CEC of Japan had two of their components in an importer's room whose active system ran other makes.

Ceratec's slim lifestyle towers hide more behind their grilles than is apparent. In this they join B&O, a firm which often gets little luv for engineering because of their focus on designer cosmetics. I had to look up a prior Ceratec print review with plenty of in-the-raw photos to get the full story behind their chromed speakers.

Music Hall did their usual, which is to say, make good sound from sanely priced, sanely sized components. That recipe is called Creek + Epos. The winner is you, the budget-conscious, space-constrained audiophile.

Denon was another of the electronics giants who offered a comprehensive spread of goods to be admired.

DIY is alive and well in Poland and KAIM Klub Audiofila i Melomana showed off various such goods.

In the lands of milk & honey over at the Bristol meanwhile, Electrocompaniet's importer had loaded up the tables.

Polish loudspeaker maker Esa used the event to introduce very large dipole speakers which appear somewhat unusual for this firm based on their previous offerings that are embodied by the small speakers also in the lower picture.


This open-backed model utilizes nine custom aluminum cone ScanSpeak woofers, custom ScanSpeak midranges with aluminum phase plugs and top of the line ScanSpeak ring radiators. This was a very ambitious speaker design but in line with the renewed interest in so-called OBs - open baffles.

The Fatman headphone/integrated amp with iPod docking station also sold under the Dared brand made an appearance leashed to headphones and Adam Audio monitors with ATM tweeters.

Dr. Christian Feickert had one of his protractors in an exhibit, the matching turntable sadly absent because it had sold. This new Feickert Analogue table will sell for ca. 3,900 euros and Globe Audio Marketing will import it to the US, taking over for Acoustic Sounds.

Ferguson appeared to be a brand like Infinity or Polk, serving the mainstream audio and home theater sectors.

As a devout headphone user, I couldn't fail but notice the tiny Graham Slee amp leashed to a French Atoll Cd player.

Halcro and Acapella demonstrated the gospel according to the test bench - lowest distortion wins. That ion tweeter really is something to behold. Otherwise, give me the soul and distortion of valves.

Harpia Acoustics won the pun-ningest loudspeaker naming contest for their Doberman.

Hitachi meanwhile joined the lets'-overhwelm-'em-with-sheer-scale approach favored by the corporate giants who invariably went the extra mile to assemble slick yet massive exhibits.