I visited the Stockholm HighEnd Hifi show that took place in Stockholm 20-21st of February 2016.
This is a reoccurring event that always gathers some interesting designers, distributors and people from many well-known HigEnd manufacturers and Hifi shops.
I focus mainly on the loudspeakers and as always it’s hard to evaluate a loudspeaker design at a Hifi show, but you can at least get a general impression on how they sound.
Here’s a short report and some photos from the show:
The HECO Direkt from HECO. A fun Loudspeaker and a bit retro in the appearance. The Direkt is a 2-way loudspeaker using a 11″ woofer paired with a horn loaded 28mm tweeter with a cross-over frequency of 2.35kHz and a claimed 95dB system sensitivity. A high cross-over frequency for such a large woofer and it’s ought to be less good dispersion off-axis due to woofer beaming. Not a High End loudspeaker, but still a fun speaker that makes you smile when listening to it.
The LS1 loudspeaker from Grimm Audio. An active loudspeaker using the DXT tweeter and an 8″ Magnesium woofer from SEAS. I would say it’s a challange to use this woofer with its sharp cone break-up at ~4.8kHz as a mid-woofer in a 2-way. It sounded rather neautral and polite in the large listening room it was set up in. With steep active cross-over filters and and DSP correction it seems to work fairly good.
The MAGICO Q5 and the active Devialet Phantom Silver loudspeaker running on the limited edition “L’original D’atelier” amplifier from DEVIALET.
This is the first time I really enjoyed listening to the Magicos. It sounded nice, dynamic and detailed. Note the sexy loudspeaker feets 🙂
The Phantom Silvers sounded impressive considering its size, but lacked somewhat when listening on vocals compared to the Magicos.
The Kawero Classic from Kaiser. This is a 3-way design using a mid-range and rear firing woofers from Audio Technology and a ribbon tweeter from RAAL.
Very High End drivers and a sound that definitely wants you to listen more. Personaly I would have done a different arrangement for the tweeter.
A new Swedish loudspeaker from Joka Speakers. I’m always glad to see new Swedish loudspeaker designers entering the very tough loudspeaker market. Hand built with gourgious woodworking in a 2-way using SEAS mid-woofers.
The open baffle loudspeaker Trio15TB from PureAudioProject. This is a very interesting design concept. It’s almost like “IKEA”, but for loudspeakers. The customer choose which driver and cross-over to use and you get it delivered in a flat pack for self assembly. You can even only order the sturdy aluminium frame, if you so wishes.
The Trio15TB uses a Tang Band 8″ full-range driver together with two custom built OB-A15Neo 15″ woofers from Eminence. I’m not a super fan of full-range drivers and they sounded in my opinion a bit aggressive and too forward for my taste, but the bass was nice.
Swap out the 8″ full-range driver to something else and we have a winner!
The Grand Enigma 2-way loudspeaker from Heed Audio using what appears to be Morel drivers. An unusual design with its sloping baffle.
Full-range DIY loudspeakers from EAD. As mentioned before, not my “cup of tea”, but interesting for DIY:ers.
A lot of pictures, but very interesting. The new 800 Diamond series from Bowers & Wilkins running on CLASSE equipment.
Above you can see the new mid-range driver unit with its new Continuum cone compared to the old yellow Kevlar cone mid-range. You can also see the new Diamond tweeter dome as well as the Aerofoil cone used in the woofers.
I listened on the largest 802 D3 and it sounded promising, but the source material wasn’t known to me so it was hard to make any decisive conclusions. Still, they were very beautiful in its appearance.
Some “All in one players” from Naim. Nice features and sound for a “Kitchen” type of loudspeaker.
The MA-500 power amplifier from Magnus Audio. A very nicely built 2x450W class AB amp.
The Coltrane 3 from Marten running on some very nice mono blocks. Diamond tweeters and exclusive Accuton drivers. I generally don’t like most loudspeakers using Accuton drivers, but Marten can tame them very well and the sound was nice and so it should in this price range.
The Element Metal from Totem. The design looks like something from the 80:ies. At this price range you can find better sounding and more beautiful loudspeakers.
Left: The Reference 1 and Right: The Reference 3. Probably the best co-axial mid-range in the world. I listened to the Reference 1 paired with HEGEL equipment and it sounded great! If I only could get my hands on one set of these co-axials and compare them to my KEF co-axials from the R-series. 🙂
The active and DSP controlled BEOLAB 90 from Bang & Olufsen using 18 ScanSpeak drivers in each loudspeaker and the same amount of amps. The BEOLAB 90 was demonstrated in a very large room and I can’t say I was overwhelmed by the sound of it in this configuration. It would be interesting to listen to it in a more optimized environment.