly dedicated to reviewing stuff I heard last year. Going from showroom to showroom is gambling and you may be unfortunate to be in at a moment where some hifi-porn is being played that tells you nothing about the potential of speakers, amps or whatever. Companies are here to sell and that's just fine. There were speakers I went to hear all four days just to hear as many different presentations as possible - and also have a different seat! Sometimes you get a lousy seat and sometimes you have to listen standing up, far from ideal.
Vandersteen, Quatro Wood CT. Not so much "wood" here, rather white lacquer. Anyway, if you can make a pair of speakers that make your spouse do like this, you've certainly made your day!! These Quatros aren't that big, yet throws a nothing less than magnificent midrange and solid bottom from the in-built 8" sub and plate-amp with an eleven band equaliser. Richard Vandersteen apparently made the choice of not bringing his heavy weight top models this year, and I was more than pleased to hear this smaller version, building on the technologies from its larger siblings. 13,900 USD - over there. I guess that would make ~15,000 EUR in Denmark incl. VAT. Not exactly cheap, but still, you get all the room adjustment features, so much needed. Read the excellent manual from his website! Lots of stuff here suitable for any other speakers. Setting up a pair of Quatros is anything but trivial!
I certainly wanted to hear the Kaiser Classic speaker again as it use very much the same drivers as in my ATS4 speaker, the same midrange and the same 10" bass driver. Now, the Classic uses an 8" passive radiator the 18H52-06-13 midrange, hence most likely not any high-pass filter to the midrange. In reality, this is a 6+"1" two-way with a 10C77 sub mounted on the rear panel. Last year I was quite impressed from the full-bodied sound of this system - and - not so much this year. Overall sound is great, bit it was obvious the 6"/PR had its limitations in moving air. Not the same full-bodied sound as the 23I52/18H52 combo from my ATS4. The Kondo front-end certainly plays its role, but you have to win the lottery to even think of stuff like this.
Actually I was more impressed by the smaller Vivace from the same company. Featuring a 5" Illuminator and a passive Revelator on the rear + 6" Revelator "sub". I've done a client crossover for a 15WU and I never really fell in love with this inefficient driver, but here I had to admit it can be done.
This year I had a good seat at the MBL demo room - and I stayed long! I think the speaker here is 101E mkII. Whatever, it's an astonishing speaker. We might think this 360 deg. radiating alien would compromise imaging and soundstage - and it doesn't. It seems everything you feed this weirdo is carved in stone. It's spectacular! Go listen if you have the opportunity. The gear MBL produce seems built for titans. The picture above really doesn't tell how big this preamp is, but it seems built for a guy 8 foot tall, that's have massive it is. Quality is impeccable, but design... my goodness. As far away from any Nagra delicacy as can be.
Wilson Audio Alexx. Nice to have the chance
listening to this speaker. Guess we'll never have the chance of hearing
the Alexandria XLF.. For the Alexx, Wilson use the venerable ScanSpeak
Revelator W15 - or coated 15M, who knows - to cover the upper mid and
handling the primary transition to the tweeter. The bigger midrange
looks like having adopted the Satori membrane. Whatever, I couldn't
point to anything on particular with this speaker. It seems to
gracefully and powerfully handle whatever it is fed. And it seems WA has
found a way handle the troublesome upper-mid/tweeter integration. This
was heard worse from other bigger and even more expensive speakers on
the show. Well done.
I didn't get to hear any ATC speakers last year. Here we have the SCM 50 ASLT and to make a long story short, if you have 2 x 9.400,- EUR and can live with the size of this speaker (relative to the room it has to load), look no further. Great speaker.
Bittner Audio had a massive tube power amp on display and to be honest I didn't enter to hear that, rather the all-time classic Dynaudio Consequence speaker. I never had the chance of hearing this top-of-the-range speaker from the Eighties. 12" compound bass and everything Dynaudio could put into a box at that time. 6" mid, 2" upper-mid/lower-treble dome and both D28 and D21. This is an updated version and it's simply magnificent despite its appallingly low efficiency (85 dB). Any comments to the unconventional arrangement of drivers? Nope! It works. I hear this speaker sells in Japan. No wonder. A wonderful piece of furniture as well.
I don't know the speaker to the right, but it was one of several
examples of companies using the ScanSpeak 12MU midrange driver - and
this was one of the better ones. 8" ScanSpeak alu bass drivers - and it
looked like a SS dome too. Overall a very well-tuned system.
HORNS
I went four times to the show room of Living Voice to hear the Palladian speakers, this year with the massive front-loaded subwoofers. I had four different seats, back and front, and it really didn't matter. Even close up front I never felt any lack of driver integration. As last year, truly magnificent. What I did miss was some more diverse music, large orchestral works and more vocals to get a wider presentation of the speakers ability. I used my Shazam to track the recordings used and they're kind of hifi-show material that will make most systems excel. Kevin, bring your vinyl and bring some more complicated material and let us hear.
I wont go into detail about all the horn systems below, only say that a lot of these speakers delivered some really good sound and what is apparent from many manufacturers is the use of these wide-lip horns, apparently reducing edge diffraction - and the necessary time-alignment of drivers necessitating the horns to stick out in front of the cabinets.
Below a collage of turntable images, just to show that turntables were everywhere! I guess ProJect, Clearaudio and Acoustic Signature had the most square meters of all exhibitors.
The guy in the middle above made me stay for an hour or so. Soundsmith's
Peter Ledermann. This guy knows about cartridges and I strongly suggest
taking an hour and watch his video
here
and learn about cartridges. Unfortunately we can't hear the questions
asked by the audience, but worth while anyway.
|