Origin Live
British turntable experts Origin Live showed their most ambitious tonearm at High End. The Renown (£26,000) has a much wider yoke than most plus dual pivot bearings, adjustable VTA for both the inner and outer parts of the record and an asymmetric, multi-layer counterweight designed to reduce resonance. More details here.
Elipson
With a heritage as large as theirs it’s not surprising that Elipson likes to revisit its vintage designs, the remarkable thing is that they don’t look old. The 402 Tribute is a collaboration with Supravox and comes with transparent acrylic stands for that full future of sound look.
Grimm Audio
At High End Grimm introduced the latest version of its active DSP loudspeaker, the LS1c (£25,000). This looks like its predecessors but has all new electronics and software as well as a carbon tweeter. This replaces the previous beryllium version because supplies for this type of dome have dried up. Grimm used to modify the original UCD modules to create Ncore amplifiers for this speaker but now uses the latest Ncore from Hypex. They have also developed new software for PC and Mac and offer full control via tablet or smart phone.
One of Grimm’s founders, Peter Willenswaard, is a tube electronics specialist and a vinyl nut but as tubes are a bit retro for the brand he has designed a solid state phono stage called PW1 (c£4,200). This has a copper chassis, a FET output stage and an emphasis on keeping phase modulation to a minimum, it also has loading options in the base and an onboard power supply.
Kudos
Kudos revealed their active not active outboard crossover the Sigao Drive (£6,500) to a European audience. This sits between preamp and power amps just like an active crossover but is purely passive. Kudos make custom DIN plug adapters so that the Sigao Drive will work with the amplifiers of your choice and demonstrated this unit with Chord Ultima power amps and their Titan 808 loudspeakers. The switch from standard to active drive meant going from one power amplifier to three but nonetheless the demonstration made a very good case for this unique approach to active operation.
Lucas Audio Lab
Server specialist Lucas Audio shared the Oephi room with their LDMS bespoke digital source. This is built to customer spec and incorporates custom linear power supplies, thermal optimisation, EMI/RF shielding, full galvanic isolation and chassis damping. It offers USB and S/PDIF outputs and integrates with the usual streaming services and control software options including Roon core and DSP room EQ. Prices range from €2,700 to €16,500 depending on feature count and casework.
Kroma Atelier
Kroma Atelier Iriya loudspeakers were to be found in the Innuos dem room and the Spanish company’s booth where they had the Jovita floorstanders (£25,000). This brand’s speciality is Kryon synthetic stone cabinets and the Jovita runs an 8 inch Purifi bass driver, two 6 inch aluminium midranges from the same brand, and a Mundorf AMT tweeter. Kroma also use wooden reflex ports, those on this model being in cedar.
Kronos Audio
American twin platter turntable specialist Kronos showed the Discovery 4 phono stage. This is a three chassis, all tube design that uses 6350 output tubes which were developed for early computers and consequently have great longevity.
Manunta
The Italian brand M2Tech is in the process of rebranding itself Manunta Audio after its founder Marco Manunta. The first product to wear this name is the Classic Integrated (€4,800), this is more conventional looking than the compact M2tech designs but is a thoroughly modern amplifier under the skin. It offers 60W into 8 or 100W into 4 ohms and is said to be capable of driving difficult loudspeakers such as ATCs. It has an MM/MC phono stage and a digital module (M2T’s speciality) will be available in the future.
Q Acoustics
First launch of the show was Q Acoustics’ 3000C loudspeaker range. The C stands for continuous curved cone in the drive units which is designed to deliver tight, damped bass for easier room matching. The range consists of the 3010c (£329), 3020c (£399) and 3030c (£499) stand mounts alongside the 3050c floorstander (£899). The latter has particularly nice detailing at its base with an alloy bracket that extends the footprint for stability and spike mounts at the edge of the curved cabinet at the front. The range will be available in August and more detail can be found here.
Sbooster
Dutch power supply specialist Sbooster have created a upgrade for the popular Bluesound Node wireless streamer. This is an active filter that fits within the Node and works alongside a 5 – 6V Sbooster power supply, it can be fitted by either dealers or end users, price is €139 plus €329 for the external PSU.
Totem
Totem showed a compact but highly capable new bookshelf speaker called Loon (€1,690), this apparently after the water fowl not the designer. This monitor stands just under 11 inches high (27.3cm) and runs a 5.75 inch woofer with copper clad voice coil and one inch laser etched soft dome tweeter in a design whose performance surpassed expectations.
Bellame
From Normandy in France Bellame is a furniture maker come loudspeaker brand that managed to make one of the most relaxed yet informative sounds of the show with its Hommage 300 speakers and Advance electronics. This €48,000 design runs twin 12 inch bass drivers in cabinets that are 1.1m wide and high and finished in santos and zebrano veneer. They sounded woody but in a very appealing way.
Phasemation
Japanese electronics specialist Phasemation demonstrated their wares including a four box phono stage alongside the Yuki AP-01 turntable that was unveiled last year via a pair of Wolf von Langa high sensitivity speakers. Jaques Loussier’s Play Bach Golden Prize sounded very nimble and enjoyable in this room, one of several that made a good case for vinyl as the best source choice in show conditions.
Amphion
With speakers made for the domestic and studio world Amphion were demonstrating systems created for both environments so that visitors could appreciate the benefits of hearing what the engineers hear. They did this with a pro system made up of Two18 monitors (€6,600) with active BaseTwo25 subs (€11,000) and a domestic one with Krypton3X towers (€20,000). As you might expect they sounded very similar.
Arcam
Arcam expanded its Radia range to include the ST25 streamer/DAC (£1,799) with full colour TFT screen, 32-bit/768kHz PCM and the ability to stream Amazon, Qobuz etc when used with the Arcam app. They also introduced two fifth gen Class G streaming amps with the same features, the SA35 (£3,499) offers 120W per channel and the larger 180W SA45 at £4,999, both have TFT displays and DIRAC room EQ software, the bigger unit also has eARC for easy AV hook up.
EAR/Yoshino
You can never tell what you will find at High End and I certainly didn’t expect to find EAR/Yoshino showing a headphone. The headphones can be either open or closed back but are only at prototype stage, a forthcoming headphone amp to match is a solid state Class A design with output transformer. In the same casework is a new entry level phono stage called Phonobox, this accepts both MM and MC inputs and is a pure valve design that costs a tempting €1,400.
Metronome
French digital brand Metronome introduced a DAC to match its DSS2 streamer, the DSC2 (€4,700) is in fact a streamer, preamplifier and DAC so can be used alone with a power amplifier or active loudspeakers. It will be released in September.
