Munich High-End 2022: The Highlights Part One

Fyne Audio

Having built a commanding reputation (and a major back-order list) for its five current ranges of products in the hi-fi world, Fyne Audio announced its Vintage and Vintage Classic lines. These use a distinctly retro styling coupled with some very up-to-date technology used in Fyne’s most popular designs. The curved Vintage line uses real wood throughout with cryo-treated crossovers and a unique Presence control dial to tune the sound to the room, while the more squared off Vintage Classic wraps MDF in real-wood veneers, but still allows some modification of the crossover limits. The range was expanding faster than the company could produce its literature, but the Vintage Twelve playing sounded lovely. Prices are still to be confirmed but are expected to start at around £4,000 and reach up to £30,000.

Funk Firm

Having shown off a monumental and innovative deck-meets-stand at the last Munich show, Funk Firm’s static display this year was a little less outré, but no less innovative. The company’s Kepler turntable uses a vacuum hold-down platter, gives the listener the option of switching between belt and direct drive, and has provision for three rotating arms in orbit around the deck (hence the Kepler name). The Raptor-Z arm gets the ‘z’ suffix because the company claims it has zero tracking error, resonance and feedback. Both products fit into Funk Firm’s ‘isolation bubble’ concept. The price of deck with three arms is expected to be around £75,000.

GiK Acoustics

The new £115 Sound Blocks are a clever idea in room treatment. Each 23”x23”x10.5” block is a broadband bass trap that works to well below 60Hz in room and a neat optional MDF rail system allows blocks to stack and interlock. Each one can be fitted with diffusion plates and other options for midrange or treble response. The block array is designed to be free-standing to make either a false wall environment or to allow listeners in shared living spaces to move the treatment in and out of the room as the listener feels fit.

Graham Audio LS5/5F

Using the damped thin-wall construction common to BBC and post-BBC designs, Graham Audio’s LS5/5F floorstander is the latest design from the company. This reflex-loaded three way weighs in at a healthy 42kg and stands 111cm high and features a 300mm long-throw bass driver that is claimed to reach 40Hz in room, 200mm midrange and a 25mm soft-dome tweeter. As with many products at Munich 2022, the price was still to be confirmed.

Gryphon Audio

Gryphon Audio had two new products and one upcoming product on display. The mighty £57,500 Commander preamplifier and £87,000 Apex power amplifier had been launched earlier this year and set a new high bar in an already distinctly high-end brand, whether it’s the radar detection for the two-box Commander (that changes its display relative to how close you are standing to its front panel) to the sheer scale of the 210W per channel Class A Apex and even bigger Apex Mono, these are paragons of audio performance.

However, at the other end of the scale, Gryphon showed its upcoming EOS 2 floorstanding loudspeaker. A radically clever feature of this design is a port that can be set to fire to the rear (for larger rooms) or front-firing for close-to-the-wall integration in smaller rooms. With a tweeter that extends to 34kHz and a bass that is said to approach 25Hz in small rooms, this makes the EOS 2 the perfect high-end metropolitan design, if the still-to-be-confirmed price is right.

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