The four parts of a four-stroke internal combustion engine’s cycle are: intake, compression, power, and exhaust. The 38th consecutive staging of HIGH END Munich was pretty much like that.
My audiophile wine-snob friends are shunning me. I see my hipster friends rolling their eyes. My long-time readers are scratching their heads. But it is true. I am actually getting into wireless + DSP speakers.
For years I have imagined when I retire I will buy a pair of German-made Voxativ AC-4a, Alnico magnet, wood-coned, full-range (loudspeaker) drivers; mount them on an open steel baffle; and power them with an exotic First Watt amp by Nelson Pass – or a triode amp of my own design. That is my dream system.
The $20,995 Etsuro-Urushi Gold might be the most expensive phono cartridge in the world. I mention this because in the CH Precision room, at High End 2019 I was delighted to experience the Gold in comparison to C-H’s all-out assault on the digital art – who could ask for more fun?
From the window in my Brooklyn bunker, Vincent Brient’s totaldac company looks like one of the coolest, most independent, audio companies in Europe. (totaldac is located near Mont Saint-Michel, France).
I admit it. Prior to visiting the extraordinary-looking, brilliantly-lit 2001 A Space Odyssey-styled T+A room at High End 2019, my knowledge of their product line was sketchy at best. I had no idea German manufacturer T+A made seven separate levels/series of components – each with its own identity.
I doubt by now there is any need for me to tell you that High End Munich is the biggest audio trade fair because it is always sold out and there are always over 500 exhibitors... But! Unless you go there, you might not grasp how, as you walk the four enormous halls and three endless atriums, you see and hear where specialist audio is now (the current state of the art) and where it is going (the dominant technological and aesthetic trends).
I remember the voice of Roy Rogers coming from the bottom of my parent’s television set. Bing Crosby sang from behind the grill-cloth of their colossal wood radio. The Beatles shouted through holes in the top of my ’63 Chevy dashboard. Those Beatles sounded small.