The next room used four CH Precision A1.5’s with Vivid Audio GIYA. This room was carefully tuned by specialist Stirling Trayle of Audio Systems Optimized. Now, this system was certainly portraying the CH-typical refinement and transparency fabulously. If ever a box speaker came close to the ideal of sounding close to an electrostatic speaker, then Vivid is it.
The always cheerful Lawrence Dickie with Loris Stehle of CH Precision
These speakers with their Glass reinforced balsa cored sandwich composite enclosure have been designed to have as little coloration as is humanly possible and there’s certainly no coloration that I can hear but still, with all Vivids, there’s a certain character that comes across to me as not quite natural. They can sound absolutely gorgeous, don’t get me wrong, but with some selections, I found them to have a certain lack of “realness”, for lack of a better word. It could be argued that it the absence of MDF-induced colorations that come along with normal enclosures and that one simply has to adjust to this but the same could be said about Magico or YG and their heavy aluminum enclosures. Like any aluminum speaker, these two brands also have a certain recognizable character but to me, they come across as closer to the real thing. Of course, this is also a matter of interpretation and personal preference. In any event, it seems that even when speaker enclosures are made to be incredibly stiff and seem to introduce very little measurable distortion, they may still have a certain influence on the sound. Ahh, you got to love the wonderful world of audio, in which everything is of influence on everything.
Marking the company’s 10-year anniversary, here’s a brand new CH Precision product: the M10 power amplifier using evolved topologies, new components, superior materials, and further refined circuitry… and a lot more of it! The enclosure has the same width as the 1 series but almost double the depth!
Alas, at this time it was not connected and only on display but it will soon be made available.
Double speaker connections.
“This amp will cost you TWO of your kidneys” is probably not what Loris of CH was saying to audio buddy Niels.
Audio buddy JW illustrates just how large the M10 amp is.
JW looking at Niels while he photographs the insides of the new L10 two-piece preamp, with Raphael Pasche on the right.
The L10 preamp offers a choice of adjustable local or global feedback and comes in a choice of three color finishes. Also, it employs the now famous “Red Caps”.
It’s great that Raphael took us on a mini-tour across all the systems that use CH Precision amplification because this allowed us to hear precisely just how chameleon-like these electronics are.
The third room that Raphael took us to was the Apertura room, showcasing the beautiful Apertura Enigma MKII speakers with Grand Prix racks, Grand Prix turntable, and CH Precision amplification.
This system sounded heavenly airy, delicate and extremely refined. No matter what they played the sound was relaxed and never harsh or in your face but always very finely detailed, and so, these beauties must go on the HFA list of show favorites.
CH Precision A1.5 power amp.
The fourth room that used CH Precision electronics for demoing their speakers was the Estelon room. These are the beautiful and brand new Estelon Forza speakers, connected with Kubala Sosna cables, their latest and the highest quality Realization series.
The Forza’s are incredibly articulate, coherent, precise and explicit speakers with superb neutrality. I was impressed even if they could sound a little cool and, with some recordings, slightly hard in the midrange. Maybe they needed more running in?
Here’s Raphael with Alissa and Alfred Vassilkova. Alfred is Estelon Founder and Chief Designer and Alissa is his daughter.
A nice stack of CH Precision equipment: M1.1 power amplifiers and L1 / P1 preamp and phono preamp with D1 transport, C1 DAC and T1 clock generator. The system was topped off with the incredible Kronos Pro turntable with the Black Beauty tonearm and ZYX cartridge. All of the equipment was on Ultimate Line racks from Bassocontinuo.
CH Precision M1.1 amp on Bassocontinuo platform.
The fifth and final room that Raphael took us to is one of my most-liked rooms: the Marten room. Not too long ago, I’ve reviewed the Marten Mingus Quintet and was highly impressed with them but these new Mingus Orchestra big boys truly are something else.
Effortlessly transparent, super-refined and airy, fully full range, highly nimble and superbly coherent, Marten’s new Mingus Orchestra’s cost a whopping 185K. Ouch. Obtainable or not, they rank all the way at the top of the HFA list of show favorites. The smaller models are the new entry level Oscar Trio and Duo.
This concluded our little tour of the CH Precision rooms. Here’s JW, myself, and Raphael Pasche contemplating getting a nice cup of coffee outside.
Moving on, here are the amazing Magico M6 speakers with all MSB electronics. This was a smooth, sonorous and relaxed, slightly dark sound but – make no mistake – with extreme resolution and ultra-transparency. Yup, they are on the HFA Show favorites list.
Beautiful inside view of a VAC preamp
Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5
Hi Christiaan, Very nice report on the show! Thank you for mentioning my company Audio Systems Optimized in association with CH Precision’s very significant participation at Munich High End 2019. However, I cannot accept any credit for rooms I had no participation with. I was only responsible for the room with gorgeous Vivid GIYA loudspeakers, which I believe was CH Precision’s primary showroom. The wonderful sounds you heard in the other four rooms were the results of work done by those companies using CH Precision components and kudos to their talents! Thanks – Stirling Trayle
Thanks for the rectification Stirling, I’ve now updated this in the report.
I loved this very detailed and personal report from Munich. Unlike other sources, you don’t hesitate to give your unfiltered opinions, both favourable and unflattering, but you also try to give us the context for those views.
As a Vivid Giya G3 owner, I was most struck by your comments on the Giya speakers in the CH Precision room. I think you had the G3s in your room a couple of years ago, but chose not to review them, and I get the impression that here in Part 2, you may be expressing ideas about the Giya series that you’ve been considering for some time. I have no trouble accepting that personal preference, as you say, counts for a lot in audio, perhaps especially in choice of speakers. But because of my respect for your experience and judgment, I can’t help being intensely curious about your mixed reactions to the Giya and your comparisons.
If possible, could you elaborate a little on this statement: “…with some selections, I found them to have a certain lack of “realness”, for lack of a better word.”
Did you find, for instance, that there is a certain type of music, or certain instruments, that tend to trigger this feeling? Would you say these issues are errors of commission or omission? Since this was published, have you found any other language to describe the impression mentioned here? Our opinions on the speaker may differ, but I would be fascinated to be able to better understand what aspect of the Giya’s performance is unsatisfactory to your ears.
Finally, I would just like to thank you for this enjoyable report with very good photos.
Hi Lee, I’m glad to hear that you are enjoying my articles.
Well, my experience with Vivid is a bit of a mixed bag. Without going into it too deeply, I thoroughly respect the brand and think they have many very strong aspects. I was on the verge of reviewing and even potentially buying a pair of Giya G3 S2’s when I noticed an aspect of their delivery that prevented my falling in love with them entirely. I chose to cancel the review and let the matter go. After all, a speaker is hugely dependent on the acoustics in which it is placed and at that time not having heard many other speakers than the Apogees and Wilsons in this apartment I wasn’t sure if the Vivids were simply a mismatch in my space. But then, I heard the same aspect with other Vivids, again and again, in various demo’s.
Especially since I know CH electronics so well, their main demo room in Munich with Vivid really made me think. So, this time I chose to elaborate some more on this and that’s what ended up in the Munich report.
By a lack of realness, I mean what is to me a sense of the music sounding synthetic rather than acoustical. But please take this with a grain of salt as I noticed that not everyone is as sensitive to this as I am and I am still not sure that it is not a matter of personal preference, being accustomed to other presentations or simply my interpretation.
Indeed it is not obvious with all music and you do not hear it at all with some selections. Typically, I hear it most easily with piano and guitar works pretty well too. In any event, I do not hear this aspect with most wooden enclosure speakers (I do with some) and not with any metal enclosure speakers I heard so far such as YG’s and Magicos. I also do not hear it with Magnepans or Apogees. I did hear it with the BlueRoom minipods and wooden Genelec 1030 as well as the metal 8050s and, curiously, also with some Quad ESL’s and with all Martin Logans. So… is it down to the enclosure or something else? The material of the enclosure might certainly have a large influence but at this point, this is only a hunch and other factors also come into play.