Our Milan dealer, Enea Spinelli from Spinelli HiFi, participated to the Milano Hi-Fidelity show this year. An event from the Sound of the Valve by Stefano Zaini, this event presents HiFi in Milano since more than 16 years.
It has been an amazing weekend with some very good music and food. I enjoyed the chance as well to test some of the music for the Munich High End.
No big news in the setup but for the new racks of Solidsteel and feet of Omicron. Nothing very mind blowing, but a lot of small things to increase the level of the presentation.

Octave and Marantz electronics, Transrotor and Rega sources, Cammino cabling and power treatment. Blumenhofer loudspeakers.

If You wich to see more pictures You can enjoy them here.

At Sambs HiFi in Linz, Walter Kircher presented our Genuin FS 1 MK 2 on a McIntosh chain… the week before that same chain powered another brand of loudspeakers… a good chance for a comparison ;-)
Here You can enjoy more pictures.

Walter Kircher presented our products at the Vienna Vinyl show at the Ottakringer Brewery, an exceptional location with a big potential for public and good entertainment. In one of the pictures You can see concert area, which, You can believe me, has been used very well during the event!!!
Here You can enjoy some more pictures of Walter Kircher.

After the big success of the Gran Galà dell'Alta Fedeltà in Milano, Spinelli, our local dealer, invited his customers to listen to the system of the show.
The setups were 3 and the loudspeakers playing were 4. All Cammino Cabling, all Octave amplification. Really amazing systems, all really enjoyable.
We spent the day talking with people and listening to music. That was good… meanwhile, our children were amazingly playing: everyone had his fun!!
If You are curious about the setup, You can get the information from the pictures here

Our Milan dealer Spinelli in cooperation with Cammino decided to participate to an event of Giulio Cesare Ricci: they exposed at the Gran Galà dell'Alta Fedeltà in Milano.

The choice was to keep the costs of the whole system at a relatively reasonable target. Well, they went up to about 50.000€. But compared with other systems playing in other rooms, they plaid with a bargain system.
The aim was to have a music performing system, not an HiFi system tuned to be audiophile, but a system to play music. Any kind of music or recording, old or new, or whatever.

The system:
- Turntable: Transrotor Rossini with Cammino phono reference cable
- Cartridge: Benz H2o (15 years old)
- Phono Preamp: Octave Eq 2
- CD Player: Rega Isis Valve reference
- Preamp: Octave HP 500 SE
- Power Amp: Octave RE 290
- Loudspeakers: Genuin FS 1 MK 2
- Cabling: of course Cammino trough and trough
- Power Treatment: Cammino H 3.1 and MA-1A
- Acoustics Treatment: Astri

The room was always full with enthusiastic people.
Giulio Cesare Ricci performed his presentation of his Foné products in this room at fixed time slots. He has some master tapes as well and that was an amazing experience for Claudio and Enea and both of them were looking forward for it. The master tapes were played on an Ampex ATR 102, 2 tracks, 1/2 inch tape, 76cm/sec. Useless to mention the very positive and amazing comments Claudio, Enea and Giulio Cesare himself reported to me…
Vinyl was a little bit less than the Master tapes, but anyway was really high quality.

The public… lost the feeling of being in a reproduction event, Claudio and Giulio Cesare pumped up the volume to reach live concert level on the Master Tape of Vasco Rossi's Toffee (and I remember the wonderful feeling at the show in Lanciano). The song, is a song that is in the heart of all fans of Vasco Rossi and all Italians. All of them were singing with Vasco's tapes. (Bollicine, Vado al Massimo, C'è chi dice no, Va bene, va bene così, Cosa succede in città: to know more about the Vasco's LPs or SACDs directly on Foné' web pages)
Petra Magoni, of Musica Nuda, attended the event as well because it was the Foné presentation of their last LP, Little Wonder (here more info about it). She jumped on the chair when she discovered how much information was present on the tapes and could be reproduced by our system. She did not want to believe it and recognized some particular sound flaws of the Contrabass of Ferruccio Spinetti.

Should You be curious about some pictures… scroll down on this page here

Weihong Audio presented our loudspeakers in the ‘Ruby Hall’ at the China Hotel.

Thomas was there and if I look at the pictures it must have been a real success event. Killing for the big effort but for sure with enormous presence of people and customers.
The setup was based on Einstein amplification, Cammino cabling and power treatment.
There were 2 sets of loudspeakers playing: during the show the loudspeakers have regularly been swapped, sometimes the Genuin FS 1 MK 2 sometimes the Einsteins. Two different listening habits and two different ways of presenting music.

Then there was a second Blumenhofer room with Ottavio amplification where You could have enjoyed a completely different philosophy of sound.

Have a look at the pictures (here) to get the feeling of what happened.

It was the first event held by SI-Works in Korea and the setup was really impressive: playing just analogue on a Kronos turntable. Louis Desjardins was there himself to promote the turntables and help with the setup.
At the beginning of the show we cooperate from remote (communication over Facebook) in supporting the setup and that has been an amazing experience to get the feedback of Louis after making the suggested changes: he said that the sound became delicious and was so enthusiastic that tried to establish a connection with a greek tube amp manufacturer. I appreciated it! And it will have a good follow up.

This was the setup:
- Genuin FS 1 MK 2
- Thöress Audio Mono Amplifiers
- Thöress Audio Pre-Amplifiers
- Thöress Audio Phono Preamp
- Sutherland Engineering Phono Pre-Amplifiers
- Kronos Audio Sparta and Pro Turntables

If You are curious about the pictures of the event, just click here

That was amazing and I was really surprised by the show. And the concert of Paolo Fresu? I've loved to hear it!

I think that by now You know my way of thinking: always the smallest possible loudspeaker to play an astonishing setup in the room available.
Here they had me confirmed in a bigger room… and in the end for some kind of problems I just had a small room. With really big loudspeakers, the Genuin FS 1 MK 2.
I do not want to complain, but just to tell You, for my normal way of doing, I would have got a Tempesta 20, for example. Or maximum, a Genuin FS 3 MK 2… but a Genuin FS 1 MK 2 was promised and I accepted the challenge.

As I entered the room the system was already playing and warming up… holy s**t, the bass was long like an aircraft carrier, the 3D feeling was blurred like a gray cat in a foggy day.
Let's try to set up differently and use the short side of the room… nonononononono: the rack was to wide to fit on that side with the whole components.
Back to the long side and let's start work.
I pulled all registers and I tried to use all the strangest solutions that fell into my mind to get the sound I liked. Lots of "tools" found there to get the right sound were hidden behind curtains and couches and inside cabinet… in the end it worked ;-)

In the end I've been able to achieve a sound that satisfied me… in both rooms!!! Given the boundary conditions, the limitation of room and system and the fact that I've not been allowed to use my toys, I think I got the best out of what was available… with lots of headroom for the joy of the customers, when they will get the loudspeakers at their home ;-)

I'm talking about 2 rooms:
Setup Room 184 - my room:
- Marantz SA-10 SACD Player for the first time in Italy
- EAT C-Sharp Turntable with Ortofon Cadenza Red cartridge
- EAR Yoshino MC Phono Preamplifier
- MastersounD Spettro Line Preamplifier
- MastersounD 845 Monoblocks Plus
- Genuin FS 1 MK 2 Loudspeakers

Setup Room 136 - MastersounD's room:
- Marantz SACD Player
- M2Tech DAC and Streamer
- MastersounD Compact 300B integrated stereo amplifier
- Genuin FS 3 MK 2

My feedback to the show? I was happy. It was a huge amount of work to setup and perform.
The public participating to the event was really highly interested and expert in terms of listening and music loving. Some of them have really impressive systems at home and invited me to meet them there, the next time.
And we played a lot of music without any kind of limitation in terms of what to play and volume. The system and the room in the end permitted it.

Giulio Cesare Ricci from Fonè presented some LPs:
- Musica Nuda with Magoni and Spinetti
- 5 LPs remastered from the original tape of Vaso Rossi (one leading Italian Rocker)
And we played together some of the tracks of his last productions, as example the remastered live album of Vasco Rossi at concert decibel level: people were rocking with closed eyes in the chairs and it was really involving and… like being there!!

Well… lot of music, lot of emotion, lot of talks and lots of amazing moments. Thank You Marco for the great show and the great organization.
If You are curious, here there are more pictures I shot at the event.

Small anticipation? I think in a Theater in March… not far from Lanciano… we will make a Mini-Sintonie with something big paired… stay tuned!!

In they reportage from the HiFi Show in Ljubljana (here) tooloud.co awarded our room from the show in Ljubljana with the best sound of the show… and our hostess as the most beautiful one ;-)

It was not the biggest room in the show, but is was for sure one of the best positioned and worst to reach ;-)
In the entrance… not everyone noted it but I think that everyone did hear as and then came to visit our room and listen to our system.
I think that this was one of the most expensive setups I've ever done in a show. Let's start from the source:
- 35 years old Linn Sondek LP 12 turntable
- Ortofon Windfeld cartridge
- Trafomatic Luna Phono Preamplifier
- Rockna Wavedream DA Converter
- Trafomatic Lara line preamplifier
- Trafomatic Elysium power amps
- Genuin FS 1 MK 2 loudspeakers
- 2x Cammino Power Harmonizer H3.1
- complete Cammino cabling

…I think that the loudspeakers were the cheapest part of the whole system ;-)

At first we had a surprise, the room was smaller than we all remembered and we started wondering how to set up all the things and where to put the loudspeakers. Mapping, that was the first thing to do, to have a rough estimation on the available space.
Then the most difficult part: moving the power amps to the right position. 80kg amps plus another 35 kg of marble plate where they were set… can You imagine?
Setting up was more difficult than expected, because our expectations were really high and the products presented are top products that deserve to be exposed in the best possible way. It is a 200.000€ system, it MUST play like a 200.000€ system to be honest to our guests. It is useless to have a top system playing bad and then arguing about the room qualities, or that the time was to short, or that the logistic was not good, or whatever other thing. IT MUST PLAY. Without excuses. Only in this way we have the chance to convince the people that to enjoy music they need our system and not one of the other.

And I think that we reached our goal. Lots of people came and stayed in the room for longer time. They were impressed by the power and the energy flowing in the room. They appreciated the quality of the music reproduction.
Saša Čokiċ from Trafomatic stated that he had never heard a turntable playing that well before and his goosebumps during The Wall of the Pink Floyd were the demonstration of this - well, these are satisfactions ;-)

If You are curious to see more pictures of the event and of our system there, You can find them here