A heads up to anyone (Colin?) going to Munich High End that The Wand Turntable will be on demo at Munich High End with some great gear! Our German distributor IBEX is handing over room hosting to Italian maker of high end valve amps and horn loudspeakers Viva.
Check it out  in the IBEX audio room Atrium 4.2, E223

The demo will use a new 14in Master tonearm fitted with a Ikeda 9TT cartridge.

ibb.co/GHTKNSW 

Simon Brown
Design Build Listen Ltd,
Makers of The Wand Analogue Products
Distributor of Hana Cartridges

Sounds very intriguing.

Do tell us more about the new arm!

I’ll be sure to check it out, Simon.
Why 14”?

AMR-iFi R&D

Apologies everyone I haven't been to forthcoming about filling you in on this. Since hearing on Friday it was all go for Munich, I've been charging round organizing leaflets in English and German as well as sending the other not quite secret new product* (prototype) yesterday to be there in time... FedEx willing...



So a bit of the back story on the 14in...

Last year I was commissioned to do a custom 14in version of The Wand for Genesis loudspeakers in the US to go on their 'if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it' turntable. See it here; Genesis turntable click on their brochure tab to see a picture of a stack of gear that comprises the turntable. This is called "The Wand of Origin"
There are a number of secretive custom changes for Genesis including the geometry but after 6 months it was time to do a Wand variant, this will only be made to special order.

So 14in on paper gives a further 15% reduction in distortion (peak and average) over a 12in arm. Obviously this is diminishing returns as you get longer and most arms have so many resonances, they mask the gains. I am guessing this may be some of the reason why Michael Fremer is famously not keen on longer arms.  Fortunately this is an advantage of The Wand being 4 to 10 times stiffer than average arms, it can actually give a gain. 
I am making an adapter so that the 14in arm can be mounted in a 12in hole (even needed on my own turntable which was only designed to go up to 12in)

I am really pleased to be having the demo with Viva as I think their amps are very nice from what I understand. Wish I could be there...




*A Lead-Acid battery power supply the "Wand EV" (I'm not brave enough to call it "Pb-LSD" though it appeals to my sense of humor) for the turntable and phono stage (not available to late in the year)

Simon Brown
Design Build Listen Ltd,
Makers of The Wand Analogue Products
Distributor of Hana Cartridges

Wand and Viva at Munich

AMR-iFi R&D

Thanks Colin!
Seems to have gone well. Only direct coverage I've seen so far is some photos on Mono-Stereo.
Michael Fremer came by and had a listen, though given he was played 'Tool' not sure if he would have been pleased or shocked with the change from the usual Show offerings of Diana Krall Klones.
I can now reveal that Viva were releasing their 'Super Fono' a 100,000 Euro phono stage (solid copper case), so a bit of a focus on listening to the system using my turntable at something like 1/20th the cost

Feedback from my contacts is that both trade and visitors were down around 30%.
What amazes me is that almost no-one there seems to be wearing a mask....

Simon Brown
Design Build Listen Ltd,
Makers of The Wand Analogue Products
Distributor of Hana Cartridges

...but that it was a happy show with people enjoying it being less crowded.

Simon Brown
Design Build Listen Ltd,
Makers of The Wand Analogue Products
Distributor of Hana Cartridges

It was a great show! Despite numbers being down on previous years, possibly with the Asian manufacturers mostly absent with all their current C19 issues, the general feeling was one of excitedness to be back. Almost no-one wore a mask at the show, just a few. The only place to wear them by law in Munich was on the subway, where you needed to wear an FFP2-type mask. Normal cloth ones are banned from wearing on the subway. Numbers were also down as the maximum number of attendees were restricted, and the show was actually sold out most days, afaik.
The Wand/Viva room sounded excellent - refined and balanced. The tweeters were set back quite a distance from the midrange horn and sounded integrated, time-aligned. To me, most of the high end speakers sounded disintegrated, except for a notable few.
Not sure why, but I liked the understated Voxativ room with their 9.88 system. In common with small full-range drivers they had some traits that require readjusting to, but had magic tonal resolution and proper depth and spatial cues to give you that GF (goosebump factor).
It was great to also catch up with Mark Jenkins from Antipodes, who made the long flight over.

AMR-iFi R&D

Great to get your perspective on the Show! As a full range driver user, I understand the magic you describe in the Voxativ room (I do like to point out my Fostex are hopeless in other respects )


Also, I see this morning HiFi Pig commented favorably on the sound of the VIVA/Wand system near the end of this page www.hifipig.com/high-end-munich-2022-report-4-2/

Simon Brown
Design Build Listen Ltd,
Makers of The Wand Analogue Products
Distributor of Hana Cartridges

Yes, pretty happy it was the 'lead' story in the Day 3 video. Hopefully my new US Distributor who also distributes Viva will follow up with Mikey.

Simon Brown
Design Build Listen Ltd,
Makers of The Wand Analogue Products
Distributor of Hana Cartridges