High End Munich 2024—Tracking Angle's Day One Video Coverage

many exciting new products debuted at the show

New product debuts abounded at High End Munich. I was trying to cover products in the analog domain—turntables, cartridges and phono preamps—and found many each day, but while I was at it I came upon many other new and exciting products you'll see in this day one coverage. All prices are approximate.

The day started with a curious coupling of Technics and Lamborghini. It seemed that Lamborghini wants some vinyl playback caché and Technics wants some luxury to rub off on it, though with "top shelf" products like the SL-1000R and SP-10R, the goods are already there.

U.K. based Origin Live introduced the "2 Point" Renown "super arm" selling for $26,000. Founder Mark Baker's son walks us through a number of Origin Live's less costly products.

A new company, Silence Audio, that was at High End Munich 2023 arrived with a brand new TT-1 turntable and arm that looks to be extremely well engineered and manufactured and for the first year will cost around $12,000, which seems to be an extremely high value proposition.

Gryphon, best known for its electronics, surprised everyone by launching a Brinkmann-based Apollo turntable and proprietary Siren phono preamplifier plus a highly modified Ortofon MC Diamond cartridge—The Gryphon Black Diamond DLC— costing approximately $20,000. The final production version of TechDAS's Air Force 10 air bearing pivoted tonearm made its debut at the show as did the new Wilson-Benesch Prime Meridian turntable, one model down from the $370,000 GMT One turntable that debuted last year. My review will be in an upcoming issue of The Absolute Sound.

Meanwhile the "reviews" are in from viewers on this YouTube channel who have listened to the three tracks presented here using the GMT One turntable and the reviews have been almost 100% positive "wows" (not as in wow and flutter).

Ypsilon updated its highly regarded VPS-100 phono preamp with a new power supply and tube complement. I've owned the silver version of the original for more than decade and hope to get to hear this update as soon as possible.

J.Sikora debuted the KD9 its least costly arm that will sell for around $4500. And Analog Relax introduced a new circa $20,000 model 2000 cartridge. I reviewed The Analog Relax 1000 a few years ago and found it bridged the gap between warm wood bodied cartridges and more analytical ones housed in metal.

Kronos introduced its Discovery phono preamp but few details emerged the first day as Louis Dejardins was out of the room when I visited. I got more info later in the show.

Other debuts include a new 50th anniversary Watt Pupply loudspeaker from Wilson Audio, Pendulum, a $15,000 integrated amplifier from Dan D'Agostino , a still in the works less costly Siegfried amplifier from VTL.

There's a lot more coverage coming up of days two, three and four plus some surprises when I went to Switzerland after the show and visited HiFiction (Thales and EMT) and then hitched a ride with Vladimir and Slobodan to visit HSC, maker of the super luxurious Masterline 7 phono preamp designed and built by a thirty year veteran of Studer-Revox. Neither Vlad nor Slobodan threatened to kidnap and take me to a war front and both made jokes about their names so.....