Warsaw Audio Video Show 2024 Day Two—Rampage Through Radisson Blu Sobieski

wasn't really a rampage

I spent day two at the Radisson Blu Sobieski hotel where most of the Polish manufacturers displayed and demonstrated their products. Others were there too of course, including some of the bigger players who took the larger first floor rooms. Aavik, part of Audio Group Denmark, debuted a major $60,000 phono preamp at the show that Michael Børresen demoed and explained in a detailed interview (photo at the top). That starts the video. It has multiple inputs including one for DS Audio optical cartridges.

You'll see additional interviews with Miroslaw Piekut, the designer of a new Polish cartridge brand called Homogenix, along with a few other interviews: one with Mytek's Michal Jurewicz, who is from Poland but now lives in America, who explains the workings of his new GANFET amplifier.

But mostly you'll see new and known products from the well-established and vital Polish high performance audio world along with many other European brands, most of which are not distributed in The United States. Somehow I missed Mark Levinson (the man, not the company), who was demoing the latest Daniel Hertz gear.

I was told he got good sound but he also was introducing some kind of patented "C wave technology" that makes digital audio better for your health. Mark had visited me a while back with another device he promised would make MP3s sound like SACDs and make me feel better too.  This was invented by industry veteran Dick Burwen, who is a very serious designer of very serious products.

I suspect Mr. Levinson was hyping this product in ways that would have surprised Berwen, but it involved the "Dr. Diamond" arm strength routine (look it up) and it was a total turnoff then so I can only imagine what "C wave tech" is today that will somehow improve my health (there's always Ozempic and Wegovy) and I'm not interested nor do I need such products fortunately for me.

However I was told by people I trust that the system irrespective of "c wave tech" sounded very good. Enjoy this half hour or so "rampage" through seven floors of Sobieski! I just wish more rooms actually played vinyl rather than just displaying their turntables.

At every audio show that both of us attend, my friend Ricardo Franassovici, whose company Absolute Sounds is credited for introducing high performance audio to Europe. His brands include Wilson, Magic, dCS, Devore, and many others, sits me down for an interview. We don't discuss brands or products. Mostly it's about music or vinyl, which is what this one was about. It gets really funny at the end.