It is Sunday and I find myself from crowded hotel lobby. Most of the people seems to be focused and being on some kind of mission. Lot of men, many plastic bags and some cameras. What is going on? Concept is the same around the world and this event could have been in the US, Germany or Hong Kong but in October 28-29 2007 it was time for Hifi and Home Theater Show in Malmö Sweden (organized by Malmö Bild & Ljud Center and Malmsjö Hifi).

So here we are back in SAS Radisson to check out this fall’s Hifi / High End harvest. Lately it has been a pleasure to see and hear that some of the people who are doing the demos in Sweden are playing music what they actually like to listen themselves instead of playing same old hifi demo records and CDs at every show. This is a great way to become more familiar not only with new music but also with people presenting these systems.

This year few exhibitors brought some familiar faces on place…
Christophe Cabasse - Cabasse
Ole Lund Christensen – Amphion
Doug Graham – Naim
Ole Klifoth – Audiovector

Round begins …

It is always nice to see when people really believe in their products… You can easily say that after seeing guy from High-fi Consult to present prototype version of new Swedish made aluminum rack (see picture below). And just in case somebody wonders, this guy is NOT a professional acrobat. High-fi Consult’s system included Kuzma Stabi XL turntable, Kora Explorer 150CSC amplifier and Xavian XN360 speakers.

High-fi Consult’s system

Hi-Fi Consult had premier for Swedish QRS Nebulosa speakers (about € 24 000 per pair).
Rest of the system was Bladelius Ymer monoblocks and Gondul CD-player with Transparent Cables.

Mr Cabasse himself presented € 140 000 Cabasse La Sphere speakers with digital filter and IcePower power amps.
Rest of the system was from Accuphase.

Revel Ultima Salon 2 with Mark Levinson No 436 monoblocks and Levinson CD-player and pre amp.

Usher BE 718 speakers with various McIntosh electronics.

Danish Peak Consult Princess speakers with Vitus Audio SS-010 integrated amplifier SCD-010 CD-player (also Danish).

Esoteric AI-10 integrated amplifier and SA-10 SACD/CD-player with QRS SuperNova speakers.

Exposure 3010S series with Monitor Audio speakers.

Exposure MCX series.

Audionord showed Brinkmann, Audio Research, Wilson Audio, Nordost system. They demoed Brinkmann Balance turntable,
Audio Research LS26 pre amp, Audio Research CD7 CD-player and new Audio Research HD220 hybrid power amp.

Finnish Amphion Xenon speakers with Perreaux Prisma series electronics from New Zealand.

Norwegian Patos speakers with Danish Densen electronics.

Triangle Magellan Quator speakers with A&O Audio #1 integrated amplifier and Moon Super Nova CD-player.

New Dynaudio Sapphire speakers.


 

Martin Logan Summit speakers and new Ayre K-XR pre amp with Ayre M-XR monoblocks, C5xe universal player and L5xe AC power filter.

Kef Reference speakers with Cyrus electronics.


 

Naim Supernait and Hi-Cap, CDX2 and XPS2 with Audiovector S3 speakers.

Marantz room

TAD Reference One (€ 68 500 per pair) speakers with Burmester 911 monoblocks and 061 CD-player and 011 pre amp.
FYI, smoke and light special effects in the pictures were intentional :-) This was pretty impressive system, even without these special effects.

And the winner is …

Considering how different the circumstances are and how difficult it is to setup system to hotel rooms in very limited time I left “best in show” awards to be used in cat and dog shows. Instead unofficial first ever “highendnews.com music award” goes to Ludwig Swanberg from Audionord for his refreshing music selection.

Some manufacturer homepages:

Abbingdon Music Research http://www.amr-audio.co.uk/
A&O Audio http://www.aoaudio.se/
ASR http://www.asraudio.de/
Ayre http://www.ayre.com/
Bladelius Design Group http://www.bladelius.com/
Brinkmann Audio http://www.brinkmann-audio.com/
Cabasse La Sphere http://www.cabasse.com/english/sphere/
dCS http://www.dcsltd.co.uk/index2.html
Esoteric http://www.teac.com/esoteric/index.html
Kuzma http://www.kuzma.si/
Mark & Daniel Audio Labs http://www.mark-daniel.com/
Patos http://www.patos.no/
Peak Consult http://www.peak-consult.dk/
Perreaux http://www.perreaux.com/
QRS http://qrs-speaker.se/
TAD http://www.tadhomeaudio.com/home.html
Verity Audio http://www.verityaudio.com/e/index.html
Vitus Audio http://www.vitusaudio.com/
Xavian Electronics http://www.xavian.cz/