Soulution again teamed with Magico and showed a new DAC and phono stage. Giving both brands a try every year, I can somewhat appreciate why they're popular and such press darlings. But I must also confess that it's simply not my type of sound. At the end of the day, personal taste is the true arbiter, not any measurable truth of ultra-low distortion.

Quite the opposite is true for soundkaos who hosted the original Swiss Affair in an exhibit custom-fabricated again by the very resourceful Martin Gateley.

New for this year were the final SK16 aka 'Skiny', a more compact more affordable augmented widebander speaker than the original ovoid Wave 40 we own; and final executions on both models' respective subwoofer assistants in an attractive gloss finish.

The final production SK16 had also gotten Panzerholz driver structures.

Here we see the rest of the Swiss Affair, namely a complete Nagra stack ending in their new Classic Amp; and Vovox cabling throughout. Only the shelf-less stand was Spanish by way of Artesania Audio.

Attendees could hear both speaker systems which the soundkaos crew swapped out in less than a minute. With an SK16 review pending, we'll leave the finer details for later.


The second (unofficial) "Swiss Affair" was the Stenheim exhibit backed by Audio Consulting and CH Precision. Only the Danish ZenSati cables crossed the border. The tag line "4 towers, 1200kg, 28 drivers, 10’000W RMS, 10-100’000Hz" properly captures the new Swiss flagship speakers with fore/rear-firing sub towers.


Stenheim CEO Jean-Pascal Panchard admitted how this speaker wouldn't have been on this year's agenda had it not been for an affluent Danish audiophile who prepaid for his set to jump-start R&D. At the show, another two sets had already sold to China. This expresses how supply simply responds to demand. It also segues fluidly into comments made by Richard Vandersteen who chatted me up on the ground floor before the gatekeepers let in that day's audience. Whilst happily selling large numbers of his top Model 7—incidentally a speaker Bel Canto's Michael McCormick had partnered with at a previous show to call it out as one of the best he's ever worked with—Richard dislikes what's happening to our industry at large. Calling himself a middle class guy who has built his small empire on affordable products, his sell figures show how hifi's upper middle class gets wealthier whilst the lower middle class moves down into what he called "comfortably poor". In essence, the middle has collapsed like a speaker setup spread too far apart. His accountant loves to see large Model 7 orders depart for the Far East. Richard's heart cries over watching orders for his Model 2 and 3 shrink compared to years past. At the upper end, his new quasi-circlotronic high-power single-ended 'head' amp for the Model 7's upper drivers (their woofers were always self-powered) is finding buyers also with current owners of his speakers. They upgrade performance retroactively with his new dedicated amp. I meant to stop by his exhibit after our chat but got sidetracked and never followed up. Shame on the shallow press and their empty promises!

To wrap up this subject, it's popular to critique current high-end's upward spiral into the fiscal stratosphere. I do it a lot because like Richard, I hate the bling/overkill trend which often caters to the nouveau riche who pursue it for arguably all the wrong reasons. But it's also fair to remember that, a/ this merely mirrors larger global economic trends, and b/ companies who supply that end of the market merely respond to demand. I find middle-class products far more interesting and relevant than the posh stuff. Yet I can't really blame firms for making hay when the season is right. This now concludes my Swiss coverage.