Participate in an enormous trade show that's arguably your industry's biggest and most important. Pay top green for exhibit space. Add accommodations, food and travel for your crew, shipping for your goods. Then don't tell attendees from around the world well in advance what exciting new stuff you're bringing. Spring it on them at the event. Risk being overlooked in the glut. Forget about becoming an earmarked destination eagerly anticipated. This clever strategy continues unabated. Yet a few forward-thinking souls have decided that there's a better way. Here they are:
To their most ambitious 880 range, Aavik of Denmark add the SD-880, a streamer/DAC which resamples all data to high-rate DSD to "minimize the influence of noise on the signal while Ansuz Tesla coil technology eliminates any remaining noise".
Acapella Audio Arts from Germany will be at the alternate show's Marriott Hotel to introduce their new Hyperion 3-way which packs 4 x 15" woofers for 16Hz reach; a 2.5" midrange loaded into the firm's trademark hyper-spherical 780mm horn; and a hornloaded ion tweeter. Other shock specs are 300kg/ea., 96dB sensitivity and 2.5m height. If that's too heavy or big for your blood or crib, sampling at a show is free. Hear how the Jones live.
Æquo Audio's Ivo Sparidæns and Paul Rassin will fly in from Holland for dealer/distributor meetings but not to exhibit. However, there are exciting developments at their company, just not quite in time for this event. But you can certainly meet up with them in person to find out more already.
Airplain of Switzerland are Thomas Flammer's new brand; and one of the first to make use of the new Weiss OEM modules for active speakers which here combine with Purifi Eigentakt power elements.
Alare Labs of Italy have their new Remiga 1 to downscale the prior flagship to paralleled 6" + 8" transmission-line woofers coupled to an Accuton ceramic 5" mid and 1.3" beryllium tweeter. Weighing 100kg/ea. with dimensions of just 1.3m and 30x58cm, bandwidth is 35Hz – 30kHz, sensitivity 87dB. Alare are the transducer arm of Audia Flight and one of their speaker engineers is Massimo Costa, previously of Albedo Audio.
Also of Italy, Albedo Audio have their new Agadia, a slightly unconventional 2.5-way whose 0.5-way driver at 8" is larger than the main 7" mid/woofer. That nets a high 11Ω impedance and more 3-way type bass which is still loaded in the firm's signature Helmholine transmission line filtered by resonators to absorb organ-pipe resonances. Bandwidth is given as 39Hz – 22kHz, dimensions are 108 x 25 x 46cm HxWxD and weight is 62kg/ea. Available finishing is black or natural walnut. Amplifiers are by Soulnote of Japan.
Alsyvox of Spain's Valencia will bring their flagship Raffaello panels with Taiko music server, LampizatOr DAC, Pilium pre & power amps and Omega Audio Concepts cables. The 3-segment dipole's central super tweeter is bracketed by a double mid/tweeter on one side and a double woofer on the other. This adds up to 98dB system sensitivity.
From Finland, Amphion will celebrate the European premiere of their renewed Krypton3X with new 25mm titanium tweeter and new crossover. As before the dual 8" midranges are loaded cardioid for deliberate out-of-phase cancellation toward the side walls and up to 20dB of claimed suppression of those reflections. The sidefiring 10" woofer conceals behind the sloped grill. With dimensions of 137 x 33 x48cm HxWxD and 70kg of fighting weight, Krypton3X also throws 21Hz-25kHz bandwidth onto the scale.
Denmark's Ansuz have their next generation of the PowerSwitch which upgrades the prior X-TC, A2 and D2 models for an even cleaner streamed signal. This begins with 3rd-gen analog dither tech where "active Tesla coils send pulsating anti-phase signals with precisely defined frequencies to significantly amplify the music signal but eliminate background noise. The same tech integrates in the Børresen M1 speaker and Aavik 880 amplifier." The next wrinkle are dual Tesla coils wound in opposing directions. "The two coils carry voltage. When one encounters a spike, the counter coil activates to eliminate the noise. Since such noise spikes carry virtually no current, cancellation isn't perfect so connecting more Tesla coils in parallel enhances the effect." Then there's the active zirconium Tesla coil. "An impressive improvement of our anti-aerial resonance coil technology, incorporating a zirconium rod creates a higher level of resonance control." Composite enclosures reduce hysteresis created by metal chassis. There's also a built-in PowerBox linestage section to interface with the most advanced Ansuz cables.
Apertura of France will bow their new Forté, a high-sensitivity model "for owners of tube or class A electronics". Its central 29mm ring-radiator dome tweeter is bracketed by 18cm paper-cone mid/woofers reinforced with reed fibers. Claimed bandwidth is 32-28'000Hz, 2.83v/1m sensitivity 93dB, nominal impedance 4Ω and available finishes are satin American walnut or piano gloss lacquer in white or black.
The Artesanía Audio rack company from Spain will help multiple exhibitors sound their best. Visitors can find their new Exoteryc Pro racks in the Magico room and other models with Von Schweikert, APL/VAC/Kroma Atelier, Innuos/Pilium/Estelon and Wadax.
AudioNec of France's signature Linæum-derivative bending-wave drivers with modular dynamic-driver stacks will show in two locations; one to play their Evo 3 Signature with Riviera Labs electronics; and one with the passive Evo 2 and Kora Electronics.
Germany's Audionet will launch their new flagship Bohr phono preamplifier which together with their Stern and Heisenberg electronics will drive Peak Consult's new Dragon loudspeakers.
Over at the Marriott Hotel, Audionostrum will present their 97dB 3-way Jupiter flagship with AlNiCo-powered ¾" and 1" beryllium drivers and 15-inch AlNiCo woofer. At 172cm tall and 180kg each, these are big speakers meant for bigger rooms.
Lithuania's Audio Solutions will unveil their O306F as their first 'large format' Overture floorstander. Top to bottom, the drivers of this 3-way are a 152mm paper-cone mid, 25mm silk-dome tweeter and dual 230mm cellulose woofers loaded into a rear port. Filter hinges of the phase-linear crosssover are 500Hz and 3kHz. Claimed bandwidth is 29Hz-26kHz, sensitivity 91.5dB/2.83V. Available finishes include gloss black or white standard plus surcharge zebrano, mahogany and wenge veneers plus limited edition blanco, white mahogany, black mahogany and matured oak.
Aune of China will bring a number of novelties like the S9c Pro DAC/headfi deck shown above, the S17Pro headphone amp and M1p [€369 + €30 for Bluetooth option] portable music player.
Aries Cerat of Cyprus will premiere their new Janus QuintEssence amplifier for which they claim statement-level SET sonics of presumably far more than typical power.
Denmark's Audiovector will demo their flagship R8 Arreté speakers with dual R Sub Arreté subwoofers in conjunction with Brinkmann, Gryphon and Ortofon electronics.
Auralic USA will bow their new Aries G2.2, Vega 2.2, Aries G3 and Vega G3. Maintaining the nested build of inner pure-copper sub enclosure mechanically decoupled from the outer casing, design and for the G3 models even manufacture now takes place in the company's Portland/Oregon facility. The new Tesla G3 streaming platform's 64-bit processor is said to be 8 x faster than the precursor, its memory capacity is now 4GB and direct memory access tech integrates to reduce latency and jitter by a claimed 90%. Power supply capacitance has doubled, music storage is based on NVMe SSD for read/write speed ten times faster; and much more.
Germany's Avantgarde Acoustics will propose their new Colibri C2, a modular 3-way of horn-loaded mid and tweeter with dual 6½" woofers. Mounting hardware allows for horizontal and vertical orientation. With bandwidth down to 65Hz, many users might want a subwoofer and the optional companion 1.2kW/18" C18 can even be nested in the same support hardware.
AVM of Germany will premiere their CS 30.3 all-in-one player and first monitor speaker called Audition CB 2.3 [€2.9K/pr], a rear-ported 2-way with fabric dome tweeter and 16cm sandwich mid/woofer in a black or white lacquered cabinet with clear-anodized aluminium baffle.
Axxess of Denmark are the new so already 4th brand by Audio Group Denmark. We have a dedicated feature on it here. Their first product is the all-in-one DAC/pre/streamer/amp Forté platform which will sell for $5'500, $8'000 and $11K in I, II and III guise. It comes with a large red display and big multi-function rotary master control plus, as a first for this team, a 6.3mm headphone output. Inputs are RJ45, USB, BNC, Toslink and one analog RCA. There's even a pre-out to bi-amp, run a subwoofer or outboard headphone amplifier.
To remind us that 30 years after its launch, Laurence Dickie's masterpiece Nautilus remains available, B&W from the UK will bring a one-up finish in abalone pearl. "30 years later, Nautilus is still built the same way. Ironically for a company that's taken manufacturing of audiophile speakers to new industry standards of automated precision, building Nautilus is a painstaking hand-built process. One enclosure takes over a week; and that’s before any sanding, painting or polishing. Small wonder that demand for Nautilus has consistently outstripped supply, with the waiting list for a new model currently standing at two years." Nautilus comes in three standard colours: midnight blue metallic, silver and black. Bowers & Wilkins also offer a custom service that will match the product’s colour to any reference the customer chooses at an extra cost.
The teams of b.audio, Diptyque and O2A will join forces to "show several novelities as world premieres". For b.audio it will be a new integrated with built-in streamer, for Diptyque a MkII variant on their 140cm tall planarmagnetic dipole. O2A will contribute all necessary cabling.
Baun Audio from Denmark is the new home of Benno Baun Meldgaard who first romanced ears with GamuT (subsequently acquired by Dantax of Raidho and Scansonic). Then he reappeared at Gryphon Audio Design involved with their Eos 2 speaker project, a role which according to his FB page terminated in October of last year. Now he's working on launching his own speaker house. Current R&D promises "a proprietary woofer of completely new motor system for more than 40mm Xmax from an underhung magnet system; a proprietary coax; a proprietary enclosure featuring new composite materials; and an optimized xover for perfect impulse and phase response." While it sounds too early for an active Munich demo, the smart money banks on Mr Meldgaard being somewhere at the MOC to spread the word.
