Reporter: Carlo Iaccarino
The show took place from May, 9th through May, 12th 2024 at the M.O.C. facilities, in Munich, Germany
Originally written: August, 2024
Website with plenty of resources: High End Society

Freewheeling

As promised, here is the third and final part of my report, with less chat and more pictures and just some completely personal comments.

Let's start with some friends of ours.

RIVIERA AUDIO LABORATORIES had their usual stand in one of the big Halles at ground floor.
Here you can see Mr.Luca Chiomenti, casually leaning on his latest additions, the APL-1 preamplifier and the AFS-32 power amplifier.

Their look resembles their Levante integrated amplifier. For a complete amplification set by Riviera you are not obliged to buy two monoblocks any more, because the AFS-32 is the first stereo amplifier made by this company. They are scheduled to hit the shelves on August, for a price of € 22.500 for the preamplifier, and € 24.000 for the power amplifier.
The preamplifier features several circuit characteristics, for which I point you to the company's website. Here I only highlight the transformer-based outputs (unusual, for a preamplifier), plus the presence of inputs and outputs both balanced and unbalanced. You also find both kind of inputs in the power amplifier, whose output power is specified at 32 W/ch, and whose circuit scheme is said to be derived from the one adopted in the big AFM-100SE Monoblock.
Here is a picture of both machines.

And that's their B-side.

Luca was obviously proud of his new entry level pre/power combination.
Another reason to be proud, for Luca, was that they finally sealed a deal for a stable distribution in Japan.
As a colorful note, I'll add that Luca was also very happy of a detail like the vu-meters blinking from their power amplifier - they are massive, accurate and reportedly very difficult to build, both in their stereo version,

and in the mono one.

I received the usual, warm greetings by our Greek friends of LAB 12.
Here we go with the unmissable group portrait, with a towering boss, Mr. Vichos. I hope my picture can communicate the youthful energy of this company.

A close-up of the new version of their stereo integrated amplifier, the Integré 3 model, costing about € 6.000. I hope you can appreciate its new look, drifting away from their usual "LAB" aesthetics. It is scheduled to be ready around September.

They exhibited the new version of their traditional integrated amplifier, too, the Integré 4 MkII.

They also exhibited their traditional and more sober-looking "laboratory"-styled gear: here we have the pair True and Mighty, a passive preamplifier and a stereo power amplifier, Single-Ended with two EL34 vacuum tubes (in this case, 2 Electro Harmonix).

And now, another Italian company, which produces amplifiers: DELTA SIGMA, by Domenico Simonetti, from Turin. Simonetti shared the exhibition spaces with MOREL, a famous Israeli maker of drivers and loudspeakers, whose range goes beyond the domestic hi-fi models.

Here is a close-up of the preamplifier.

And here it is one of the huge class-A 300W power amplifiers.

In all its electronics, Delta Sigma uses an inductive power supply; moreover, Domenico also said he never uses toroidal transformers, because he prefers the traditional ones, albeit with oriented grain iron core (and this, in my opinion, is an important factor in the amplifiers' dimensions).
The Morel loudspeakers that were playing while I visited their room were the big ones in the picture, costing € 12,000 per pair.

They belong to the Sopran range; in the following picture we have a family portrait.

I think they are really good-looking; even their rear side is worth seeing.

"Personal" moments took place during the show too. I mean, relative to people, not gear.

IMPEX is a record label specialized in high-quality LPs reprints. Abey Fonn, "Lady Impex", brought to the show the first samples of the 1-step, 60-year celebration reissue of the very famous Getz/Gilberto album, a record that doesn't need introductions to none of you. With her was Stan Getz's son, who recalled episodes of his familiar and musical life, also regarding the recording of this LP and its unexpected success, both artistic and commercial. It's worth noting that Lucio has just shared his views about the 1-step printing process that also other record companies are using for their reprints

Also, in the same exhibition spaces of the powerful German distributor AUDIO REFERENCE, an "Italian" celebration took place for Dan[(iel)e] D'Agostino and the Natali brothers (HiFi distributors for two generations), presumably for their good business results.

Moving towards something completely different, here is some news, even for an old fart like me - an audio system by LOEWE.

The system used the multi.room amp amplifiers, for about €1,000.00 each.

This amplifier is clearly modern, starting from its dimensions and its 1.200 W/ch/4 Ohm specified power. It has wireless connectivity, DTS Play-Fi, Apple AirPlay, Google cast and Spotify connect, and can be part of a multiroom system. Moreover, it has a HDMI ARC plug, something increasingly required in "plain stereo" systems too. All in all, a good technology concentration.
The system played songs (only files, with a wirelessly connected PC) with the floorstanding loudspeakers seen in the initial picture. Yet, Loewe exhibited also those more handsome bookshelf loudspeakers, that mounted divers of the same type as those installed in the floor-standers.

Here we go with another strange thing, this time from MAGNETAR.
They exhibited their usual universal disc players UDP-800 and UDP-900.
But they also exhibited an almost definitive prototype of their top SACD player.

I didn't find it good-looking, but it seemed interesting, nonetheless. It is bulky, as the picture lets you guess, and I also found noteworthy its back side.

It has balanced and unbalanced 5.1 audio outputs, and this is not something particular (yet, rare, nowadays). More unusual, in a SACD player, were the Ethernet plug and the USB input, so the machine can work as a DAC for a file-based reproduction. Rather unusual was the HDMI-I2S output, a way to carry digital audio (also in the DSD format, that cannot be managed by the S/Pdif outputs, that are also present) that is slowly but increasingly being present - many favour it against USB connection for digital audio. Unfortunately, I can't give you more news about it - Magnetar personnel told me it was a machine just delivered from their Chinese plants. They planned just to statically exhibit it, and it was not functioning. Yet, they expected the product to be finalized within the year's end, for a projected price of €15,000.00.
Finally, here is its - also massive - remote control, that shares the player's unusual shape.

From one excess to another.
Here is PRO-JECT's idea for people who must move from home, but don't want to get away without music: the travel set
.
A laptop/tablet/smartphone, that everybody brings along, especially when travelling; a diminutive analogue amplifier with a Bluetooth input, namely the Stereo Box S3 BT,

and a pair of little two-way loudspeakers that you can hold on your hand's palm (but not for long: they're quite heavy), here the Speaker Box 3E Carbon.
.
Imagine this. You arrive at your new office room, or your transfer lodging or, why not, your hotel; then find the desk where you'll be working at your computer, pull out from your bag this trio, connect your laptop to the WiFi service to get access to your favourite streaming service, and there you have a delicious little desktop system, with an honest sound and, above all, simple - no communication protocols, handshake, etc.. You just push the button, rotate the volume control and listen :-)
Of course, Pro-Ject made its usual power demonstration, wide and very well organized. Here is a sight of their usual "Vinyl Square".

There you could see their admired exhibition of their accessories shown like dishes on a kaiten-sushi.

I won't show you more from this company, because now you can find everything on the web. I'd rather show the parallel exhibition of the top-range turntables by EAT.

This year, the colour prize goes to this yellow guy :-)

I also liked very much the look of this Fortissimo S, here with a Phantom Elite tonearm, made by GRAHAM, which developed a very similar tone-arm for EAT, the E-Go model.

Let's close this company's exhibition with their tubed pre-phono from the E-Glo range.

Here we have a close-up of the E-Glo 2 pre-phono with its dedicated power supply, the E-Glo 2 PS (Teutonic concreteness even with the monikers ... :-) ).

And now, three companies which shared the room in one of the big Halles at ground floor.
Source was a massive turntable by BENNY AUDIO, already known here at TNT-Audio (Piero Canova reviewed their Immersion T1 model); please, allow me a patriotic shiver for their choice of Audia Flight for the pre-phono.

Amplification was by JAVA HI FI.
They used the Carbon integrated amplifier, which has two main characteristics.
The first resides in the preamplification section - the volume control uses a usual rotary knob, but it commands a circuit, named LDR, that varies the intensity of the light emitted by an LED. This variation in light is perceived by a light sensor that, in turns, drives a circuit that varies the preamplifier's gain. This is intended to separate the audio signal from the control ones, thus it skips one further circuit section.
The second resides in the power amplification section. Here we find a switching-mode amplification circuitry, where GAN-Fets are used. This company underline that these devices switch on and off faster and more linearly than traditional MOS-Fets.
The Carbon has line inputs, a phono MM input, a Bluetooth APT-X input and an USB input (so, it has also an internal DAC). It has a headphone output, and it comes either in the 200 W/ch/8 Ohm Single Shot version, either in the top version, the Double Shot, for about € 16.000,00, which adds a totally balanced circuitry with also XLR inputs, and raises the power to 350 W/ch/8 ohm.

Loudspeakers were by AUDIO SOLUTIONS, from Lithuania. Besides technical details - for which I point you to their website - they overemphasized the possibility to deeply customize the aesthetics of their loudspeakers, thanks to an online configuration tool that allows you to choose among several options for colours and other external details, a bit like what already happens for certain cars, or shoes.

The exhibited models belong to the FIGARO range: the little S2, for €8,000.00/pair, and the big L2, for €24,000.00/pair; prices German (19%) VAT included.

Usual good sound from the LIVING VOICE room.
This year, the playing exhibited model was the R 80, for €52,000.00 with the handsome Glossy Ebony veneer that you see in my picture.

The loudspeakers were driven by a complex system. A first set of turntables was by KUZMA: XL Air deck, Saphir 9 and 4P14 tone-arms with CAR 50 and 60 cartridges, for a total of about €120,000.00. A second set consisted of the GRAND PRIX AUDIO Monaco V3.0 turntable, with its computer controller, KUZMA 4P 14 tone-arm and KUZMA CAR 50 cartridge, for a total of about €70,000.00. I spare you the SIS amplification details, for a total of €180,000.00 :-)

I also found the TANNOY exhibition interesting.
This company split its space into two rooms.
In the first room, a pair of AUTOGRAPH 12 loudspeakers for €23,000.00 was playing, driven by tubed amplifiers by PRIMA LUNA, the EVO 300 pre/power combo.

For this loudspeaker, they developed a new 12-inch version of their famous coaxial driver.

There I heard the usual Tannoy sound, polite, elegant, like an old British gentleman.
Yet, I liked their second room more, where the €12,000.00 SUPER GOLD MONITOR loudspeakers were playing. Amplification here, too, by PRIMA LUNA: the EVO 100 integrated amplifier.

Here is a close-up of this loudspeaker that, during my listening time, rendered a sound that was more involving and more fun to listen to. A system probably with less "fidelity" than the Autograph 12 system, maybe even less linear, but I for sure spent more time listening to it rather than the other one. Sure, those SGM are much uglier, er... no, let's say less easily placeable into a normal domestic environment :-)

At this point, it's unavoidable to speak about FYNE AUDIO, a company that employs several people coming from Tannoy.
This year's system was assembled in order to give voice to the top model of two ranges. The €17,000.00 F 703 SP loudspeaker (the white pair in the picture), and the €27,000.00 Vintage 12 loudspeaker; easy to tell which is which, in the following picture ;-)

Here is a particular of both loudspeakers, on top of which an omnidirectional supertweeter from the Supertrax range is placed whose price lays around €3,500.00 and €4,000.00.

More patriotic pride: Fyne keeps on using, for their system, the powerful UNISON Performance tubed integrated amplifier.

A lot of buzz for the new DAC by ROSE, the RD 160 model. They said it should be available in August, for around €6,000.00.

It uses an AKM chip DAC and MUSE op-amps, and uses a new "strategy": the digital signal is processed along the blocks that appear on its informative display.
This machine's complexity and completeness is shown also by its rear side, where you find lots of connectors. Among them, the external 10 MHz clock connectors and the I2S input on HDMI socket. The latter is now beginning to be ever more present, namely to carry higher resolution signals. Actually, this machine can deal with signals up to PCM 768/32 and native DSD 512, via the I2S input as well as via the USB input and the SFP-module input (this, an increasingly present option on the top range DACs).

As always, very good sound from the VTL room, with their Stereo Reference power amplifier, driving a pair of WILSON AUDIO loudspeakers, I believe the ALEXIA V model.

And this was the little system that drove everything.

Here we go with some pictures from the TECHNICS exhibition.
This was the room with their usual double system playing; this year, the news were that, besides their very good and pleasant-sounding tower loudspeakers, they brought along a pair of wonderful SONUS FABER AMATI.
Analogue sources were the SL-1000R turntable

and, as a "new entry", the SL-1200 M7B turntable
.
The latter is the newest incarnation of the famous DJ-dedicated twelvehundred. This year it was exhibited in its "collector's" version, with an aesthetic décor developed in cooperation with LAMBORGHINI - for this occasion, an LP was available, where the rumble of the different Lambo's engines was recorded - I am not into cars, but I didn't find this to be a smart advertising move... and I think our Editor agrees, too ;-).
Here it is the three available versions.

Let me end with other things, listed in no particular order.

Here it is the awaited TP 160 tone-arm by THORENS, with "knife edge bearing" (now that SME is no longer selling their tone-arms without one of their turntables attached...),

here mounted on a TD 1600 turntable, for the friendly price of €3,500.00, as the tag says.

Again by Thorens, here is their new preamplifier, the TPP 1600. It doesn't limit itself to work as an MM and MC pre-phono, with selectable RIAA, DECCA and COLUMBIA deemphasis curves. It also accepts line-level signals, commuting its inputs (all duplicated RCA and XLR) and has a variable output, this, too, duplicated RCA and XLR. It also has a headphone output, and the scenic big instrument in the centre of its fascia is for controlling azimuth adjustment. At the moment of the show, its price was TBD.

I am not into valves, and less so with single-driver loudspeakers, but I must confess I was very favourably hit by the sound coming from the room by WOLF VON LANGA.

There, their London loudspeakers (a wideband driver "supported" by a couple of bass drivers. Both of the field coil type) were playing,

driven by a diminutive AIR TIGHT integrated amplifier, the ATN-1E, for about €12,000.00. They told me that they had to delay the making of this amplifier for two years, due to parts supply difficulties. In the back, on the right, you can see the controller for the loudspeakers' electromagnets.

Here is the also anticipated THE BOOKSHELF by DYNAUDIO, a little two-way loudspeaker made with the fundamental nipponic contribution by Keiji Ashizawa Design studio and Karimoku woodworking.

A dark version was available also.

I also liked the sound from the ESTELON room, where their X DIAMOND SIGNATURE EDITION loudspeakers played, driven by a big system consisting of Aurender-Pilium-DcS-MSB gear.

They also exhibited a sample of the handsome finishes available for their AURA loudspeakers.

Finally, here is the big system by NAGRA. Also this year, this Swiss company hosted a bunch of seminars and happenings. Among them, the very anticipated, now kind of traditional, one by Michael Fremer (of The Tracking Angle and The Absolute Sound fame), who entertained a good party of us geezers, playing his lacquers and LPs, even records he produced. I am sorry I don't have images to document it, but I can tell you that, like the other years, the room was packed and the public was very appreciative.

End of the journey

I'd say that now it can be enough. Moreover, perusing the web now you'll find a lot of reports from this year's show, with all the photos I didn't show you :-)
As always, it was a magnificent show, a fun four-day escape from reality; four days of listening, walking, confrontations and - not to be dismissed - gastronomic recovering pauses.
In short, an event, for me, very recommended. Who has never attended it, should consider programming a visit. Me, I'm looking forward to coming back, but, you know, it's a disease that still cannot be cured :-)
Anyway, mark the dates: this show next edition will be held from May, 15th thorough May, 18th, 2025, as always at the MOC.
Here you have the links to the first part and to the second part.

Copyright © 2024 Carlo Iaccarino - www.tnt-audio.com

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