Rooms to Visit, Products to Hear…

A Munich Show prequel – Part 1

By Roy Gregory

Every year at the Munich Show – at least, every year that the show happens – there are always products that you anticipate hearing, that you’ve heard about, that the rumour mill keeps bubbling to the surface. This being the first show in three years, you can add to that all those products that have emerged and created a splash in the meantime. For many of us, this will be the first opportunity to see and hear those products. As is the nature of these things, news and rumours continue at arrive, so there’ll be a follow up article next week, but in the meantime, here’s my personal and provisional A-to-Z ‘hit list’ of rooms to visit and products to hear, my first ports of call once the doors open…

Avantgarde Acoustics– Room Atrium 4.1, E124

Talking of interesting and impressive speakers, don’t miss the new Avantgarde Trio G3. The introduction of a n active, current-drive option, along with a host of driver and mechanical refinements, has elevated the venerable Trio right back to the high-end speaker top-table – and at a price which should cause the competition some seriously sleepless nights. Having reviewed the G3 already, in both active and passive forms, (https://www.theaudiobeat.com/equipment/avantgarde_trio_g3.htm

https://gy8.eu/review/trio-g3-lite/) I already know just how good these speakers are. With Avantgarde breaking with tradition and pairing their Trio G3s with genuinely top-flight electronics from Wadax and CH, you should have the opportunity to find out too.

Diptych Audio– Hall 2, Stand G07

One of the most intriguing French loudspeakers in many a year, Diptych Audio have been producing push-pull planar magnetic panels at disarmingly approachable prices for some years now. This year in Munich will see the arrival of the Reference model, with their new, patented Crossed Push Pull technology and promising wider bandwidth and improved performance. This could be one of the most interesting speaker introductions at the show and is pretty top of my ‘Must Hear’ list.

DS Audio– Room Atrium 4.1, F126/127 (High Fidelity Studio)

Not since the Nakamichi Dragon turntable has anybody proposed a serious solution to vinyl’s best-kept dirty little secret – LP eccentricity: super speed stable turntables are all very well, but if the hole in the middle of the record is off-centre (and they virtually all are) that introduces inherent pitch variation. Those inventive lateral thinkers at DS Audio have announced the introduction of the ES-001 Eccentricty Detection device. I can kind of see how their optical reading technology could detect a difference in concentricity between the groove and the hole in the middle of a disc: however, how they propose to correct that situation is totally beyond me. This is one question that I definitely want answered…

Göbel Acoustics– Room Atrium 4.1, E115

Since Covid closed the shows, Göbel has launched the brilliantly entertaining Divin Marquis, a speaker that’s worth seeking out all on its own. But in Munich this year, it will be joined by the Divin Sovereign active sub-woofer. The linearity and lack of additive colouration or dynamic compression at low-frequencies are high-points of the passive Divin designs, suggestive of a sophisticated appreciation of both driver and cabinet behaviour. It’s going top be fascinating to see how those stellar attributes combine with active drive/EQ…