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A really nice
feature of this event is all the complimentary beverages
that were readily available. Sweets too.

The show is
held in the Munich Order Center (MOC), which has great
outdoor spaces for that moment when one needs some fresh
air.

Located a
smaller make-shift room right off Keith Jarrett St. were
American manufacturers Eggleston Works, Rogue Audio and JPS
Labs. Mark O'Brien of Rogue Audio was showing off his new
Medusa hybrid stereo amplifier. This amplifier boasts a pair
of 12AU7 tubes to compliment its Class-D designation.
Strapped to the petit and fast sounding Eggleston Isabel
Signature loudspeakers ($6500), unfortunately, I got but
only a glimpse of what this system could do based on the
limitations of the space.

The team: Jim
Thompson of Eggleston Works (back), Joe Skubinski of JPS
Labs (left) and Rogue Audio's Mark O'Brien.

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Michael
Junglut, creator of the High-end Novum PMR resonator, was
also at this year's show showing off his first US review (here).

Above,
Jungblut was demo'ing his newest resonator in the PMR
Original Transformer, specifically designed to sit atop
transformers.

Going upstairs
to catch the bigger and more spacious demo rooms located on
the second and third floors.

A view of the
openly spacious atrium located on the second floor.

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The YG
Acoustic suite featured their top-of-the-line Anat Signature
IIIs driven by a bevy of battery-powered amplifiers from
ASR. The most impressive thing outside of the huge
soundstage and dynamics was to hear all this coming from an
analogue source (see my video
here).

Here's the
German-made Diamond turntable from Scheu Analogue. What's as
important, to me anyway, was to witness it resting on an
Accurion "Silencer" active isolation platform. I have been
using these under my Behold amplifiers for years and find
them as the best isolation devices available that I am aware
of. Retailing for $14,500 each, one would have to agree that
they better be the best for that amount of money. The most
interesting thing about the Accurion (or Halcyonic: the
company which makes them), is they were originally designed
to support electron microscopes. Sam Laufer of Laufer Teknik
had a sneaky suspicion back in '07 of the possible impact
these devices have under something as unique as the Behold
BPA768 series amplifiers due to the fact these amplifiers
house eight individual DACs per channel (16 in all). The
sonic results were significant enough - in my listening room
and beyond - to have Laufer officially take on the title of
US distributor.
Accurion was
founded in 1996 as Halcyonics and is the leading company in
the world for two specialized product lines: Halcyonics
Active Vibration Isolation
for any vibration sensitive application and Nanofilm Imaging
Ellipsometry for surface metrology. The company and its know
how for ambitious solutions
in the field of active vibration isolation is acknowledged
in research and industry. The applications vary from
semiconductor industry to materials
research and biotechnology. Accurion’s headquarter is
located in Goettingen, Germany.

Dirk Rudell of
THIXAR, serves as the world distributor for Accurion.

THIXAR also
produces the far more affordable Silent Feet, which Rudell
claims was also developed from the folks at Accurion. Made
from a special type of gel, the Silent Feet are said to be
quite an affordable alternative to the Silencer. Retailing
for about $350.00 per set (4), I asked for a review sample
to see what these puppies would sound like under my
downstairs digital front-end. Stay tuned.

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Opposite the
YG Acoustics' room was the MBL suite and on display was
their top-tier electronics and loudspeakers. Like the NY
Show, this room was swamped with visitors making sonic
impressions nearly impossible. What is clearly obvious is
MBL has become quite an attraction at events like these. And
no wonder, the sound is always great even under less than
ideal conditions. At best, this system is capable of
producing a holographic soundstage that I find second to
none.

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Isophon
and Trigon really wowed the crowd with this impressive
sounding setup. Roland Gauder, Isophon's chief designer
calls this loudspeaker, the Berlina RC11 ($250k), his most
auspicious to date. This is perhaps the first loudspeaker I
have seen that employs the Accuton diamond tweeter and
midrange drivers (using ceramic mid-bass and woofer drivers
- see video
here). The
Berlina RC11 is a four-way system that stands over six-feet
tall and looks impressive. Again, I didn't get the chance to
listen due to the attraction this suite created. Using two
pair of Trigon mono amps, I did get the feeling that this
room would remain quite busy throughout the weekend. Nice
showing.

The
ever-impressive Transrotor tourbillion turntable on display
in the Isophon Suite.

The Trigon
Audio Chronolog, the company's newest server/CD ripper, had
a very impressive user interface that also included a
wireless iPad.
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