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.

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

In Bisceglie (BT), our dealer Angelucci, presented a system composed by our Genuin FS 3 MK 2 with a solid state Darzell amplification. It is the Apulia HiFi Show. Here You can find more information about the show.

————— This the statement of a Facebook friend—————

Dopo innumerevoli insistenze da parte di un conoscente, il bravo e sempre disponibile Marco Angelucci ha svelato i setup presenti nella sua sala all'APULIA HIFI SHOW 2016.
- Diffusori Blumenhofer Genuin 3 mk2
- Diffusori Rahido MB1
- Amplificatore Dartzeel LHC 208
- Amplificatore integrato Mastersound
- Sorgenti Marantz
Sicuramente un gran sentire. Per gli audiofili una sala imperdibile.

At the ITIS in Trieste, a house of services to the elderly people, in cooperation with CAMST, one of the leading Italian catering companies, and with Tafos, we organized an event to entertain the guests of the ITIS.
It was a bit of embarrassing at the beginning, but then seeing the people sing and enjoy and get lost on the music was really touchy for me and for the other organizers. Once more, we enjoyed the magic and the effects that music listening can give to the people.

The setup was not the top of the tops, but it was sufficient to give to the audience some moments of memories.
- Tempesta 20
- Trafomatic EOS integrated amp
- Classé CD Player
- Cammino cabling and power treatment

The music played was:

Edith Lienbacher - Soprano
Herbert Lippert - Tenor

Bruckner Orchester Linz
Peter Guth - Conductor

Composers: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Johann Strauss Sr. (1804-1849)
Johann Strauss Jr. (1825-1899)
Franz Lehar (1870-1948)
Emmerich Kalman (1882-1953)

1. Unter Donner und Blitz (Polka schnell)
2. Das eine kann ich nicht verzeih'n (Wiener Blut)
3. Radetzky-Marsch
4. Sei mir gegruesst du holdes Venetia (Eine Nacht in Venedig)
5. Deh vieni non tardar (Le nozze di Figaro)
6. Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schoen (Die Zauberfloete)
7. Vilja Lied (Die Lustige Witwe)
8. Overture (Die Fledermaus)
9. Lippen Schweigen (Die lustige Witwe)
10. Entr'acte Musik No. 2 (Rosamunde)
11. Licht senkt es sich vom Himmel (Das Dreimaederlhaus)
12. Mein Herr Marquis (Die Fledermaus)
13. Dein ist mein ganzes Herz (Das Land des Laechelns)
14. An der schoenen blauen Donau
15. Tanzen moecht' ich (Die Cardasfuerstin)

Production:
Produced by David Chesky
Recorded by Miguel Kertsman
Edited and mastered by Miguel Kertsman and Harald Huber

Well… do I need to say more? Have a look at the pictures (here) and try to understand the feeling arising during the 'performance'.

At the end we all could enjoy a slice of Sacher Torte and an hot chocolate.

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!!

Spinelli HiFi in Viale Zara 108 in Milan hosted an event sponsored by our Italian distributor: HiFi United and the Home Vision group.
We have spent some good days playing there music. There were lot of people and very friendly customers. It was recharging! And we enjoyed it.

The system was composed by:
- Transrotor Turntable
- Rega CD Player
- Octave V70-SE Power amplifier
- Several components from M2Tech
- Astri contributed very effectively to tune the room acoustics
- and our Genuin FS 3 MK 2.

Lot of the components were brand new, but at the end of the days we managed to burn them in.

2015 starts well: Angelo Jasparro of Audio-Activity published a nice review of our Genuin FS 2. Both in Italian and in English at the same time, as proof of great Professionalism.
In the interesting browsing trough music Angelo says about the Genuin:

- The Nutcracker by Tchaikovski, Kirov Orchestra, directed by Valery Gergiev (Philips) […] The violent finale of the “Intrada” of the “Pas de Deux” is reproduced with ease by the Blumenhofers. This is something that does not happen with the majority of the hi-fi components that we have in our houses!

- These loudspeakers, despite the horns, are able to disappear and let the scene to music.

- […] this is a device produced with care by someone that is not just an assembler […]

Ulisse Pisoni wrote a review of our Mini on ReMusic.it, here in Italian.

These are some excerpt from the article:

They bare a beauty, a musicality and they are so enjoyable that You will not miss higher priced systems
There is no listening fatigue, the annoying sensation related to hyper-definition and hyper-detail is absent
The Mini of Blumenhofer have the virtue to be enjoyable at high volume even for longer time