Audio and Stereoplay

All prices are quoted in euros unless otherwise noted.
1 €  is approximately 1.19 US dollars at time of report.

One of the most interesting demonstrations of any show we've covered was put on at High End 2004 by the German audio magazines Audio and Stereoplay. Selecting from six speakers that the magazines ranked as "Reference Class," the demonstrators brought in each pair and played two music tracks on each. The prices of these speakers ranged from less than 20,000 €  per pair (Thiel's CS7.2) to 150,000 € per pair (Wilson Audio's Alexandria X-2).

Admittedly, poor room acoustics made the demonstration far less than definitive, but the magazines can be commended for at least trying to demonstrate in a fair and consistent way what each speaker could do. Each manufacturer or a representative was allowed beforehand to select the optimum location for the speakers, and each of the speakers was level-matched to the others reasonably well.

First up was the Thiel CS7.2 from the USA...,

...followed by Sonus Faber's new Stradivari Homage from Italy...,

...and then came Audio Physic's Kronos from Germany...,

...followed then by the Focal.JMlab Grande Utopia Be from France...,

...and then came Wilson Audio Specialties Alexandria X-2 from the USA...,

...and finally there was TAD's Model-1 from Japan.

Jeff and Doug thought that the TAD Model-1 and Wilson Audio Alexandria X-2 sounded consistently best, but the other 30 or so listeners certainly had their preferences, with votes split among the speaker models.

It's very rare to hear some of the world's most highly regarded audio products played in succession in the same system and room. We went through the demo twice, and we might go back again.