A symphony of red unconventionalism was to be found in the Sigma Audio Concepts exhibit and the Rise CD player with separate display was just the first of it. Wild, wacky and wonderful? Or just wacky? You decide.
Siltech showed with MartinLogan and the small Wilson Duettes. A showgoer listens intently. What's he thinking? "The sound needs a bit more gold, less silver?" Who knows. We all hear differently. Which is why exhaustive listening commentary in a show report is questionable at best since the number of unknown variables approaches infinity. It's only when something is utterly compelling instantly that I'd now feel - um, compelled to remark on it.


Another sharp cookie on the far side of wild and wacky is Ron Sutherland of Sutherland Engineering who took us through an elaborate tour of his phonostage. Well, M&H. I suffered an intermediate bout of overload fade and cheated with the occasional nod and conspiratorial smile. Surviving the onslaught of shows on the other side, being an exhibitor having to explain the same thing 100s of times a day... let's just say I've been there, done that and appreciate it being in the past.


But surviving a show on this side, being press, isn't much easier. Everyone wants your undivided and keen attention. And often, attendees don't have the time to wait until you're clear and on the move again so they have to gently interject for a quick hello. On the subject of which, one gent from Eastern Europe just took receipt of his Emerald Physic CS2. "They're everything you assume they oughta be." That I'm hearing more and more. A $3,500/pr speaker that simple does it all. Scary really. But back to Ron and his phonostage.


The trick part is/are the many modular snap-on boards which include niceties such as a white-noise generator to hasten break-in; discrete loading values without a selector or dip switches; different grounding solutions and such. Smmmmart.

Swans Europe GmBH brought new meaning to garden variety by displaying their speakers in a static display au nature.

Tenor Audio brought a new preamp and phono stage.

I could cheat and give you all the juicy bits now - or I could let Mike Malinowski tell all in his upcoming review. Do I even have all the juicy bits at this stage? Time for the Eastern man mystic smile. On second thought, let's not take away from Mike's review, shall we?

Lest you think to get away equally quick -- on matters of real estate that is -- think again. The Tenor low-level components take up space, in keeping with their pricing and pedigree. The phono stage, with tubes, is apparently so quiet that the Tenor men had to bankroll a new piece of test kit to track the noise.

Frank Blöhbaum, the design genius behind the Thorens TEM 3200 monos and TEP 3800 preamp -- the latter just displaced StereoPlay's Lyra Connoisseur as their new statement preamp -- was on hand for a photo op.

Heinz Rohrer, CEO of the Thorens company, agreed to dispatch a review preamp later in the year to let us play ketchup with our German reviewer colleagues once again. But on this topic, being second is actually an advantage. It let's you fill the gaps which the relative brevity of the print format nearly enforces by design. Frank is already standing by for the German Inquisition e-zine style. In case I was being too obscure, the TEM 3200 monos are the finest amps I've yet heard in my audiophile career. If StereoPlay has it right about the preamp too, stay primed for a rerun of the shocking kind.

At suspicion of similar excellence in all-tube designs had me TruLife Audio. Alas, their sound cubicle with the apparently challenged small Cessaros wasn't sufficient to get the full hit so a future review -- Zeus and the seven muses willing -- will have to pick up this conversation. TruLife Audio's business is family-owned and goes back to 1957. Their core competency is transformers - of the industrial sort. Military. Medical. Mission critical. Their interstage iron has bandwidth beyond 2MHz. +/- 0.1dB. That's not a typo. Be still my beating heart.

Then there's the subliminal BS detector which, with these guys, redlined all nada. Just watching Velissarios follow Franck Tchang's impromptu demonstration and seeing him get what took me quite a bit longer was a real pleasure.


The only fly in the TLA ointment is the luxury tax. Each watt costs € 1000. By the time you get into 211 or 6C33C territory, you'll need the Porsche in the driveway. Or do as I do - rent your digs and drive a used little Mazda Demio. TruLife Audio gets my award for Highest Suspicion of Tube Excellence at Munich 2008. The Athens show, I'm told by the way, is small but wonderful. Another date to pencil into the calendar.

TW-Acustic's popular Raven turntable just got its matching phono stage. Thomas Woschnick was on hand in the big Cessaro room to talk M&H through the finer points. Did they make a review appointment? Time will tell.

Triode Corp.'s Japanese tube electronics presently grace M&H's living room so we won't steal any thunder and just present a silent picture.

Triangle Electroacoustique's exhibitors played such lame tourist music that pictures is all I got out of that visit.

I've owned three pairs of Triangles. I liked their sound very much. And show coverage is much like hit 'n' run. It's all about mini snap shots in time, whatever happened to be the case when you stuck your head into a given room. The potential for accidents is high then. That's simply the nature of the beast and what floats my musical boat might sink yours. It remains true however that the selection of what music is played is far more important than some people realize. It's not the sound that makes one stick around. It's the music. If that's compelling enough, you might stay long enough to also notice that the sound is very nice. Priorities, eh?

Ultrasone AG's headphone exhibit shows Japanese importer Hiroko Kuroki and Hans Oosterwaal of the iQube amp.