Munich 2015: The Greatest Show on Earth page 3

Only in Munich! Rumor has it that this huge Realhorns apparatus located in the MOC’s atrium serves as only the tweeter section. Thank God, this rumor proved to be false. Fact is, this is the Realhorns’ woofer section of Germany where they actually build surround sound horn systems for public/stadium/DJ affairs (check their website http://www.realhorns.de/index.html). 

Covering a show this size with veteran show-goer and ST instigator Key Kim made it much easier. Sporting our well-worn Canon cameras drapped around our necks, together Key and I captured plenty of sites for your perusal…

Always a gentleman, when Kurt Hecker – who also serves as chairman of the High End committee – isn’t participating in press conferences and the usual day to day affairs surrounding this huge, he and his wife were greeting visitors at his Kurt Hecker Marketing exhibitor’s booth.

Impressively built digital components took the spot light in many  of the rooms I strolled into. As did this Total DAC stack. 

Meridian Audio launched Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) at CES eariler this year. I did’t go but heard mixed reviews on its performance. MQA purports to bring the original studio recording standard CD quality (16/44) or even lo-rez MP3 files in a way that has never been done before. Meridian has a storied past due to their brand appeal and excellence in the home theater and two-channel market along with their help in the creation of both BluRay and SACD. As a result, MQA has already got the music streaming giant TIDAL boasting MQA technology and I’m told will have MQA music titles available by early June.

Unfortunately, the demo I attended at the show proved uneventful. I heard an overall quality of sound that was not pleasing to my ears. On certain songs I was unfamiliar with the music sounded okay. But on songs I knew, like Frank Sanatra singing Live at the Sands, it was not very good sounding at all. I am not giving up on the MQA because it was the only exciting thing at the show that sold for only $300.00.  And for that reason alone I will ask for another chance to hear it again (another NYC demo is taking place in early June). I’ll report my findings so stay tuned.    

Some more interesting sights from the Munich High End 2015 …

It was really nice to see legendary American-made products like Mark Levinson, Audio Research and Krell at this year’s Munich High End show. 

The new innovative wireless speaker system from Devialet called the Phantom.