In Stereophile

Analog Corner
Michael Fremer

What's June without a hi-fi show ? With Stereophile's exhibition put on hold for 2000 while emap usa sorts out future possibilities. Manhattan in May 2001 is the most probable place and date – I flashed on High End 1996 in Frankfurt, Germany, a June show I'd attended and reported on in this column. German audiophiles were still heavily into vinyl back then, so why not hit High End 2000?
Sure enough, the show is still held at the Kempinski Hotel, outside Frankfurt; and sure enough, German audiophiles are still into vinyl and still seem far more intense about audio than Americans. I guess you could say Germans are more intense, period, but it was refreshing to attend a consumer show where the demographics appeared to be all over the map. There were plenty of young people, a healthy smattering of elderly, and turntables all over the place makes and models you've probably never heard of or seen.
For a relatively small country, Germany has a big audio industry. While I don't have sales figures, and can't tell you whether the trends are moving up or down, one indication is the proliferation of magazines: five big, sumptuously produced publications and a few small ones. Most prominent are Audio, Image Hi-Fi, Stereoplay, Audiophile, and HiFi & Records. It would be worth learning to read German just to be able to devour these mags, all of which can be found on mainstream German newsstands. But even if you can't read German, magslike Image Hi-Fi and HR & Records are worth perusing for the stunning photos and layouts alone.
Such an impressive print lineup shows you how sad the situation is here, where, currently, there's Stereophile and a few small audio magazines. We continue to reap the bitter harvest of decades

of "it all sounds the same," and of mindnumbing passivity in the face of same among many in the industry who should have spoken up sooner.
Not so in Germany, where there's enough interest in audio without

For a relatively

Ortofon's vintage 309i 12" tonearm

(DM 4500)***, with its original antique SPU integrated cartridge / headshell, is back in production. It has a loyal following in Germany, but I doubt the American market would support it. One was mounted on Loricraft's facsimile edition of Garrard's classic 501 turntable, which is driven by an idler wheel Dirk Sommer, the astute editor of Image Hi-Fi, reviewed the 309i, along with Ortofon's SPU Royal N and GM cartridges, in the January / February issue of that magazine. But don't ask me what he thought ich spreche Deutsch nicht. Analog oldsters will remember the precision, Swiss made Breuer Dynamics tone arm, also once again in production. I spotted the Type 8 (first place winner of Image Hi-Fi's Millennium Award for tonearms) on a Brinkman Balance turntable. The Brinkmans were among the most impressive looking designs I saw at the show, in terms of both mechanical design and build quality. I'd love to hear one in my system. Speaking v of arm resurrections, the British Hadcock is also back in production.
It was one thing to walk into a room and find an interesting new turntable I'd never heard of like the seemingly shockproof, electric blue Fuchs, which sells for DM 17,000 with unipivot arm (DM 5300 for the arm, DM 12,000 for the turntable), but in some rooms I found bran I'd never heard of like Acoustic solid, which showed a whole line of 'tables including the Solid Machine Small, the Solid Machine, the Solid One, the Solid Round, and the Solid One to One. Like the Brinkmans, the Solids appeared to be unique, well engineered designs, not just plinths fitted with bearings and slabs of machined acrylic. Another company showing sophisticated looking analog products was ……

*** Throughout this report, hive the amounts in Deutschmarks for the approximate value in $ US.