Thanks for sharing your take on the show in Vienna. I feel your pain- the days of CES and The Show are gone. Las Vegas was fun.
I’m considering Vienna next year. Your impressions are helpful, indeed.
Vienna show report
Just been to the HighEnd Vienna show. Here are some impressions.
TLDNR: Fun 3 hours to spend, ok as I was there for other things as well, otherwise underwhelming.
Long Version:
The show was advertised as lasting four days, Th-Sun, so I booked flights and hotels to catch the beginning Th-Sat, as Sunday folks will be exhausted anyway. Turns out, Th-Fr is reserved for dealers/industry, and only Sat-Sun is open to public. Really irritating poor communication on part of show organizers.
There is an app for the show. Nice touch. However, loading was glacially slow. Additionally, the functionality was at best limited. Try to find all the vinyl vendors? You get a list, but then have to check every single vendor (remember glacially slow loading) to see where they are. There is no overview where all the vinyl vendors are. etc.
The venue was easy to find, 10AM line was taking about 5-10 minutes to get in. OK. Venue was spacious, lots of seating in the hallways, and plenty of refreshment stalls.
As seems to be the norm, rooms in general were WAY TOOOOO LOUD! Muddy low mid and bass did not help those "presentations" either. Got a good chuckle out of the mega amps such as Gryphon, D'Agostino and Pathos. All those rooms sounded dreadful. The rooms sounding good were by Focal and Audiovector (never heard of). All the rest were at best mid to bad, including big names. Interesting to hear omnidirectional speakers. Sound was indeed coming from everywhere. However, it killed any stereo imaging, essentially a mono-presentation. Earopening experience.
My main reason for going was getting some inspiration about phono stages for my Rega Naia rig. Had some nice chats with Thales/EMT and Lehmann, but otherwise not much to see. Rega was not there at all, strange for a European manufacturer at a European show. Three attempts to chat with someone from E.A.T. were fruitless as nobody could be found. Maybe that is a sign. Previously they did not respond to email either.
Vinyl records (and CDs) were rather thin. There was one multivendor booth, but it was so crammed, and such a bland selection, I just flipped through about 4 crates before leaving. The one isle was so narrow that one person could barely walk. What were they thinking? At T.H.E. show, there was WAY more and interesting vinyl, nicely spaced, and made a bunch of cool finds.
There were some podium discussions. Noticed one of the speakers, the only one in suit and tie, LOL!, recognized him as Mr. 1-arc-second-is-audilble-Fremer, so moved on. No need to listen to him pontificate nonsense.
Had great breakfasts at our usual hotel Sans-Souci in Vienna, enjoyed Walter König bookstore in MQ as always, bought some tea from one of my favorite tea-shops, visited the natural history museum for once as a tourist (not behind the scenes as we have done a few times before), had various coffee/tea/matcha cake in various cafes, some nice dinners at our favorite joints, and had 3 hours of fun at the convention center.
If you are in Vienna anyway, or have some other reason to go to Europe, enjoy the show. However, it is not worth a dedicated trip. my 2c.
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@pindac Thanks for the link with the images. Did not see those white horns. @oregon I may try Axpona as Chicago is a fun city to visit. Or not. Audio shows are not helping much in terms of learning about gear. You can look at some eye candy, but that's about it. Last time I checked audio was more about listening, less about visuals. But I digress. Once I will have sorted out my phono stage, I am done for a long time. I'm fortunately little affected by GAS.
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The friends are this morning in the Silbatone Room in awe of the WE model 22. The consensus is: where is the progress in sound production over the past 100 years? The friends are once more creating an indelible memory with strong attraction attached. There's nothing like a mind full of good memories; it keeps the alacrity as a high point. I sense a few attendees will be creating a host of audio designs and putting them into production for the group to experience in the upcoming months. |
@oberoniaomnia I would also take a look at Allnic's phono stages. They inject some beautiful tubeyness while not losing detail, and they are beautiful to look at, too.
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@bimmerlover thanks for the Allnic recommendation. I was not aware of that one. It looks very fussy with manual tube biasing. If tube, then I prefer auto biasing like in my PrimaLuna Evo 300 pre. I already have a Zesto variable SUT with my EAT eglow petite, so the built-in SUT in the Allnic is of questionable value. I could sell/trade the Zesto SUT or put in my office system, of course. And I don't need fine adjustments of the RIAA curves, I listen exclusively to records after 1980, so very much standardized RIAA curve. And I only need one phono in (or two if MM/MC are separate). |
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