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Just as last year, Kerem Küçükaslan's Absolare room was an oasis of musical sound which erred on the side of warmth, saturation and density over ultimate lucidity. By now you'll appreciate that the word 'erring' is merely a flavour pointer between two polarities, not any notion of committed errors. Whilst big Rockport speakers driven from 50-watt parallel single-ended 845 valve monos might read mismatched on paper, reality had a very different story. Majoring on scale, mass and warmth, this system could be played louder without putting dents into one's ears. Being a very generous host, Kerem not only played some of my 'general consumption' cuts but even a warbling Bülent Ersoy track despite its middling recording quality (the vocal power made up for it though). Though Kerem insisted that nothing in the system had changed, a showgoer in the hallways opined that Rockport had changed their drivers in this very model. If so, it might explain why I thought the sound here even gutsier than last year's. If not, chalk one up for active imagination of which our hobby surely has its fair share.

Ascendo from Germany bowed their new D-Series models which combine a front-firing coaxial point-source driver with one or two bandpass-loaded internal woofer/s and one or two rear-firing adjustable ambient tweeter/s in a high-gloss enclosure styled in deliberate Bauhaus simplicity.

Here is designer Jürgen Scheuring striking a deservedly confident pose on his latest speaker to document its friendly size. Electronics included the massive Rike Audio monos which last year had still lingered on merely static display in the show's newcomer circle.


Scheuring is involved also with advanced room correction software to have a comprehensive understanding of real-world speaker behaviour. Whilst his speakers might look like ordinary boxes, they're anything but. When Jefferson Torno of Grand Cru Audio confessed what a hard time he had to find speakers for his retail store he could personally get behind on sound—he has very specific ideas on time-domain performance—I told him to check out Ascendo.

I also told Jürgen to keep me in mind for a review of these D speakers. Truly full-range despite looking like a basic dual-concentric two-way, this was another loudspeaker that made it onto my personal hot list.


With Nagra Audio's Matthieu Latour pulling a fast one by hiding their forthcoming 250-watt monos behind a curtain because they still sat in pre-production casings, real power and Nagra no longer were an oxymoron. These first high-wattage models in the Swiss catalogue will be big. The power transformer alone is a beast to occupy much real estate. Whether the necessary heat sinks will be external or internal hasn't been decided yet.


Whilst the new HD DAC—in my opinion the very best product they've made yet—is the latest model to enter formal production, the arguably more important product for the brand will be these amps. Until now no dealer with hard-of-hearing speakers could demo with Nagra without risking eventual compression or other distress signals of insufficient drive. And because dealers can only support so many brands, signing up one that's essentially incomplete to require holding on to another that must fill a big hole is often impossible. Hence these monos with 1KW into 2 ohms will be effective door openers for Nagra.


Greek/French Nagra distributor Kostas introduced me to his latest project: minimalist location recordings with Nagra gear. Due to the economic crisis in Greece, many artists in Athens are without work. He wants to work with them outside of formal expensive studio conditions. To kick off, he played me a few tracks of his first production with Eleni and Souzana Vougioukli taped in a commercial warehouse whilst running a video clip of it on his laptop (shown below, actual Nagra recording stack in the background). In the past Nagra have been known for their Montreux Jazz Festival location recordings. Now there'll be high-resolution files of Grecian artists to add to their impressive list; and me to add to it.


With Kostas maintaining import facilities in Greek and France under the name Aphrodite Audio, I asked him where he spent most his time. "30% France, 70% Greece" was the answer. The reason? With the economic collapse in his home country, countless dogs had become homeless. They roam the streets in sometimes dangerous packs hunting for food. He had established a sanctuary of more than 90 dogs and was worried they'd not be fed properly if he stayed away too long. Such largesse of heart made me self-conscious for writing about often expensive hifi that's relevant only to the relatively well off. There are millions of displaced people in refugee camps today living under very marginal circumstances like Kostas' dogs. Touring HighEnd 2014 has one easily forget that and so much more. Kostas served me a slice of humble pie without meaning to. Hats off, all three of mine!

Speakers here were by Verity Audio's Julien Pelchat whose recent company anniversary had compelled an overhaul of various models. His Lohengrin II S speakers played in a $600'000 system with Lamm electronics, Tech DAS AirForce turntable and Neodio Origine CD player elsewhere. Sonically and conceptually Verity Audio and Kaiser Acoustics seem related, with the latter the more advanced expression of quite similar notions.


Bakoon's Soo In Chae held court in a ground-level exhibit with Audeze. With John Darko and audio.de having snatched up his only two HPA-01 headfi amp units, mine would come directly from Korea. The perhaps bigger news was planned readiness of their new 50wpc AMP-51 for Stockholm's September show together with the new soundkaos Skiny 16 speakers. Whilst a DAC is on the books as well—until then none of us sans turntable can use Bakoon's current-mode inputs—we won't see one in 2014.

Another quasi mythical creature had been Bruno Putzeys' Mola-Mola Kaluga mono. Shown last year, it's still not in production. Having burnt out two suppliers for his self-styled chassis who failed to deliver acceptable quality, he'd only received final sign-off samples by his now third machine shop shortly before the show. More than one other manufacturer confided dissatisfaction with their current metal providers. The actual machining isn't the bottle neck. It's the finishing, be it traditionally grained, sand-blasted or glass-beaded. A properly finished metal enclosure up to currently expected standards is the by far most expensive part of any modern amplifier. One manufacturer of a €10'000 very hi-tech amp made in Germany confided that he's thinking of going to acrylic to lower his cost of admission and perhaps launch a second direct-sell brand to really lean on the otherwise necessary retail pricing.

Back on the Dutch fishes and our review of them which to date has been in the longest of limbos, here is an up-yer-skirt glance at the Ncore 1200 Kaluga related directly to Merrill Audio's Veritas, Acoustic Imagery's Atsah and Bel Canto's Black takes on the same technology. In short, its designer has been thoroughly bested on release dates by his own OEMs and often by well more than a year. Will the Kaluga sound demonstrably different from them?

Here is a look on the matching Makua preamp's innards.