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

Long time no see

I have been off for some years, had to cope with health and family issues, and after I had Corona, it rather stayed than went away, so Post-Covid took me three years ago. It was just last October, when my brain fog disappeared and I slowly began to get a life again. So I missed about 10 years of hifi events, hifi shows and all this. Some years ago, I even checked every single vinyl record in my collection, took it my hands, and asked myself: will I be listening to this record again in my life, or rather not. Then my record collection shrunk from 3500 to 700.

As I am still plagued with some physical issues like muscle and joint pain, all I could do was just visiting the show for some hours on three days. Naturally I was not able to walk through all the show, but had a lot of fun having a look from outside and meeting people from the past, like a child who goes to an amusement park. Anyway I want to share this adventure of the hifi show visit. You can expect more than a dozen chapters with about 50 pictures in a three part show report.

How Gen Z is Shaping the Future of Vinyl

At the press conference on first day of the show, Ryan Mitrovich from Vinyl Alliance presented a survey on Gen Z customers regarding their view on vinyl. They did some field research, interviews, and analyzed the Gen Z's point of view to vinyl in the social media. The conclusion was that vinyl is very important for this generation, and that they have a lot of demand, but are at the same time price-conscious. Proudness of physical ownership, and also the feeling to own the musical idol when having a record, are big purchase drivers.

You can use the QR code in the third picture to get a download of the survey.

Get immersed with Annette Askvik

The Scandinavian singer-songwriter Annette Askvik appeared at the press conference as brand ambassador and invited us to a special demonstration of her record in a sort of 3D installation.

The demonstration played some tracks from the Anette Askvik demo record (reviewed on TNT-Audio here), which I was not familiar with. When I registered for the demo, there was very much demand. My TNT fellow Carlo Iaccarino did not succeed to get a time slot, unfortunately.

When we were let into the demo room, all lights were dimmed, just enough to find a seat, so I had no chance to look for equipment. All I spotted was three speakers in front, so I sat down in the middle of first row, just in front of the center speaker.

Like in a cinama, the lights were turned off, so it was really listening in the dark. The music had lot of ambience, like from a church, though I could localize sound coming from the center, which was not perfect. At that moment I thought, that an ordinary cinema in Munich has better 3D immersion than this.

After the demo, the lights were turned on, and I could see, there were arrays of speakers everywhere, left and right, and also in the back of the audience. So I simply should have chosen a seat in the midst of the room. Anyway, this was the first day of the show, and it is my experience, that on first day the sound is far from good, but is improving every day, and could be exceptional on the last day of the show. Unfortunately, all remaining timeslots were booked for all days.

Anne Bisson LIVE @grandinote

You want immersion, REAL immersion? You get it here. Anne Bisson singing live to the background group coming through the Grandinote stereo setup, sounded really REAL, and I mean that. Thank you Carlo for guiding me to that experience. If you are afraid of goosebumps, go elsewehere. I wished my wife could sing like that. But you cannot have it all.

Pit stop

For now I'll stop here: as a first part I'd say that's enough ;-)

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Copyright © 2025 Hartmut Quaschik - www.tnt-audio.com

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