Crafty & Yarland op de High End in Munchen

12 mei 2009 in Algemeen

Showreport

Crafty, Yarland and Caps&Coils were present at the 2009 edition of the High end in Munich. In fact all three companiesare a front for RolandBreteler thehumble writerof thisshowreport.I took Wilkoa good friend of mine and my brother Louis with me to Munich to help me out.They both have pretty good ears and a healthy listen first, look at price tags later attitude.

The purpose of our visit to Munich was to find some more German dealers for Yarland and Crafty. And tointroduce new Yarland products. The 1099,00 euroPro88IISA and the Yarland FV34BSA, abrand new 499,00 euroEL34 Push Pull Tube amplifier. Which combines verynice with the 599.- Azumi loudspeakers.

Last year we took close to 100 pictures a day, and went from halle 4 to the Atrium 4via halle 3 and back. This year we decided to explore one Atrium or Halle a day. Discuss the things we heard together and then take pictures. Do note this report is completly subjective and based on what stood out in our opinion. We tend to like extremes.

Set 1
Loudspeakers: Crafty Beluga single driver horn
Amplifier: Yarland Pro88IISA new version
CD player: Astin Trew AT3500+
Total set price:aprox. 3800 euro

Set 2
Loudspeakers: Crafty Azumi mini tl
Amplifier: Yarland FV34BIIISA
CD player: Astin Trew AT3000
Total set price: aprox. 2200 euro

Tracklist

• Bach Cello suites: Anner Bijlsma
• Rokia Traore: Mariama
• Joanna Newsom: The book of right on
• The Magic Numbers: Which way to happy
• The Mediaeval Baebes: Pearl
• This Mortal Coil: You and Your Sister
• Aynur Dogan: Ahmedo
• Johnny Cash: I still miss some one
• Tracy Chapman: The Love that you had
• Einsturzende Neubauten: You me& Me you
• Nouvelle Vague: Guns of Brixton
• Prokofiev piano concertos: Neeme Jarvi
• Prong: Snap Your Neck

So why this tracklist? These pieces are almost the same as i use to review loudspeakers and amps myself. Most of them are pretty hard to get right on any system. Budget or high end. So we chose a mix of easy listenable and hard to get right music. I knownot everything onthe list is easylistening.But to be honest all three of us cannot stand Audiophile music.Incidents wouldoccur for sureif we were forced to listen to "audiophile voices #3" for 4 full days in a row. Sure we love voices too: Aynur, Rokia Traore, Joanna Newsom, Medeaval Baebes, Nouvelle vague, Tracy Chapman, Johnny Cash, Blixa Bargeld and Prong. All these voices are different and originalwith their own timbre. The tolerancefor our music choice was pretty good.

We arrived tuesday afternoon at Munich airport. The weather was almost tropical.The next morning we went to the MOC early to setup our cabin.

Wilko and Roland almost there.



Almost ready for the first show day.

Breakfast: Check, Camera: Check, Shippingpapers: Check, Passport: Check, Subway route to the MOC: Check, Keys for the cabin: Check, Rollcages present: Check, Keys for the rollcages: nope!

Wilko drew the shortest straw and had to go back to the Hotel for the keys so we could open the rollcages.

Wilko's return one long hour later(in the middle with the grey jacket)

Setting up the cabin. Same Cabin as last year. So we knew exactlyhow to make the best of this airconditioned cardboardbox.

Set two on the left, Set one on the right. Diffusor in the middle.

Caps&Coils, Yarland en flyers at the back of the cabin.

The show starts with the "Rundfunk" visiting our cabin.

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Listeners in our small cabin.

Acousticplan combined 4 big woofers and a Lowther in a nice sounding dipole speaker.

Lundahl magnetic amplifiers. No info on the Lundahl site yet.

These single driver speakers from Stein Musicsounded wonderfull with classical music. Even in an open halle all the good things about single driver reproduction could be heard easily.

This is a actually a brandnew driver. Stein uses wool, lacquer and probably some other methods to get the best out of it.

Referenz klasse 3?

Yeah, we all entered this booth with a big what the ..smileon our face.This black monsteris aSilbatone horn speaker. It's sound was really nice. Even in the completly untreated booth.

The Silbatone uses a Manger Biegenwellenwandler. This unit flexes out all freq. between 35Hzand 40 Khz in the Silbatone horn. I never liked the sound of the Mangers. Now i finally understand what all the fuzz is about. Nice!

Silbatone300Bamplifier.

German Physics Threw a huge soundstage with their 360 degree'sDDD drivers. Wunderbar.

Haniwa from Japan.Horn loaded tweeter made quite an impression with saxofone.

Our Romanian dealer Bogdan, Roland from Craftyand Marius from Neomax Italy.

Street musicians at night in the city center. Spitzenklasse. They really enjoyed doing this. Which could be clearly heard.

Between the metro andthe MOC we saw this advertisement. A forbode for the very slow sunday?

MBL doing what they are good at. Playing very, very loud and dynamic.

Zuaudio was one of the very fewbrandspresent with a booth in the Atriumall the wayfrom theUSA. Fullrange with helper tweeter design.

Luxman Amplifier. Classic design, new amp.

Cessaroone of our favorites. Played very loud. Sound was good. But especially for Cessaro we think this applies: In der Beschränkung zeigt sich der Meister.

Very big and bright glowing tubes from True Life Audio. Single ended triode ampswith lots and lots of power.

EmilleLabsteamed up with Rethm and Triangle. The combination with the exotic Rethm's worked the best in our ears.

Crystal Cable and their new Arabesque speakers. Combines the most expensive scanspeak 7 inch woofers with a top of the line Raal ribbon in a unique glass cabinet.

Revel loudspeakers.

Wadax loudspeakers. Nice design.

Vivid audio speakers. From the designer of the B&W nautilus speaker.

Stealth amplifiers from Pathos.

Conclusion