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Widebander aficionados will want to check out the currently still under construction Enviee website. The transducer designer supplies many mainstream companies with high-quality conventional dynamic drivers. This particular project which recently neared completion consumed well in excess of 200 prototypes and many years of development. It apparently builds on a vintage Audax platform to refine certain proven solutions with 21st century test gear, computer simulations and manufacturing methods to satisfy modern requirements. With a resonant frequency of 50Hz and 10.000Hz reach without a whizzer, sensitivity is reportedly around 95 to 96dB. Joachim Gerhard of Sonics, formerly Audio Physic, is a very close friend of the designer. He's apparently keen as a blade to author a special Sonics speaker model around this unit. Sven Boenicke who rendered the introductions too is eager to experiment.

Under the category WTF - why am I not running away fell Thomas Fast of Fast Audio with the Japanese Kiso Acoustic HB-1 mini speaker. At €14.000/pr, we're deep in hallucination mode right off the bat. But there was more than just a steep price. This is a joint project between Toru Hara—a very famous audiophile whose collection of gear and premises are legendary— Jonathan Carr of Lyrr cartridge and Connoisseur amp fame and Takamine Gakki, famous guitar builder of the Takamine company.

Built like a guitar by an actual guitar builder i.e. from steam-formed 2.5mm Mahogany, Maple or Hawaiian Koa wood with 3.5mm non-parallel sidewalls, the tiny 6-liter box weighs all of 5kg. The woofer is a 100mm unit, efficiency is a low 85dB. The bass alignment is ported out the bottom which then fires out the front through a slot built into the top of the supporting plinth which contains the crossover. Acoustic Revive has crafted a custom stand which is just as ludicrously expensive. So much for WTF.


Why wasn't I running but instead soliciting a review sample? Thomas Fast represents Abbingdon Music Research in Germany, listens to Karan Acoustics electronics at his home and is the world's largest dealer for Franck Tchang's acoustic room tuning devices. While the cynics will cry con man and move on, I saw an individual with good ears, a non-conformist bend and fearlessness in the face of ridicule. He admitted that this speaker obviously is limited in the bass yet how on much music he loves is also one of his favorite transducers that'll play massive symphonic material at very high levels. Ultra expensive, this mini speaker uses a Fostex tweeter that's loaded into a short Ebony horn and what Herr Fast thought—but wasn't certain—is probably a Peerless-sourced mid/woofer. In short, there are no bling diamond or ceramic weapons in this very bespoke niche product. I was sufficiently intrigued by these apparent contradictions to want to sample it and learn something. My wife thought it was unbelievably cute and precious. The last speaker I encountered in a similar vein was the $3.100/pr Micropure Kotaro. While clearly bandwidth-limited to require specific applications or LF reinforcement, that 4-inch widebander with Murata super tweeter in a deliberately thin-walled wood cabinet had really surprised me (and Dick Olsher whose parallel review was similarly complimentary).

A surprise of a rather more massive kind came by way of Isotek's "the world's most powerful high-fidelity power conditioner. 150A transient ability, 34.500 watts, 4.200 joules, 135.000 amps instantaneous protection". The punctuation in this display banner quote was by them lest we think that our wall outlets can suddenly deliver 34 kilowatts of juice. (The device does sport two bona fide circuit breakers of its own).
Founded in 2008 by key Isotek creator Keith Martin, Blue Horizon's €695 Proburn is a cable break-in or 'cable cooker' device that sends infrasonic and ultrasonic (10.000 times higher than Redbook cutoff) signal through a cable and its dielectric for purportedly faster and more complete conditioning than any pure music signal could. 24 to 48 hours is the recommended duration. It is also recommended to refresh cables every 6 to 8 weeks to remove the effects of "negative charges and static buildup".


This entry now completes my special show picks. What follows are a few meandering snap shots of walking down the halls of the Mövenpick convention annex whilst recognizing familiar products and companies. First we have Ascendo with Soulution.

Here is Audionet with granite-clad Fischer & Fischer speakers.

The colorful backlighting in this dim room made for nice saturation effects. Here is a Fischer & Fischer crossover mounted to a twin-ported back panel.

AVM Audio had this hulking amp on static display.

British Chord electronics had shrunk in the dryer, here the Chordette Mogul, a "fully featured Windows 7 micro PC with dual HDMI/VGA connectivity, 6 USB ports, 320GB storage and HD audio support".

In the absence of the usual booth babes—Switzerland seems far too classy for that—this stack of Chord minis stood in for the proverbial cuties. The remote control gives a sense of scale


In the E.A.R. room I spotted these "just a tweeter?" panel speakers but with the many listeners present, didn't stop to learn details. Was it perhaps an older model by Tim de Paravicini himself? The room context suggested as much.

Elac again showed with Swiss Neukomm electronics.

Here we have Roland Gauder's Isophon speakers with Classé electronics. The new Berlina model sports tri-adjustable jumpers for room compensation, diamond and ceramic drivers, stacked layer cabinet construction and electrical filters with 50dB+ slopes.

Here is Lead Audio's LA 200 amp to connect PC to speakers "with the highest possible sound quality".

Nubert's presenter dissed subwoofers in general for music reproduction before explaining why theirs are different.

The flat ribbon Ramses Cable I'd not seen before.

Resolution Audio's Jeffrey Kalt got my vote for honorary Swiss citizenship for personally braving the long flight from California to Switzerland for the second year in a row. His gorgeous Cantata front end world-premiered in this venue exactly one year ago and was now mated to the production Cantata 50 integrated amp to power a pair of Gallo Acoustics Ref 3.5s. Still based on the Dennis Morecroft circuit platform rather than the Opus 21 s80 which adopts class D Hypex modules, the new heatsinking of the amp now gets closer to 50 watts from the non-switching output stage.

Here's a pair of Sugden amps under the proscenium arch. The newer Masterclass HA4 headphone amp should have our 32ohm audio readers curious.

For audiophile testosterone, the Canton/T+A exhibit arguably had 'em all beat. What hifi nerd with the M gene for macho wouldn't go weak-knee'd at the sight of the M10 monos sitting against that large power plant poster?

Producing 550/1000 watts into 8/4 ohms with a bandwidth of 1Hz to 150kHz and 180.000uF of filter capacitance, this tube-hybrid construction without global feedback can be run in high-current mode for 40 watts of class A output with Mosfet drivers and and 20 paralleled bipolar ring emitters. The differential cascode 6SN7 tube voltage gain stage always operates in class A and the output stage runs two complete paralleled amps per mono. I suggest reading up on the details on their website. Aside from a name that has the usual English speaker snicker, T+A is a very serious outfit with obvious design talent that pursues some unique solutions.

Back on terra firma, T+A's Caruso (lower middle) is an all-in-one Internet-enabled CD receiver with two built-in front-firing 200 - 20.000Hz widebanders and a down-firing woofer all actively filtered and EQ'd by DSP and driven with three dedicated 50-watt amplifiers. While the Caruso's iPod dock is analog, the presenter informed me that two other models in the line include Apple's authentication chip for external digital processing. That would make T+A a member of the still small group of firms like Wadia, Peachtree Audio, Onkyo, Rotel and Naim who offer this digital-direct iPod feature.

Z for Zu gets us to the end of this report with samples of the company's new Event cables which sport thickly woven natural fiber sheathing similar to what connects clothes irons to the wall.

For the obligatory closing comment, the show seemed well attended on Saturday and in terms of number of exhibitors about a draw with last year. By sharing exhibits three ways, even small outfits like Boenicke Audio could afford the CHF 3.600 room fee. "Last year I sold one speaker at the show which already paid for itself." Like RMAF in the US, this makes the overall vibe less high-pressured and corporate and thus friendlier than the really large industrial shows of Las Vegas and Munich. Notable for their absence in 2010 were Swiss firms Audio Consulting, Da Vinci Audio Labs, Goldmund and Thorens. Perhaps we'll see them next year.


The most obvious trend this year? Probably the use of the iPad as remote control. Daniel Weiss demonstrated to me the just released app which turns the entire surface of the iPad into an iTunes control panel. Way cool and very futuristic. Now a Mac Mini + iPad can replace an iMac with enhanced functionality. If you're still spinning CDs, you're really missing out...