The Munich Audio Show

The Munich High End Audio Show was held in May and would certainly be Europe's most prominent and largest audio show of the year.Approximately 500 exhibitors were showcasing their products this show has arguably become the most important high performance audio show in the world.An increasing number of exhibitors are premiering their new creations in Munich.

Although two channel was dominant,vinyl was the popular choice in many rooms with digital formats also prevalent.Highlights of the show have to be the fact that vinyl is back with a vengeance.Turntables were everywhere!From the budget to the truly luxurious and massive designs there were many brands that excel in stunning feats in engineering at equally stunning prices ($300,000 wasn't out of the ordinary at the show).

We thought we'd share with you some highlights from the show from brands we stock.There were plenty of great sounds at the show,Genelec being one who is highly regarded in the pro audio business,but are now taking the home audio market seriously.The Show saw the release of the ProJect Classic turntable.It was released by ProJect founder and head designer Heinz Lichtenegger to celebrate the brand's 25th birthday.It has a classic 1970's retro look in a timber framed chassis.Marantz had their famous designer Ken Ishiwata attend who is much happier playing music than telling you about his latest creations!Focal has added a new model to their Sopra range and called it No.3 on account of it being bigger than both Sopras 1 and 2.We will have the new Sopra 3 on demo at Stereophonic very shortly.

MQA (Master Quality Authentication) announced it's signing of Warner Music,the world's largest music catalogue,to have their catalogue encoded in MQA.MQA provides higher quality streaming and there is another blog on the Stereophonic website explaining how exciting it is.