Munich High End 2014 was a special journey to me. I don’t have much time or mood to listen each room carefully, although the show becomes bigger and bigger every year. I have worked very hard but on most things which I cannot disclose for now. From an industry insider and running a small audio related biz, I do not know if the show reflects the facts of our industry. More often, big audio group building momentums without ground fear me……

I would remind myself to share more things here in this little cyberspace. Some about my distributing new brands/products (yes I do feel excited about them), some about how I see high fidelity audio from 2 sides (records creator/audiophiles). I would also shares tech papers and technologies as a private audio information hub.

Recently I built a personal profile in Chinese by requested. I’m associated with the brands at the bottom of this article, coverage from small to big Asia region. Interesting period in a way to manage and develop all these brands, in all different areas. Because of the synergy we have, few more new brands are coming for good reasons.

As of writing this post, my thought still goes back to 1996 when I first time attended CES in Las Vegas Alexis Park from my home town Toronto. The sky was so bright, audio was a combination of art and technology. Manufacturers and visitors were having BBQ and beer under the sunlight, and I met many legendary audio heroes, whom may not even remember.

Speaking of background task(s) I have been worked very closely on new recording too. The latest one is getting finished (well it should be finished by now). It has spent me 5 months. A very difficult recording because of the emotion expression and my personal experiences.

Anyway, during the show the most impressive sound to me is from Alan Sides Ocean Way monitors. They are very much like the Westlake sound to me. (I have owned BBSM6 for 2 years). The recording has a coherent balanced which I enjoy very much (of course also because Alan own excellent recording too).

Our own Weiss/Klangwerk room is a relative small but an enough one. Klangwerk Ella with its matching subwoofer (code name BASS – always 4 letters words) is very helpful. It becomes a much bigger system and still with the full range linear phase responses thanks to the Swiss PSI patented technologies. I look forward to have it in our Dreamroom later this year.

Devialet updates all of its models with great enhancements. Devialet 110 is now 120, 170 becomes 200(200w/pc), 240 becomes 250. The most interesting 200 can now be working as dual mono, digital crossover and chained up to 10 units. If you have Devialet 170, the firmware 7.1 upgrade will bring it to 200. You can add a second 200 slave unit to form a whopping 400w/ch. The SAM (speaker active matching) DSP is a new concept also.

Weiss Golden MAN is the 30th Anniversary Limited Edition. Its new Golden DAC module improves the audio quality in few steps ahead of original already excellent design. If you heard MEDUS/MEDEA+ OP1-BP, you know what I mean. We received excellent comments that all MAN301 users (Server or current DAC) can upgrade to this Golden DAC module (DAC-B) to gain performances. MAN301DAC-B becomes a giant killer from features to sound quality.

INT204 and PSU101 has started receiving great feedbacks from all around the world, after we full filling the back orders. I have been told that INT204/PSU101 provides the best CAS (computer as source) regardless price from many people. Well, the INT204 is not an affordable unit and PSU101 is very expansive as well. But at least I am very happy people seem like them a LOT.

Vitus Audio Masterpiece Stereo power amplifer is indeed an masterpiece. I cannot imagine the big size of it, and the sound is fantastic!

Alluxity has built an up rising force in the audio world and I see more people are knowing Alex and everyone is impressed by his designs. Alluxity is the highest cost performance ration high end preamp/power amp combo to me. It has features which should cost way more expansive. The sound is formal, musical with soul (not boring). A good balance of authority and tonal timbre. It is suitable for a very wide range of music genres.

Franco Serblin Ktêma impresses me very much also, driving by some tube amplifiers. Elegant speaker.

There are bigger amps, bigger speaker, more boxes digital chain at the show to impress people eyes and I hope ears too.

The Naim Statement is another statement. The design layout circuit is beautiful in looking.

Every year I look at the tree and see how the birds built their homes. The fresh air, the cool weather is what I like here…..of course the beer too! Cheers!