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By now in its 3rd installment and organized by the winning team of the Munich show, HighEnd Swiss has become a meeting of the usual suspects if one has attended the two prior events. I recognized most of the brands in the same rooms. This meant I could walk the entire affair on Saturday in less than three hours. What follows are certain items that piqued my interest. Many rooms were déjà-vu.


Sven Boenicke of Audiomanufacture had his new B8 and B10 floorstanders—review of the latter pending—as well as the even newer S12 studio monitor on silent display whilst the established SLS or slim loudspeaker held audible court augmented by a bevy of Stein Music room tuning devices and electronics from Opera/Consonance and B.M.C.


The Studio 12 is a three-way compact with sidefiring 20mm xmax 12-inch woofer. The dual-concentric main driver sports a single high-pass capacitor of extreme quality on its silk-dome tweeter while the midrange runs amp direct. For home user this model is available in a 'hotrod' performance package with all the tweaks intrinsic to the B10 and upper models.



German brand Audionet had its top-loading ART-G3 CD player on active display. "The housing is an elaborate mixture of amorphous granite, steel, aluminium and low-resonance MDF. The laser module is fitted in full aluminium dampened with heavy foil sitting on acoustically friendly brass pins. A solid sliding cover runs on aluminium rails and together with the machined aluminium ventilation lid of the MDF cover provides additional stability." Socketry includes RCA and XLR analog outputs; 2 x coax, 1 x AES/EBU, 1 x Toslink digital outputs; 1 x USB and 1 x Toslink digital inputs; and a 5-pin input for the external power supply.


Danish speaker house Audiovector participated in the Montana Audio Systems room and showed off the SR6 Avantgarde Arreté top model with their take on Oskar Heil's air-motion transformer tweeter whose patents have long since expired and opened the floor to modern interpretations from A.D.A.M. to Burmester to Mark & Daniel.


German hornspeaker firm Avantgarde Acoustic demoed with their Trio/Basshorn system running off the new XA Series power amp which delivers 150 watts with 240.000uF of filter capacitance and active electronic voltage regulation.



Backes and Müller from Germany showed their Prime 8 active floorstander with twin 20cm mid/woofers in a 2.5-way configuration. The electronic crossover benefits from DSP filtering and power comes from 1 x 100-watt and 2 x 150-watt amplifier modules. There's a digital input for direct connection to media servers and CD players.


Johannes Ineichen of HWV import house for Audes, Blacknote, Goldenote, Luxman, Usher and Zu Audio also showed his own brand B.A.C.H. which can be auditioned through his retail outlet Stimmgabel in Schöftland. The two B.A.C.H. products are a CD player and integrated amp in no-metal MDF/wood enclosures. The speakers on display were by Audes.



Bel Canto Design showed their brand-new CDt3 transport with slot loader and AES/EBU and BNC outputs.


Bryston and PMC collaborated as usual but the Bryston stack did not yet show the Canadian's new top-line balanced headphone amplifier.


French speaker house Cabasse uses its tri-concentric driver technology not merely on the über Spheres but also in more conventionally attired floorstanding speakers like this Pacific 3SA model. Electronics were by Micromega.


Gino Colombo's Colotube brand around his 300B monos with DHT drivers had a very attractive silent display on the main floor. Heavily announced daughter and ex Miss Swiss beauty queen Graziella Rogers was absent on Saturday however to only wow the crowds on Friday and Sunday. Since our review Colotube has become the Swiss importer for Cees Ruijtenberg's Metrum Acoustics NOS Mini DAC Octave hence domestic audiophiles interested in this affordable D/A converter can acquire it directly rather than placing orders through Holland.


On static display too sat Dan D'Agostino's new Momentum monos.


DaVinci Audio Labs premiered their new Nifty preamp in prototype form, a transformer-coupled single-ended affair. Speakers were the Mastering Studio Monitor by Strauss Elektroakustik. Digits came by way of the NeoDio player and DAC for which DaVinci has become the Swiss importer.


Tim de Paravicini's E.A.R. Yoshino brand showed in the same room as last year and once again demoed with these unusual looking loudspeakers.