Doug and I were just making our
way out of the hotel lobby when we saw the shuttle bus pull away from our hotel at exactly
9:30, the scheduled time. The next bus was 20 minutes later, and at exactly 09:50 we were
on our way to the show. The show starts at 10:00 and arriving early is not necessary --
you can't enter until exactly 10:00. There is even a signal to tell you when it is 10:00
and you can enter the area where the exhibits are located.
For a place like Munich, Germany that appears to follow the
rules so closely, it seems only right to have a show for high-end audio and home theater
where rules and even common sense do apply. I may be getting jaded, but there was
not much that shocked or stunned me at High End 2006. I was expecting more crazy-assed,
ultra-expensive gear, but I was kind of surprised to find a lot of sensible products on
display.
There were the many budget-priced British products that I
mentioned yesterday. But for me, two of the most exciting products at the show were
Marantz’s stereo SACD player and integrated amplifier. These new KI Signature-series components designed by Ken
Ishiwata looked and sounded like they cost much more than they do. At only €799
for the PM7000 KI integrated amplifier and € 899 for the SA7001 KI SACD player, these
are killer products and a fantastic way to get into high-end audio without spending a
whole lot of money.
Yes, there were some outrageous products at the show, but
the product that I thought was the most insane actually turned out to be pretty decent.
The Haliaetus speakers with Acoustic Nozzles
technology look ridiculous. The people dressed as airline pilots handing out
"boarding passes" at the Haliaetus booth didn’t help matters. The speakers
are extremely expensive at € 8000 per pair, but the demo sounded better than some
that we heard from the established high-end companies. Sometimes you just never know.
* * *
The British are coming, the British are coming!
Well, maybe not.
Walking down the aisles and hallways on day three of High
End 2006 was like taking a trip down memory lane. I noticed several once-popular-in-North
America UK brands known for their reasonably priced products that have lost much of their
presence back home.
Stopping by the Cyrus room, I was greeted by the familiar
cast chassis of half-width components. I once owned a Cyrus III integrated amplifier and
PSX-R power supply that I remember fondly. Downstairs, Mission, which was once part of the
same company as Cyrus, was showing its speakers along with products from several other
brands under the IAG group of companies. My first home-theater speaker system was from
Mission and included the legendary 760i bookshelf. Also now part of the IAG group is the Audiolab
brand. I have never owned Audiolab, but I remember auditioning the 8000-series integrated
amplifier prior to purchasing my Cyrus. Audiolab has brought back this once extremely
popular line with preamp, power amp and integrated amp as well as a surround-sound
processor and multichannel amplifier. Also present was Rega, whose Jupiter CD player was
one of the components I once coveted.
The first audiophile component I ever owned was the Arcam
Alpha 5 integrated amplifier. Now Arcam and a few other companies like Cambridge Audio, for
example, still have a fairly strong presence in North America. But, for the most part,
most UK companies that offer affordable hi-fi products seem to have lost favor. I see most
of these companies' products every year at the CES in Las Vegas, but they just don’t
seem to have the following they once did in North America. I wish more distributors
and dealers would get behind these brands. There just isn’t enough affordable hi-fi
gear out there, and having more such choices can only be a good thing.
* * *
When I first arrived at High End 2006, I thought that most
of the demos would be of tweaky two-channel systems with a focus on tubes and analog
sources. What stuck in my mind on day two of the show was how digital signal processing
(DSP) was making its way into audio and video.
At the Paradigm/Anthem booth, Bill VanderMarel was
demonstrating the video-processing capabilities of the Anthem Statement D2 surround-sound
processor. The Gennum VXP video-processing chip inside the D2 was doing quite a job at
making even standard DVDs look great. The picture wasn’t exactly HD, but on the
Cinetron HD900 three-chip LCOS projector, it showed very little artifacting and
blockiness. The Cinetron has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 and features the excellent video
processing of the Realta HQV chip, which was bypassed in favor of the D2’s
processing.
In terms of audio, the large Ascendo System M speakers
sounded wonderful in the Ascendo/Audio Aero/CAT room, but down the hall they were also
used in a system with the new Behold ADP192 speaker/room
correction system, which utilizes an Analog Devices SHARC DSP chip. I can’t say
for sure whether Behold’s ADP192 DSP had anything to do with it, but the Ascendo
speakers sounded just as good with the Behold electronics as they did with the Audio
Aero/CAT electronics, but in a much smaller room. Even
the 100,000 € Cabasse La Sphére speaker system featured in yesterday's show coverage
utilizes an Analog Devices SHARC DSP chip in its active crossover. Audio purists might
bristle at the idea, but DSP in high-end audio is here to stay.
* * *
Our first day of coverage was a whirlwind of demo rooms in the Atrium area of the MOC. This was populated with
mainly distributors who were displaying products from around the world. Stopping only
briefly in each room to take pictures and get the pertinent details of new products, we
had little time to do any real listening. But that was not our purpose. Our mission on the
first day was to get plenty of photos of new products to kick off our show coverage. We
did not even have time to stop at any of the booths on the show floor. There would be
plenty of time to go back and listen to some of those systems in the demo rooms and visit
the many booths on the main floor once we had one day of show coverage under our belts.
One demo we did attend
was by presented by the German magazine Video. Although it was conducted entirely
in German, it was obvious that the presenters were educating the audience about video
quality rather than trying to sell some new product or technology. After the presentation
we spoke with one of the representatives from the magazine, and he explained that it
wasn’t so much the hardware that they were using to improve the picture. Rather, the
demo showed what could be done to improve the picture quality of any video signal,
even the 1080i signal from a Toshiba HD DVD player. Doug and I found this approach
extremely refreshing, even if we could not understand everything that was being said.
In contrast, Pioneer had a Blu-ray demo that was obviously
promoting this new format. Although it looked and sounded quite good, I couldn’t help
but wonder how successful this new format will become -- or if it will even be around in a
few years. In my opinion, such a demo -- of a format that no one can purchase -- is a
great disservice to the public. Consumers are better served by demos like that from Video,
which will help them improve and better enjoy their systems now no matter what
the video source.
