Story by Sergei Taranov

                                
The name of this "High End" event is simple and says it all.  And high end it was! With lots of exotic wares from over 220 exhibitor rooms with flat panel speakers in abundance and flat panel TVs in absence. High End in Munich is an important and massively proportioned event which attracts the high end audio trade folks from all over the globe. Unlike CES, held in Las Vegas, this is also a consumer show and more then 13,400 visitors left their 10 notes at the High End ticket counter. Established in 1982 the High End Show, for twenty-years, had formally been held in Frankfurt's Kempinski hotel complex. While historically known for providing acoustically good sounding rooms, its lovely grounds made business and personal communications ideal. Unfortunately, High End's growth became too much of an issue and in 2003 the organizers made a pivotal decision to move the show to a expo-style Munich Order Center (MOC) in Munich.

The MOC building appears immune to overgrowth. This huge glass-and-steel complex supports large scale events like the High End with ease. Annual growth has been on the rise at this Munich location for exhibitors and visitors alike. While I truly miss the green lawns, tall trees and good sounding rooms at Kempinski, I can't help but notice the MOC serves its purpose of business networking perfectly. High end industry and trade folks from all over Europe were in attendance since the location is close to everything: Munich is located in the center of Europe. US manufacturers were also in abundance. Some came for the first time obviously to explore new business opportunities - the weak dollar makes their export prices very attractive to European importers. Distributors and journalists, like yours truly, were quite happy to see all the new toys in one place and grab the opportunity to talk to designers who are the real brains behind the brands.  

I can't say I was surprised to see Clement Perry in the MOC hallway - he is a regular visitor. Still it was so nice to see him in his usual tone: energetic and jovial with his graphic designer Carlos Sanchez in tow. As usual we chatted and discussed the latest developments in high end a little. Clement and Carlos' wonderfully insightful reports covered lots of trends and new toys in their respective reports, but the Munich show was so big that my share of photos and views will hopefully interest you as well.  

The maddening rise in the prices of raw copper and aluminum put a heavy toll on high end audio industry. You can't really make a transformer or a RF-shielding casework without copper or aluminum. Fortunately the high end consumer has come out of slumber and exercises buying power which balances the cost of materials.

There was much more standard resolution 16/44.1kHz based CD-players and turntables present at this Munich Show. After years of uncertainty the fog has officially cleared: there will be no high definition audio format in the nearest future. One can happily rely on standard 16-bit software for digital needs and the vinyl's inner-grooves for analog. So the purses untie and credit cards take wing.   

Gryphon Audio Designs originally launched as an amplifier manufacturer. Its unique looks, perfect industrial design and true Class-A operation wasn't something you found very often. A small but dedicated following helped this Danish manufacturer to expand its product line which now also includes loudspeakers, cables, regular Class-A/B amplifiers and a CD player - or CD players to be precise: this Munich show was the place for a first public showing of new Gryphon Kensei CD player albeit in prototype form. Their front-loader should be less expensive then the flagship Mikado. A matching integrated amp is also in the works. On the high end front line Gryphon has a towering Coliseum amp (photo above) in two variations: mono and stereo.