Munich High End show 2018

[User211]

Talking of bad boy bass (again!), there's one I missed.

The JBL4367. The ones to the far left and right.

Copious bass playing Walking On The Moon by DubXanne (obvious Police cover), and on stacks of bass on other material too. Great party speakers, able to handle high SPL without issues. Spacious sound staging and imagery reasonably precise. Very good at what they are obviously designed to do. Much, much, much better than the JBL Everest DD6700 sounded again with Mark Levinson amps which I have heard twice.

How the hell can that be the case? Definitely seemed so to me and each time I went in they were definitely getting more attention from punters than the DD6700 ever did.

Really curious.

EDIT: Just looked up the price - about £12K. In the scheme of things at Munich that's pretty good value, but only if you get off on the parameters that make this speaker interesting i.e. bass and high SPL. Reggae and high impact electronic lovers should check them out if poss.

They are only really going to work in a large room. Anything less will get over pressurised and will need half a tonne of acoustic traps.

[Lee Henley]

Visiting a hi-fi show these days is nothing like I remember from 30 years ago. Back then most of the products on display were well within the budget of the average working man. Turntables like the Linn LP12 were at the top end of the price range but still a "real world" product. But look at some of the turntables on display at Munich! Yes, things move on, but it's clear to see why hi-fi is no longer for the masses. Who buys this stuff? It all looks extremely impressive but also looks out of reach for most people. Most of the systems pictured here wouldn't even fit in my house!

I think maybe the clue is in the title of the show mate - Munich HiEnd

[Lee Henley]

Lee, do you know what that silver box is, with the VU-meters, to the right of the turntable being played? I love the styling!

Marco.

Im pretty sure it was the pre amp but couldnt be 100% on that

[Lee Henley]

Funny, I thought these were the best sounding thing at the show by a country mile. Then again, I am allergic to most horn loudspeakers, so this does wipe about two thirds of the rooms out of contention for me!

I should say, an honourable exception here is Ocean Way Audio. He seems to make his horn-loaded speakers sound exactly like everyone else says other horn loaded speakers sound, but which I’ve never found to be the case! The ‘Montereys’ he was playing sounded wonderful.

As an aside, one thing I love about seeing other peoples pictures, is spotting things I didn’t see, and wondering how I missed them!

I guess Im not a fan of PMC speakers and the house sound they project they just did nothing for me at all

[User211]

I guess Im not a fan of PMC speakers and the house sound they project they just did nothing for me at all

It's hi-fi and opinions vary and always will. I thought the little horns in the Thomas Meyer room sucked, so did Kedar, and he wanted to like them

[Primalsea]

Talking of bad boy bass (again!), there's one I missed.

The JBL4367. The ones to the far left and right.

Copious bass playing Walking On The Moon by DubXanne (obvious Police cover), and on stacks of bass on other material too. Great party speakers, able to handle high SPL without issues. Spacious sound staging and imagery reasonably precise. Very good at what they are obviously designed to do. Much, much, much better than the JBL Everest DD6700 sounded again with Mark Levinson amps which I have heard twice.

How the hell can that be the case? Definitely seemed so to me and each time I went in they were definitely getting more attention from punters than the DD6700 ever did.

Really curious.

EDIT: Just looked up the price - about £12K. In the scheme of things at Munich that's pretty good value, but only if you get off on the parameters that make this speaker interesting i.e. bass and high SPL. Reggae and high impact electronic lovers should check them out if poss.

They are only really going to work in a large room. Anything less will get over pressurised and will need half a tonne of acoustic traps.

I heard the JBL monitors at a show last year and thought that they were great.

[Lee Henley]

It's hi-fi and opinions vary and always will. I thought the little horns in the Thomas Meyer room sucked, so did Kedar, and he wanted to like them

Exactly mate we all hear things different and all have our own tastes, besides Ked is hard to please at times although we did agree for once on Silbatone Western Electric room

[montesquieu]

I spent quite a bit of time in the Thoress room, the turntable whos name eludes me sported the 35,000 Euro tonearm, which according to the guy in side was a bit of a pain in the arse to use so they switched the SME V12. I must admit the sound coming from this system was my second favourite of the show, I believe the speakers were around the 13,000 Euro mark, but given that quite a few of the systems on display were meg bucks prices this in comparison was excellent. Hats off to the guys at Thoress

Untitled by henleymajor, on Flickr

Interesting ... prior to last year's show I had had a few exchanges with Reinhard Thoress and spent quite a bit of time in his room over two visits in my time there. I arrived pretty interested in his phono preamp and was pondering buying one. However after the show I didn't pursue things, mainly as while it was a reasonable enough sound in the room and the preamps and amps looked fantastic, the overall impact wasn't all that special and well short of what I was getting at home already with Thorens/Tannoys/Radford/EAR 912.

I blamed the speakers which I suspected weren't up to the standard of the rest of the kit. I think they were 'only' 6,000 Euros last year though so perhaps for the additional 7,000 Euros he's improved them. To be fair it is hard to make decent speakers that work well with 9w 300b single ended amps which is what he is selling on the amplification front, though 'even' for 6,000 Euros my expectations were rather higher than what was on offer.

Anyway I left absolutely decided not to spend 8,000 Euros or whatever it is on a new Thoress phono pre (cool looking though they may be) though I would take the opportunity to try to hear one at home and maybe even snap one up on a 'catch and release' basis if one appeared on the used market. In the early years of the company they use to be a LOT cheaper so occasionally they come up around 2500-3000 Euros second hand.

[Lee Henley]

Try and get these in the front room of the house and hope that the wife approves of them , they did sound very nice though when I went in the room

DSCF1044 by henleymajor, on Flickr

DSCF1045 by henleymajor, on Flickr

[Lee Henley]

I did enjoy the Tune Audio room this year, for me in the expensive room category (speakers were 220,000 Euro alone) they did perform very well

DSCF1057 by henleymajor, on Flickr

DSCF1058 by henleymajor, on Flickr