Friday at High End 2024 in Munich was a day spent listening to big, big systems that take up a lot of real estate–not to mention a lot of money. While the ESD Acoustic room I mentioned yesterday still takes the 800,000 euro cake for sheer audio decadence, I’ve gathered that whopping horn-based loudspeakers are the theme here at the show. By whopping, I mean most audiophiles will only be able to fit them in their backyards.
Words and Photos by Marc Phillips
I’m not a big fan of huge horn-loaded loudspeaker systems–remember, I’m the two-way bookshelf monitor geek. I like the coherence and simplicity of these transducers. Giant horns, in my opinion, are usually a bit overwhelming to me, and they sound bright and aggressive, and the sound is all over the place so you need to sit far far away from the action for it all to make sense. On Friday, however, I found hope. I found horn-based behemoths that actually sounded like real music with the appropriate sense of scale.
For quite some time people in the audio industry have been telling me to take a listen to Aries Cerat. I didn’t even know what type of gear they manufactured until I walked into the room on Friday–the answer, apparently, is entire systems based around horn loudspeakers so big that I couldn’t get them to fit in the shot unless I walked out of the room. In the photo above, for example, the large bass modules on the sides aren’t even seen. This was a huge exhibit room, but if I walked among the rows of gear I could occasionally glimpse audio perfection. It was like wandering through a corn maze at times, but listening to that audiophile-approved James Blake track with the 14 dB pulses surely provided a sense of purpose for this wild and crazy system.
Here’s a scoop of sherbet in between courses. I’m a bit agnostic about Wilson Audio speakers, but I know a couple of things. First, I like the smaller models a lot. The bigger models tend to overwhelm me as much as those big horns I saw all day Friday at High End 2024. Second, every time I hear Wilsons paired with VTL amps, all bets are off. VTL amps bring out something in Wilson speakers–in this case, the same Alexia Vs that our own Mohammed Samji owns–that makes me truly happy.
I discovered the brilliance of the ZenSati exhibit room at the Munich show last year. I didn’t know a lot about this esoteric cable brand, but they tend to assemble some truly amazing audio rigs at High End. I’ve never heard of Brodmann speakers before–that’s sort of the joy of going to the Munich show–but these four towers created a stunning soundstage that was unbelievably deep. It was so deep that I sat no more than a couple of feet from the turntable, just a few feet from the speakers, and these giant monoliths simply disappeared–the entire soundstage was well behind the equipment rack, past the amazing cable dressing on the floor behind the rack, and almost to the back wall. It was one of the biggest thrills I experienced on Friday.
Okay, back to the big horns. I visited the Cessaro loudspeaker room because Mark Doehmann had one of his Helix turntables in there, and I just received his $2,800 record clamp for review. The Cessaro horns were massive, at least a couple of feet taller than the average seven-foot-tall German man, but these big horns sounded more cohesive and focused, with proper scale, than any other speaker of this type that I’ve heard.
For me, the High End show in Munich has been all about TIDAL-Audio and their incredible Tidal for Bugatti Royale system, which won our Product of the Year for 2023. This year the Bugatti system sat quietly on the other side of the room while the spotlight shone on the Contriva G3 speakers with the new Ferios G2 monoblocks. Once again, these are as little as one-tenth the price of some of those horn speakers, yet they’re already in the running for Best of Show.
On Friday I also encountered my long-time friends at Von Schweikert and VAC–it seems like I haven’t been able to spend time with them in the last year or two. This year, VSA focused on a new Special Edition of their VR-55 loudspeakers with the Foundation/ARC bass controller ($85k) on Friday, and I’m going back today to hear the Endeavor Special Edition (ESE) that I reviewed and loved. The VR-55 was the first VSA speaker I ever heard, probably close to a decade ago, and i still remember how I was bowled over by their clarity and realism.
Finally, the big YG Acoustics room on Friday was hopping, with every single model on display. Paired with Boulder amplification, the new Sonja XV Signatures energized the big room and sounded clean, clear and powerful. The new Signature models are based upon very small numbers of speakers selected based upon the stellar performance of their individual parts, matched to a stunning new finish. I have a pair of Sonja 3.2s at home, so I’m already convinced that the “new” YG is scaling new heights when it comes to performance.
That’s Friday at High End 2024–tomorrow I’ll have Saturday highlights, which is the first day that the general public can attend. Based on the attendance on the first two industry days, it should be crazy busy.
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