[Show Reportage] Munich High End 2025 - A visit

Reporter: Hartmut Quaschik
The show took place from May, 15th through May, 18th 2025 at the M.O.C. facilities, in Munich, Germany
Originally written: May, 2025
Website with plenty of resources: High End Society

Three millon EUR hifi system

It was well announced before the show, that there would be a 3 million EUR hifi system to listen to. Tickets for time slots had to be booked in advance.

The system consisted of big Wilson loudspeakers, multiple D'Agostino power amps, and a lot of other fancy stuff. There were some music pieces played, obviously from a music server. First came some classical piece, maybe "Night on bare mountain" or something like that. This first piece of music really shined and sounded lifelike. And I was very sure about that, because I was at the Munich Philharmonic three days before, and the room as well as the musical performance and also the musical presentation and spatial image were excellent on that concert. The Wilson was on par with that concert experience, this really astonished me, because I did not expect that at all. So thumbs up for classical music. The other musical pieces were female or male voice and pop music, but the sound was too big in scale for my taste, and also kind of overdamped. For me it felt like if the musicians were shown very precise, but they were playing without joy or even fun. Kind of boring. For these music styles I prefer smaller setups, which bring the intimate atmosphere of a jazz club or other small musical venue into my living room.
[Wilson 3 million EUR setup]

Kondo

Kondo (Audio Note Japan) also had a very expensive setup - I estimated about 500,000 EUR - playing classical music at very low volume. This was even more boring than the Wilson. When I entered the listening room, I also had the impression that you need very much more power in order to drive a Bowers&Wilkins loudspeaker.

Can a tube amplifier with 211 type tubes in parallel single ended configuration really drive a big Bowers&Wilkins loudspeaker?

Hyun Lee of Tedeska Berlin

Tedeska from Berlin celebrate their 10th anniversary this year. They build custom high end phono cartridges. Although resembling very much the vintage Neumann cartridges, Hyun Lee says he can deliver just every quality according to what the customer wants. Hyun also offers a repair and rebuild service. When he offered that I can bring my used cartridges for inspection of the needle, I was happy to come back with old cartriges from Ikeda, Ortofon, Koetsu and Fidelity Research.

Silbatone

Like most years, Mr. JC Chung from South Korea brought to us an impressive vintage cinema speaker setup. Last year they passed the event, because Mr. Chung had finished his second vintage audio museum in Seoul. This year, he brought a rather modern loudspeaker. The system consisted of Western Electric TA 4181 woofers, Western Electric 22b horns driven by double WE555 drivers for each 22B horn, and WE597 tweeters. The speaker was not a vintage configuration from the past, but especially arranged for the show.

Like in previous show installations, the music that was played came from turntables provided by Frank Schroeder and Thomas Schick

Different from what I expected, this setup had the least vintage sound of all Silbatone demonstrations I have participated. The sound was not that far away from modern cinema sound installations. It was large scale like the Wilson three million dollar setup, but much more fun with pop music. Since it is a one-off installation and consists of parts which are nearly unobtainable, there cannot be a meaningful discussion whether this setup might be more expensive than the Wilson setup or maybe less expensive.

This setup never sounded boring. Just the opposite, with every track they played, there was an impulse to dance or sing along.
I even was urged to buy three classical records after listening to them with the Silbatone setup. Thanks a lot to Frank Schroeder for the musical selection.

JC Morrison, John Devore and Frank Schroeder having a friendly discussion with a visitor

DIY effort turntable with new Schroeder tonearm, exclusively designed for OMA (Oswald's Mill Audio)

New small Schick turntable, based on a Audio Technica turntable, but with Schick motor drive

Jico

Analogue is old, but from time to time something new is presented. Jico has developed a new Moving Magnet cartrige, called Clipper, with a unique cantilever with an S shape. This allows even very warped records to be played. They say that all Jico cartridge inserts will fit the cartridge body.

Next stop

In the next part, you can expect my views on Linkwitz, Martion, Klipsch Ojas, Unitra, and the list or records which I had to buy after listening to them on demonstrations.