Drawn by the lyre emblem on the faceplate and the promise of Swiss engineering… High End Munich presented a double opportunity: Listen to a top-level Orpheus array and meet designer Alexandre Mermod. My short visit began with a blast from the past. I hadn’t heard Terry Evans and Ry Cooder’s “Blues No More” for close to a decade, and encountering it took me back to an earlier era, when I was writing from and dodging bullets in the barrio of East Oakland.

I felt I was hearing everything that Evans’s engineers wanted me to hear—and not, thank God, the far too prevalent hip-hop soundtrack of East Oakland. The full-range sound was powerful and accurate from top to bottom. Brent Lewis’s “Mumbo Jumbo” stood out for its musicality and spot-on tonalities. Ditto for a more recent track, Hedegaard’s bass monster “Ratchets.” I was having so much fun that I hated to leave.

Jason Victor Serinus, Stereophile Munich Show Report, May 2025

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