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U: Unison Research too enjoys the dedicated touch of engraving an owner's name on a Limited Edition plaque.

If the gladiator's nemesis was vexed by the former's persistence, high-power valve lovers would have been vexed not to know of Vexo. Check out that mondo amp/power supply driving Paolo Beduschi speakers.

Their website makes no bones about it: "Owing a valve HI-FI plant is a must for all those keen on music."

Vienna Acoustics' The Music reference speaker from its Klimt Series does something very smart - employ the 0.5" muRata piezo tweeter out the 100kHz, possibly the best such unit of its kind. Vienna Acoustics' 7-octave 18cm flat custom driver isn't chopper liver either. The three 9" paralleled 'spider-cone' woofers are built by Eton and nicely decoupled from the discrete coaxial main driver which is housed in its own swivel top.

Vitus Audio showed its SCD-010 source player and that puck on the top is Finite Elemente's new Resonator.

Viva Audio played with Amphion's big boys.

Surprisingly, the new Waterwall Audio Niagra with its horn-loaded tweeter is far from an empty design exercise and a real performer. Glass is amorphous in character, making for excellent resonance-control behavior. Creating such a transparent speaker of course places unusual challenges on the designer who must cleverly hide the unsightly guts and hookup wiring. Waterwall Audio has nailed that. With Gabi van der Kley of Crystal Cable working hard on her Arabesque speaker, the time for the bona fide high-end glass speaker is already here as this French firm proved. Contemporary good looks and good sound can indeed coexist.

The WHT Falcon scoop speaker flew in all the way from Australia to make its appearance in Milan.

Wilson Audio demoed its Duette speaker inside a contemporary wall-to-wall entertainment center with Audio Research gear and Crystal Cable Dreamline. Designing a high-performance speaker to go where others dare not is very clever indeed. Not only does it prove engineering chops, it broadens audience appeal and this setup was dedicated to that.

Another real-world demo took place in the WLM/Almarro exhibit where the La Scala monitors with Basic Duo subwoofer held forth. On the price-to-performance barometer, the Austrians from WLM once again hit a record high. Put differently, 95% of music lovers will never need nor want more than such a system delivers. Also in the mix was Vinnie Rossi's Red Wine Audio Isabella, not surprising when you know that WLM imports RWA into their country while Vinnie does the same for WLM in his.

As though I needed proof that superior results stem from careful planning, not last-minute improv, Hannes Frick had sent me the following drawing well ahead of time to remind me to stop by his room. Preparation definitely paid off here!

X: Which now gets us to our final entrant, Xavian from the Czech Republic whose designer Roberto Barletta is, actually, Italian and strongly focused on ScanSpeak drivers and fine woodwork.

This now concludes our Top Audio Show Milan 2008 coverage. Apologies to those overlooked and unmentioned. The event was simply far too sizeable to be fully canvassed by one reporter. But Ken Kessler roamed the hallways too. Let's see what he will add elsewhere. My wife also had a great time and thanks Gabriella Giardina of Angelis Labs and Tina Krebs of Cessaro for companionship outside the show venue.


There a mysterious senor Cohen in a sidewalk cafe cunningly directed the trio to Idea Studio Antiquariato on Via Mascheroni 14 which is run by Lilli and Elio Hassan from Lybia. Ivette highly recommends you pay them a visit when you find yourself disenchanted with the overpriced glitz elsewhere and are looking for a real treasure.

You see, my wife was hunting for estate jewelry but had no idea where to go. Chatting up senor Cohen directed her properly. The cherished prize of being a woman attending a male-dominated audio show was this ring. It captures an original antique Roman coin depicting emperor Flavius Julius Costantinus who reigned from 324 - 337 AD.

Paying tribute to an early Italian regent seems a fitting way to close out this report. Was our show attendance a success then? If you ask Ivette, most assuredly. And I'll say the same from an audio and people-meeting perspective. It really was fantastic. Let's do it again!