Munich High End show 2018

[Marco]

Back to the vintage industrial look, this time the WE speaker, believe it or not but this speaker made for me the best sound of the show. The guy who did the talk, Joe Roberts from Silbatone reckoned that these speakers were from around 1947 and were very rare and had a street price of $220,000 !!

Ha - I do believe it, Lee, and I'm not at all surprised, because I know from experience how speakers like that can sound!

Although the price, if true, is just crazy. The unsurprising thing though is that they produced the best sound of the show, which is often how I feel returning from hi-fi shows, and listening to my 1965 Tannoys...

Progress, eh?

Marco.

[Bass Slap]

Those look like something Flash Gordon would be familiar with.

Goodness, what beauty!

Reminds me of the SHF gear we used in the RN in the 60's to track Russian radar devices (or anybodies radar devices)

Submarines were particularly difficult because they would stay under the surface but very close and just poke their radar aerials up to do a couple of 360deg sweeps or less to maybe check their bearings and then disappear deep sharpish.

The radar transmission gave off a sound at various frequencies which we'd then use to identify the vessel or aircraft. Submarines very hard to find due to the short Aerial Rotation Periods.

bit of useless info for ya!

[User211]

Slow on this because I got stuck in Germany - flight cancelled due to lightning at the airport, got put up in the Novatel Schwabing which was nice, as I had a business class ticket, therefore the room was appropriate to my elevated status as a human being For some reason when I booked the flight they gave me a free business class upgrade.

Bad boy bass coverage for this and the next few posts.

In many ways this was my favourite room, with a great host. Past 4pm, he'd play anything that wasn't classical, Diana Krall, or any other typical audiophile bullshit. I award him 3,981,231 brownie points because of that statement.

He was simply asking for requests, and honouring them with TIDAL. TRINNOV gear was being used in here, but given the copious amounts of bass, I wonder what the settings really were.

Anyway, I asked for Etherwood's "Being By Letting Go" and the bass literally ripped with scale and weight. The picture doesn't show the other sub on the other side of the room. The host loved it, as well as the third track. I encourage anyone to check it out if you like electronic music.

The speakers are a bit like a short Apogee like ribbon plus a big bass cone. Lots of resolution from that implementation, if a little bit edgy, but not enough to really spoil it from being entertaining, involving and generally great fun at high volume, and we were playing loud.

The host came from Wales, and "just likes loud music". I'm with him How he got to demoing German speakers I don't know.

Anyway, the speakers are Bohne.

There was no audiophile pretence in this room. Just bloody loud near dance club like levels, and if you like going to dance clubs, live DJs, Orbital live etc etc then these speakers fit the bill for trying to satisfy that sort of experience at home.

Thoroughly enjoyable.

[Primalsea]

Bloody hell! Where do the Umpa Lumpas poor the chocolate in? I presume this contraption makes chocolate records with golden sprinkles, why else would it be so complicated?

[Primalsea]

I llke Martin's point of view. We could do with more "inverse snobbery" in Hi-Fi, I'm in favour of that. That's why I avoid buying silver or 'champagne' coloured equipment, black or grey is the way to go, matt finish even better. Makers like Line Magnetic lead the way. Good Hi-Fi should not look out of place in a boiler room!! So there!!!

I look at these and one side of my brains sees my head nodding and thinking WOW! The other side shaking and asking just WHY! I think if I owned these I would never end up listening to anything properly and would just be tweaking the dials and obsessing over where thr needles are pointing. I think when you get to gear like this it is so far beyond just listening and enjoying music.

[User211]

Trios plus three bad boy bass horns. But they've gone for a vile chrome finish on them, which also featured on Omegas etc they had on display.

On Sunday they had a DJ playing through it, with DJ style TTs.

I'm not really sure why but I wasn't really that struck with this set up. Bass horn visual revulsion? Maybe. Or a mood thing. Or bass horns in the corner for the first time I've heard them that way not working so well? It is most definitely a great loudspeaker.

The second year of hearing three basshorns in a row, I'm really not sure you want three. Just one works extremely well, without the bass becoming more prominent than you would really want it to be. Bass emanates from higher than the Trio horns, and I reckon that's a bit weird. Maybe two would be the best setup by that logic. Still, if the punter will pay for it...

[User211]

Gobel Divin.

In there multiple times, trying to assess it. It does do bad boy bass, but the only reason I know that is I got lucky and went in there when it was playing Yello loud. For the most part listening levels were quite tame.

The overall problem with this speaker is too relaxed and refined. You sit there thinking it scores well on so many levels, apart from excitement. It is just too refined, I think.

Playing the inevitable Nils Lofgren's "Keith Don't Go" was a real key to understanding this. On an involving system, the steel string guitar sounds like a steel string guitar, with the edginess and bite that the instrument possesses. The drive units in this speaker just hid much of the character of a real steel string. I play one, I know.

Owner's with the 450K Euros required, will, I think, end up having to crank it to get some excitement injection. Unless you like pipe and slippers with an afternoon snooze.

Best way I can describe it excitement wise would be to compare the speakers at medium to low listening levels with all the dynamics of a modern Quad.

Yello loud though - really not too bad



Some top Kronos gear in use.

[TheMooN]

Pondering on a change and Duo Mezzo's n SET or perhaps MBL111F and go with the New Triode switchable PP ARC REf160's.

[User211]

Close up of the refined sounding Divin HF driver. Not a great pic, just making a point.

The irony is that the panel used in the cheaper Aeon Ref, from the same stable, I have no doubt, would capture the edge and bite of Lofgren's guitar with far greater success.

The Aeon Ref was, I think, severely compromised by the room it was in, but more on that later.

[walpurgis]

That's a pleated diaphragm. I wonder if it's an AMT type design?