Congratulations to the AE team for hosting another extraordinary event. My second year and this tops it so far. Three combinations in three separate rooms putting out 3 different presentations to fit everyones palate or should i say tympanic membrane. I am absolutely amazed at the infinite endpoint at which one can push the reproduction of music in ones abode.
I don't think I will be able to get such an experience elsewhere.
It was my first encounter with the Goebel loudspeaker . My comment was “The sound was very natural and free of tension.”
Later on, I chatted with some other audiophile friends, their comment about the energy of Goebel loudspeakers was not able to fill up the room. I understood .
Time flies…
2017 . The return of the Goebel.
Divin was not only the break though of Oliver Goebel’s old design. It does make the old Epoque series looks like toys.
Every one attended the show would agree that the power and energy form the Divin seemed to be limitless
It just needs a 40W Chouku to fill up the biggest room. The speed , pinpoint imaging , timbre were supreme.
WADAX’s MQA demo was very ear-opening experience. The MQA improvement over the PCM 44.1 was not subtle at all. The MQA demonstrated music with bigger sound stage , more precise image and tighter bass.
The Tripoint Troy Elite demo made me known why the AE’s forum members grab it crazily before they listening to it.
The only regret would be to order too late.
The room was full of surprise and passion. I don’t want to leave my seat at all.
But I have to visit my favourite AE brand and see what he brought to us this year.
I went to Trinity Room. The familiar sound came to me , no distortion , free from stress but wait …
It is a bit more,… the very quiet system going a step further into tranquility.
dB told me that he took all the power supply units from the golden series so that he could have more space to add the additional component into the enclosure. From my perspective, the moving away of the power supply does matter in a -140 db pre-amp system. The price for the golden series was sky high but it would last for many many years . It is a sort of eternal glory.
This the room I would like to stay as long as I could.
Thanks AE team again to bring us the a fabulous world class leading high end hifi show.
I attended all the AE shows. I was deeply impressed every year by the passion of AE and the gear demonstration. At the end of the show, I always wondered what would be next and how could AE continue to impress us given the bar is already set so high. Even AE may not yet have the answer but I am very sure the bar will continue to move upwards in subsequent shows.
Back to the show this year. Divin was perhaps the focal point. It is the "ultimate" version of the Gobel speakers which was shown 2 years ago. I was surrounded by coherent sound full of energy and I also saw a big and vivid portrait of the sound stage in this room. Unfortunately, Divin is disassembled now. As Divin is too large to put in AE showroom, I may only be able to appreciate it again in the next show. Divin was driven by 火雲 in the second day afternoon. I felt the sound was "softer" than that driven by 長空. Perhaps, 火雲 may need some time for running in.
The performances in Trinity and Lars rooms are also in the top notch, just they are not as "eye-catching" as Divin. I spent most of the second day in the Trinity room and I enjoyed myself very much. I was in Chris' home listening to the full suite Trinity two weeks before the show. This is the benchmark for me so that I know the improvement introduced by Trinity Golden Reference. The sound is typical Trinity but it is more stable, more un-colored, more controlled, more undistorted from Golden Reference.
The only regret for me is that I did not have enough time to stay in the Lars room. I only listened to Lars and 乾隆 in day 1 and bit and pieces in Day 2. I will have to go to AE show room later to listen more seriously to this combo.
I look forward to attending the 6th show next year with high expectation.
Well done AE!
Many thanks to AE, their staff and all the other manufacturers for making such a gorgeous event.
I have to say, the passion of this event with the highest sound quality possible is unique in the world.
During the last 3 years, we and I put all our passion, love and countless sleepless nights into the Divin project. We started from scratch and improved even the smallest details until we were really satisfied.
We spared no efforts and pains in order to fully reach all our goals and to finally be able to unveil our new Divin loudspeaker on this 5th AE Super Hi End show to the world. In prior posts on this forum, we already shared many of our thinkings, specialities and technologies for the new Divin loudspeaker.
I enjoyed it a lot to unveil our new Divin loudspeaker to this most competent and like-minded customers of AE, who are all crazy as we manufacturers and searching for the highest sound quality possible. I really appreciate all the conversations during the show and all the comments about our new Divin loudspeaker.
That is exactly the reason why I do this, because my goal behind all our efforts is to really bring music alive. That is, and always was the passion behind all our efforts, researches, technologies, … to manufacture paramount products which bring the ultimate real music experience!
It is really incredible that AE can always have groundbreaking gears to show off every year. The gigantic Divin reproduces not only authorative energy but also coherent and musical sound. It can easily fill the huge room with live like music. I like the LP playback of 乾隆 most as it has the density, speed and harmonics to make me immerse into the music immediately. In Trinity room, I can experience perfect darkness with crazy resolution and details. I didn't have much time to experience more of this set up but I think it squeezed out all details of each music piece. It can handle complicated pieces with ease with tremendous energy and musicality. Great job AE team, and I start to be curious what other breakthroughs you guys can achieve next year!
Hello Oliver, The Divin is intriguing! Many Hong Kong audiophiles have told Chris that we want smaller models of the Divin Series. Hope that you can develop such models asap. Many thanks!
For many, myself included, who have attended the show in 5 consecutive years will notice the similarities among the shows in these 5 years:
1. Same organiser
2. Same venue
3. The never ending surprises
4. The ever heightening level of performance
5. Same old Chris and Jlam
What else is different and changed?
I am glad as well as flattered for Chris to introduce me as a loyal supporter of AE since they started! There are obviously many other loyal supporters of AE whom Chris has and has forgotten to introduce. As a close friend of Chris and Jlam for more than 2 decades (Yes we all met in kindergarten), I essentially walked the journey together with them and witness the evolvement of the company, the growing passion on music and the quest to push thru one envelop to another! I am also celebrating my 5th years working in Singapore and in hindsight, 5 years is really not a short period for one to get more matured, experienced and strong after all the challenges met and lesson learnt.
Readers of all, please take a pause here and re-wind back to 5 years ago, what do you see and who did you see on AE?
This is top French cuisine; everything is so delicate, beautiful sound which is succulent with a floral bouquet. You can instantly fall in love with this sound in chamber music and Girl-Guitar type of song. Incidently, if you think they resort to cheap tricks such as a rich tube warmth kinda sound, you would be very far wrong. A complicated, sophisticated and sweet sound that is very enticing.
3) Wadax/Zanden/Divin/Vertere/Skogrand/Tripoint:
This is top Sushi from a master Itamae Chef: Fresh catch raw fish with the sashimi cut at just the right angle, rice pressed by hand with a touch of wasabi. The size of the sushi is never too big (So as to attract your eyes, but too big a piece to swallow comfortably in one piece), every thing is just right.
What strikes me about the Divin speakers is you are constantly fooled by your eyes; looking at it, you would expect something like a Wilson audio kinda "Bass Slam", you look at the ribbon like tweeter and the normal looking midrange driver and you think, " nothing out of the ordinary, I've heard that before...". If I were blinded, I would have been perplexed: It sounds like what a full range electrostatic would sound like, but with a bass foundation that sounds so right, like un-amplified acoustic music. But what's different from a full range electrostatic is its lack of a ghost-like semi-transparent character to sound, the sound from the Divin system actually has a very natural body and bloom to it, which is so natural, and here's where you Hear, but not See the family resemblance to the bending driver of Goebel. Bravo!
Congratulations to AE and to all the audio designers for a
very successful 5th Hi-end show.
Throughout the years I have witnessed and experienced improvements on
synergy and matching of different speakers with front ends and electronic audio
gears. AE showcased 3 different setup to
suite different taste and presentation to all discerning audiophiles. This clearly shows AE’s commitment to its
passion to spread to the whole world on preserving the true essence of music
reproduction.
It was very informative in attending Wadax’s launching of
the Atlantis DAC with MQA hardware. I thought that all digital streaming were the
same, but after Javier of WADAX
explained and demonstrated MQA against PCM, my perception to digital changed entirely to a
whole new perspective. I was also eagerly waiting to hear Zanden’s
new push pull 100w KA-UN tube amplifier on the massive and mighty Goebel Divin,
Chris was just starting to change it from CHOKU at about 2:30 pm. I was so
uptight coz I have a plane to catch back
home that afternoon. The whole
situation was like Cinderella abruptly
leaving the scene when 12 midnight strikes.
Wow, what an experience! Atleast
I got to hear it for a short time. I had
a big smile throughout the trip back home.
Time flies. Five years have passed since the first ‘season’
of the AE Supershow. As in the best TV series, each season gets better and better
and this is no accident. The effort placed by AE crew is extraordinary.
This year extraordinary has been redefined. After some
long and deep talks with PT, I can proudly say –based on insider facts and
figures I had access to- that the latest AE show is probably, from an organizing,
operative and equipment setup perspectives, the most elaborate and
sophisticated High-End show done for a 2-day session ever. No High-End manufacturer
or distributor I am aware of does this kind of deployment for a 2-day event.
On Wadax side, we demonstrated two new products: our
latest MQA board for Atlantis DAC and Atlantis Transport.
The MQA board demo, together with a session of MQA vs
non-MQA content really brought big interest from the audience AND from
different Asian High-End forum users that came to the MQA session. I really
appreciated their initiative to come and the interest they exhibited, that I could see in their
many interesting questions. I can only wish this constructive attitude grows
steadily and we can do more ‘technical’ sessions in future editions of the
SuperShow.
Many thanks to all the AE crew, all my colleagues, and
all of you who attended this singular session of the AE SuperShow 2017.
My biggest and greatest recollection of memory rewinding back to Jul2012 was the 1-Room setup of the show where the sonical balance and performance was far from ideal. Whilst the room (and therefore acoustics) is the same, the ground noise and electrical noise mitigation was second to none at that time. Empress was introduced in 2016 to cover the crossover noise thus completing the all time belief of AE to address the fundamentals: mechanical, electricity, ground and crossover noises.
System performance is a tidying act which requires an endless chore in 'discarding' and 'deciding'. What should be discarded: noise, distortion, compression. What should be decided: one stop shop end to end vs mix and match. Over the past 5 years, such 'tidying' act has never been stopped and the result is so prominent that there is no way to turn back to the 'clutter'.
From a 1-room setting to now 3 rooms and PT was talking about change in the format in next year, the 'mix and match' together with the one stop shop posture often draw attention of the audience coming from different school of thoughts and listening perspective.
Another major evolvement I see is the maturity of the marketing strategy leveraging the capacity of soft media in the internet and conventional ones. In addition to the usual inquiries from the interested audience, I was approached by several media in the Lars room on the product details. The interview of the key members of AE prior to the event has certainly promoted the publicity, not to say, the story published by PT to unleash the details of the show in the wildest and funniest way! Frankly I also lost track in a few twists by PT in his story. When will we read the end of it???
My sincere thanks go out to Chris and
the entire AE team for putting on an even better and more successful
show this year!
This year we had a wonderful
opportunity to experience something very rare. For this my special
thanks go out to Touraj! How lucky we were to hear such exquisite
lacquers and even a comparison between different record cutting
lathes. Thank you for your insightful presentation into the studio
world.
On the digital side, an extra thanks to
Javier and his team. Not only for the wonderful Atlantis DAC but also
for the much needed MQA demonstrations.
I look forward to the 6th AE
Super High End Show. Perhaps we will pair up our ground breaking MC –
One phono equaliser with a Super new power amp to match!
"For this my special thanks go out to Touraj! How lucky we were to hear such exquisite lacquers and even a comparison between different record cutting lathes. Thank you for your insightful presentation into the studio world."
Yes Robert I agree totally here, Touraj is doing it with a love to music... had the opportunity to listen to these music at the Munich show this year. He is a great person and always with fun in his eyes.
Comments
I don't think I will be able to get such an experience elsewhere.
Khairul
(Malaysia)
Two years ago, AE 3rd Super high end show.
It was my first encounter with the Goebel loudspeaker . My comment was “The sound was very natural and free of tension.”
Later on, I chatted with some other audiophile friends, their comment about the energy of Goebel loudspeakers was not able to fill up the room. I understood .
Time flies…
2017 . The return of the Goebel.
Divin was not only the break though of Oliver Goebel’s old design. It does make the old Epoque series looks like toys.
Every one attended the show would agree that the power and energy form the Divin seemed to be limitless
It just needs a 40W Chouku to fill up the biggest room. The speed , pinpoint imaging , timbre were supreme.
WADAX’s MQA demo was very ear-opening experience. The MQA improvement over the PCM 44.1 was not subtle at all. The MQA demonstrated music with bigger sound stage , more precise image and tighter bass.
The Tripoint Troy Elite demo made me known why the AE’s forum members grab it crazily before they listening to it.
The only regret would be to order too late.
The room was full of surprise and passion. I don’t want to leave my seat at all.
But I have to visit my favourite AE brand and see what he brought to us this year.
I went to Trinity Room. The familiar sound came to me , no distortion , free from stress but wait …
It is a bit more,… the very quiet system going a step further into tranquility.
dB told me that he took all the power supply units from the golden series so that he could have more space to add the additional component into the enclosure. From my perspective, the moving away of the power supply does matter in a -140 db pre-amp system. The price for the golden series was sky high but it would last for many many years . It is a sort of eternal glory.
This the room I would like to stay as long as I could.
Thanks AE team again to bring us the a fabulous world class leading high end hifi show.
The only regret for me is that I did not have enough time to stay in the Lars room. I only listened to Lars and 乾隆 in day 1 and bit and pieces in Day 2. I will have to go to AE show room later to listen more seriously to this combo.
I look forward to attending the 6th show next year with high expectation. Well done AE!Oliver Göbel
I like the LP playback of 乾隆 most as it has the density, speed and harmonics to make me immerse into the music immediately.
In Trinity room, I can experience perfect darkness with crazy resolution and details. I didn't have much time to experience more of this set up but I think it squeezed out all details of each music piece. It can handle complicated pieces with ease with tremendous energy and musicality.
Great job AE team, and I start to be curious what other breakthroughs you guys can achieve next year!
The Divin is intriguing!
Many Hong Kong audiophiles have told Chris that we want smaller models of the Divin Series.
Hope that you can develop such models asap.
Many thanks!
What an amazing 5th Anniversary of the AE show!
For many, myself included, who have attended the show in 5 consecutive years will notice the similarities among the shows in these 5 years:
1. Same organiser
2. Same venue
3. The never ending surprises
4. The ever heightening level of performance
5. Same old Chris and Jlam
What else is different and changed?
I am glad as well as flattered for Chris to introduce me as a loyal supporter of AE since they started! There are obviously many other loyal supporters of AE whom Chris has and has forgotten to introduce. As a close friend of Chris and Jlam for more than 2 decades (Yes we all met in kindergarten), I essentially walked the journey together with them and witness the evolvement of the company, the growing passion on music and the quest to push thru one envelop to another! I am also celebrating my 5th years working in Singapore and in hindsight, 5 years is really not a short period for one to get more matured, experienced and strong after all the challenges met and lesson learnt.
Readers of all, please take a pause here and re-wind back to 5 years ago, what do you see and who did you see on AE?
1) Trinity System with Cessaro Horns, trinity cables and power delivery with no Tripoint:
This is like Molecular Gastronomy; every sound is bore down to its essentials, the sound is ever so clean but never clinical.
2) Engstrom Eric/Monica/JMF digital/Cessaro QL/different cables/Tripoint:
This is top French cuisine; everything is so delicate, beautiful sound which is succulent with a floral bouquet. You can instantly fall in love with this sound in chamber music and Girl-Guitar type of song. Incidently, if you think they resort to cheap tricks such as a rich tube warmth kinda sound, you would be very far wrong. A complicated, sophisticated and sweet sound that is very enticing.
3) Wadax/Zanden/Divin/Vertere/Skogrand/Tripoint:
This is top Sushi from a master Itamae Chef: Fresh catch raw fish with the sashimi cut at just the right angle, rice pressed by hand with a touch of wasabi. The size of the sushi is never too big (So as to attract your eyes, but too big a piece to swallow comfortably in one piece), every thing is just right.
What strikes me about the Divin speakers is you are constantly fooled by your eyes; looking at it, you would expect something like a Wilson audio kinda "Bass Slam", you look at the ribbon like tweeter and the normal looking midrange driver and you think, " nothing out of the ordinary, I've heard that before...". If I were blinded, I would have been perplexed: It sounds like what a full range electrostatic would sound like, but with a bass foundation that sounds so right, like un-amplified acoustic music. But what's different from a full range electrostatic is its lack of a ghost-like semi-transparent character to sound, the sound from the Divin system actually has a very natural body and bloom to it, which is so natural, and here's where you Hear, but not See the family resemblance to the bending driver of Goebel. Bravo!
BREAKTIME..........
Congratulations to AE and to all the audio designers for a very successful 5th Hi-end show. Throughout the years I have witnessed and experienced improvements on synergy and matching of different speakers with front ends and electronic audio gears. AE showcased 3 different setup to suite different taste and presentation to all discerning audiophiles. This clearly shows AE’s commitment to its passion to spread to the whole world on preserving the true essence of music reproduction.
It was very informative in attending Wadax’s launching of the Atlantis DAC with MQA hardware. I thought that all digital streaming were the same, but after Javier of WADAX explained and demonstrated MQA against PCM, my perception to digital changed entirely to a whole new perspective. I was also eagerly waiting to hear Zanden’s new push pull 100w KA-UN tube amplifier on the massive and mighty Goebel Divin, Chris was just starting to change it from CHOKU at about 2:30 pm. I was so uptight coz I have a plane to catch back home that afternoon. The whole situation was like Cinderella abruptly leaving the scene when 12 midnight strikes. Wow, what an experience! Atleast I got to hear it for a short time. I had a big smile throughout the trip back home.
Time flies. Five years have passed since the first ‘season’ of the AE Supershow. As in the best TV series, each season gets better and better and this is no accident. The effort placed by AE crew is extraordinary.
This year extraordinary has been redefined. After some long and deep talks with PT, I can proudly say –based on insider facts and figures I had access to- that the latest AE show is probably, from an organizing, operative and equipment setup perspectives, the most elaborate and sophisticated High-End show done for a 2-day session ever. No High-End manufacturer or distributor I am aware of does this kind of deployment for a 2-day event.
On Wadax side, we demonstrated two new products: our latest MQA board for Atlantis DAC and Atlantis Transport.
The MQA board demo, together with a session of MQA vs non-MQA content really brought big interest from the audience AND from different Asian High-End forum users that came to the MQA session. I really appreciated their initiative to come and the interest they exhibited, that I could see in their many interesting questions. I can only wish this constructive attitude grows steadily and we can do more ‘technical’ sessions in future editions of the SuperShow.
Many thanks to all the AE crew, all my colleagues, and all of you who attended this singular session of the AE SuperShow 2017.
Javier
System performance is a tidying act which requires an endless chore in 'discarding' and 'deciding'. What should be discarded: noise, distortion, compression. What should be decided: one stop shop end to end vs mix and match. Over the past 5 years, such 'tidying' act has never been stopped and the result is so prominent that there is no way to turn back to the 'clutter'.
From a 1-room setting to now 3 rooms and PT was talking about change in the format in next year, the 'mix and match' together with the one stop shop posture often draw attention of the audience coming from different school of thoughts and listening perspective.
Another major evolvement I see is the maturity of the marketing strategy leveraging the capacity of soft media in the internet and conventional ones. In addition to the usual inquiries from the interested audience, I was approached by several media in the Lars room on the product details. The interview of the key members of AE prior to the event has certainly promoted the publicity, not to say, the story published by PT to unleash the details of the show in the wildest and funniest way! Frankly I also lost track in a few twists by PT in his story. When will we read the end of it???
Marvel
My sincere thanks go out to Chris and the entire AE team for putting on an even better and more successful show this year!
This year we had a wonderful opportunity to experience something very rare. For this my special thanks go out to Touraj! How lucky we were to hear such exquisite lacquers and even a comparison between different record cutting lathes. Thank you for your insightful presentation into the studio world.
On the digital side, an extra thanks to Javier and his team. Not only for the wonderful Atlantis DAC but also for the much needed MQA demonstrations.
I look forward to the 6th AE Super High End Show. Perhaps we will pair up our ground breaking MC – One phono equaliser with a Super new power amp to match!
Robert
Yes Robert I agree totally here, Touraj is doing it with a love to music... had the opportunity to listen to these music at the Munich show this year. He is a great person and always with fun in his eyes.