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

Tafos Audio, our partner for Slovenia, organized a flabbergasting event. We spent the whole day in an olive tree plantation. A wonderful relaxing landscape. Not to mention the rich food catering organized by a friend and the astonishing quality of the music reproduction in the cave… Just to get Your mouth watering:
- Trafomatic Elysium Power Amp
- Trafomatic Luna Phono Preamp
- Trafomatic Lara Preamp
- Rockna Wavedream DAC
- Cabling by Cammino
- Power treatment by Cammino
- and of course our Genuin FS 1 MK 2 performing

Have a look at our picture gallery with the text of the invitation for the event. Here.

Lot of stories to tell. Lot of satisfactions in several fields.

Miura San (we met him already in Guangzhou 2009), the owner and founder of Air Tight, paid us a visit and spent half an hour with us listening to music. I had the feeling that he enjoyed it.
One Polish journalist came and had a longer talk with me. In the end it came out that he reviewed the Genuin FS 3 MK 2 and dropped his comment on the speaker: "It is a f***ing good loudspeaker, what would You wish more?"
Giulio Cesare Ricci, owner of Fonè, a small but really fine Italian recording company, and organizer of the Gran Galà dell'Alta Fedeltà expositions in Italy, came as well to our room. His idea was to sit down and relax, taking a short nap and saying some circumstances word about our equipment… he could not sleep, at the first tone he jumped on the chair flabbergasted by the quality of the reproduction of his own LPs. We made a short presentation in his room and then he came back several times since! And… he wishes for a cooperation with us in Padova and Milano, where he will present some new records of a famous Italian Rock Star.
An american Tenor, husband of Mr. Jason Victor Serinus from Stereophile, spent longer time in our room and came back several times. In the end I have been shortly interviewed by his husband and received a positive feedback on Stereophile.
A Russian Music lover, who came to our room after each listening in other rooms, just to get his reference back again and start for the next room.
An Englishman, who was surprised that such an 'affordable' system was giving real music, where lot of the others were just asleep and wrong. He spent longer time talking with us to know where to start from to get his system working in the proper way.
A Dutchman who was jumping on the chair for some music and was romantic engaged by other music, really emotional.

What else, there are lot of stories, these are just some that stick more in the head. Other will come up during the next days. Looking forward, positively looking forward for the upcoming news…
Meanwhile, You can have a look at our event pictures here

At the end of the show, one rare moment of quietness.

It hit us as a positive surprise, we were not aware that our Genuin FS 1 MK 2 was in the narrow choice for the award in the Tower loudspeakers category.
Our Genuin FS 1 MK 2 got a superb review on Fairaudio.de and on 6moons.com back in march 2015 and now the Fairaudio favourite Award. This is our first award.

It is useless to say that the show was gorgeous: everybody knows about the Audio Video Show in Warsaw, Poland. I did not. The more I've seen the more I was surprised by the dimensions and the perfect organization of the event. Adam has been able to build a real big, challenging, amazing event.
Nearly 150 rooms, I do not know if it is the second or the third biggest HiFi show in Europe, together with the Munich High End and the Norddeutsche HiFi Tage in Hamburg. When somebody claimed it was great, I could not imagine how great it is.

For the first time the 50 rooms at the national stadium have been added to the show rooms of the hotels. And we were there in one of those.

Now, to our presence: we were present in 2 rooms. One room in the main hotel another room is in the stadium.
The hotel room presented:
- Burmeister CD player
- Sphinx integrated Amplifier
- Tempesta 17 and Fun 13 loudspeakers
- Cammino cabling and power harmonization

The stadium room presented:
- Scheu Analog turntable
- Cary Audio CD Player
- Cary Audio electronics, complete: Phono Preamp, Preamp, Power Amp
- Cammino cabling and power harmonisation
- Genuin FS 1 MK 2 loudspeakers

We took all the time needed to setup the system and we let it play for the whole time, from the beginning of the show until the end. As usual we had wonderful surprises as we noticed that some of the components were getting better and better (in the end some of them were not even burned in).
And then we have discovered that people liked all the different kind of musics. There are shows, where You only can play classical music, there are shows where the classical music sounds like an invitation to exit from the room. In Warsaw it has been totally different! Death Metal, or Violin, Hard Rock or Soft Melodics. As soon as the music was good, people of all ages came in.

To see Yourself, You can have a look at our picture gallery here or come to the Audio Video Show 2016.