I visited the Stockholm HighEnd Fair that took place in Stockholm 8-9th of February 2014.
This is a reoccurring event that always gathers some interesting designers, distributors and people from many well-known HigEnd manufacturers and Hifi shops.
However, this year’s show was smaller than previous years and in my opinion not as interesting as usual.
I tried to focus mainly on the loudspeakers and it’s hard to get enough time to seriously evaluate the different loudspeaker designs in a crowded show, but you can often get a general impression of its performance and get a glimpse of some beautiful creations. 🙂
Still, here’s a short report and some photos from the show:
I begin with the Swiss made floorstander Coax 90.2 loudspeaker from PIEGA
This is a very expensive aluminium cabinet loudspeaker with an unusual co-axial driver configuration with a ribbon mid-range paired with a ribbon tweeter mounted co-axial.
The bottom end has dual 7” ScanSpeak Revelator woofers.
It had a spacious sound with nice bass extension, but if there was something to complain about, the woofers had some issues to integrate with the “fast” sounding ribbons.
Overall they delivered nice performance and they were one of the better sounding loudspeakers in the show.
Affordable Hifi equipment from Gold Note To left the A-6 XO floor-stand 2.5-way loudspeaker. The A-6 XO sounded nice, but is a bit expensive at 3.800€ a pair.
From the Finnish Gradient we have the Gradient 5.0 and the Revolution Mk IV.
The Revolution is basically the 5.0, but with dual woofers below 200Hz. The both use custom OEM versions of SEAS 7” co-axial drivers for mid and tweeter. The Gradient 5.0 uses a passive radiator on the back side of the enclosure.
I like co-axial drivers and loudspeakers, but I didn’t really like the sound of these loudspeakers. The sounded a bit raw and edgy, but I must admit, it’s not fair to judge them only by listening on them at a Hifi show like this.
I did like the sound a lot more from the odd looking open baffle design of the Helsinki 1.5.
The large 4-way loudspeaker Airedale Heritage from Wharfedale. In my opinion it has a very low WAF factor, but it sounded powerful in the small room it was placed in. It might have sounded nice in a considerable larger room, but I also guess it has a huge price tag.
I really don’t know what to say about this creation!
It was a “nutty” Professor styled DIY guy who had made this loudspeaker with drivers from scavenged loudspeakers. I really don’t know what his business case was and I felt sorry for him.
How did it sound? Take a guess…. 😉
The Manger MSSp1. Unfortunately these where only on visual display. It would have been interesting to listen on this unique loudspeaker driver.
Troel Gravesen has done a review on this driver here: Manger driver measurements It seems like it has some serious distortion and dispersion issues.
One of the best sounding rigs from the show!
The Radialstrahler MBL 101E MkII from MBL paired with MBL electronics.
What realism! Unfortunately for an unobtanium amount of money 🙁
Some concrete loudspeakers from Monolite with Visaton drivers.
According to the constructor his designs are modified Visaton kits. I listened to the micro sized stand-mount loudspeaker Monolite a1-1 and it sounded nice even though we listened at a low sound level.
Basically this seems to be some Visaton kits wrapped in concrete enclosures. Rather highly priced, but I think it would appeal to some people wanting something exotic.
The new media player Mimer from Bladelius playing on a loudspeaker setup from ELAC and REL
A very interesting media player and the loudspeaker rig also sounded nice even though I think the sub-woofers where redundant.
To the left the new 3-way floor-stander Focal Aria 948 with the new Flax sandwich cones.
Powerful tight bass, but with a tiresome exaggerated bright tweeter presentation. Not a speaker to my liking. The only Focal speakers I tend to like are the Utopia line, but these cost a fortune.
The usual setup from Genelec.
Nice sounding small active monitors.
Loudspeakers from the New Zeeland equipment manufacturer Perreaux.
Ok sounding, but nothing more than that.
Another loudspeaker setup from ELAC showing what I think is the FS409.
Expensive, but nice sounding loudspeakers.
Very plastic looking loudspeakers from Definitive Technology.
Having a powered sub-woofer with dual passive radiators in a slim tower package with powerful bass, the sound where nothing special really. Perhaps more for a Home Theater type of setup.
This was a new acquaintance for me, the Onda Ligera from Latvia using a mix of speaker drivers from ScanSpeak and Eighteen Sound.
Super expensive loudspeakers and several of the top models where designed around the Eighteen Sound 6ND430 mid-woofer.
This is a nice driver, but I didn’t found the sound of the large Onda Ligera Wave 168D in any way match the very high price of these too me rather odd looking loudspeakers.
The Focal Scala V2 Utopia sounded very nice on some insanely expensive tube amps from Engstrom & Engstrom.
The alien looking Giya 2 from Vivid Audio using interesting technology with in house made drivers.
In this setup they actually sounded good. Even if I had the money I can’t really accept the odd looking design, but I guess these loudspeakers appeal to some people with a large wallet.
Vivid Audio has some interesting information about their driver units on their web site Driver Units.
If anyone knows how to obtain any of these drivers, please send me an e-mail.
I end here with a co-axial floor-stander from Vienna Acoustics. They sounded nice, but I don’t get the gimmick with the movable top of the co-axial driver.