Sonus Faber premiered their Aida 2 for Europe here in Warsaw to demonstrate how important this event has become. Aida the Second is a complete overhaul of the previous model (wasn't that good enough at €120'000/pr?) with a new driver system featuring the H28 XTR-04 tweeter, M18 XTR-04 midrange and a completely redesigned crossover network.

dCS, D'Agostino and Wilson Audio's Alexxa filled a big room to capacity with attendees. Only once had we been enthusiastic about this room and that was the year when Frank Vermeylen was asked to do the setup. In our opinion this year sounded too 'Wilson' again but the crowds loved it.

A lot of Tenor Audio and Solution electronics sat on Franc Audio Accessories racks and footers. Loudspeakers were the Mårten Mingus Quintet. These 3-way speakers with 3 x 7” aluminium sandwich woofers, 1 x 5” ceramic mid and 1 x 0.75” diamond drivers all sourced from Accuton put really nice music into a vast room.

Blumenhofer had brought their Gran Goia MkII horns and coupled them to a pair of Cary monoblocks. Source of the day was Scheu Analog's Das Laufwerk No.2 with an Ypsilon phono stage. Cammino was in charge of cables and power. We listened to some Branduardi of course and picked up where we left off last time we met Andrea Vitali.

Admitted not the best picture but it was the McIntosh room with lots of green lights, waving needles and an audience that liked what they heard. If they were happy, we were too.

Lots of people were in the headphone zoo.

More Franc Accessories supported Emotiva electronics from the USA. Speakers were from the same company.

And there would be even more Franc Accessories, this time in bright yellow. This color, just like with the Sveda loudspeakers mentioned in the first part of our report, makes you happy. Also the sound in this room made us happy. John Devore's Orangutan loudspeakers in combination with Japanese Air Tight tube amplification were a great match that paid off.

Primare electronics and Audio Physic Avantera III loudspeakers held court in the next room.

Then something weird happened in the form of the Pivetta Opera Only. Advertised as an amplifier, it looked like a mix between a Cray supercomputer from the 80s and one of the Transformer characters. This amp project features 6 x 30kW triple-insulated toroidal transformers, 2'112 high-current bipolar transistors, half a dozen fans to keep things cool, 24 analog (RCA/XLR) inputs and six digital, 12 channels and 192 speakON connections. It's reportedly limited to a mere 160'000 watts of power. Here it was just sitting there showing off its intestines.

Dali aka Danish Audiophile Loudspeaker Industries demoed their Callisto 5 wireless system. It is not using Wifi by the way but a proprietary protocol.

Denon next door displayed their wares on a somewhat sagging table.

A comfortable headphone listening area was in high demand.

Auris from Serbia were also present in the large headphone area.

And that was the last room of the National Stadium for us this second day of the show. Still full of the impressions and particularly that of the SoulSonic Hologramm-X, we took the shuttle bus back to our temporary home at the Sobieski hotel. Time for feet up and some R&R. Tomorrow would be another heavy day with the final floors of the Sobieski.