A visit to Japan, a UK audio show and a review in Poland

Welcome to the November 2024 German Physiks newsletter.

This is our first newsletter in a while. While we have not had a lot to talk about we have been busy behind the scenes. We are working on two new pieces of electronics and will share more about these later.

We have also been working on the Gaudi Mk III and will shortly start evaluating what we expect to be the final prototype. The Gaudi’s complex cabinet means that it takes longer to get new versions from our cabinet maker than it does for a simpler design, which in turn extends the development time. We expect to be able launch the Gaudi Mk III early in the new year. Like the Mk II, it will be a tri-amped, active design and will be supplied with a German Physiks DSP based active crossover.

Borderland Mk IVs in our Japanese distributor’s new room

We have just returned from a trip to Japan, where, while taking a rest from stuffing our faces with the marvellous food, we visited Taktstock, our Japanese distributor, to see their new demonstration room. The pictures we saw of this earlier looked good, but being able to see it in the flesh we could better appreciate the high quality of the workmanship involved in the construction. They have clearly spent a considerable amount of time and money to create a spacious room that is both comfortable and acoustically well behaved.

Its main purpose is to allow audio dealers to bring serious potential customers to hear Taktsock’s products in a system that has been properly set up. This offers a better chance of making a sale than if the demonstration is done at the dealer, where the rooms are often much smaller, frequently crowded with other equipment and the system has not been run long enough to fully settle down.

On they day we visited they had our Borderland Mk IV loudspeakers driven by Canor audio tube amplification. This created a beautifully expansive and well focussed stereo image where the loudspeakers really did completely disappear. This was one of the best Borderland set-ups that we have heard.

The owners of Taktstock, Mr. Goro Iori and Mr. Kazu Onaka have put in a lot of work to achieve this and we thank them for their efforts on our behalf. They are one of our hardest working distributors, regularly piling all their equipment into their vans and driving off to see dealers, or to take part in audio shows around the country. We’re thinking of having them cloned for use in other countries.

Mr. Goro Iori (L) and Mr. Kazu Onaka (R) of Taktstock

Visit the Borderland Mk IV web page

Visit the Takstock web site

At the end of September we took part in the UK HiFi Show. This was held in rooms inside the grandstand at the famous Ascot Racecourse. You can see part of the racecourse in the right of the picture. We demonstrated a pair of Borderland Mk IV loudspeakers, which were driven by our own Emperor integrated amplifier and an Ayon Audio CD-35 CD player. We opted to use CDs rather than a streamer, anticipating that the wi-fi might not be as reliable as we would want. In the event were were proved right, as the excellent chaps from Estellon, whom we shared the room with, suffered a certain amount of wi-fi induced stress at the start of the show.

One side of the room was floor to ceiling glass and we initially expected that it would be difficult to set the system up for a good sound, as we had no room treatments. However, after allowing the system to run for a few hours to settle down, and spending about an hour experimenting with loudspeaker positions, we achieved a very evenly balanced and detailed sound, with deep, well controlled bass and very good imaging.

The weekend of the show brought some of the heaviest rain the UK had seen for many years and this probably deterred some from coming out. Despite this, we had a good number of visitors who were very complimentary about what they heard. We even had an approach from an overseas audio distributor.

Our thanks to the folks at Nexus Audio our UK distributor and their parent company Nintronics for the considerable amount of support they provided at the show.

Visit the Borderland Mk IV web page

Visit the Emperor integrated amplifier web page

Soundrebels magazine in Poland recently published a quite an informative and insightful review of our HRS-130 loudspeakers. Here are a few quotes to pique your interest:

“… the HRS-130 not only outlined and focused the virtual sources with extraordinary precision, but also embellished the whole with such freedom and spaciousness of presentation, that for the first few hours I simply played with the well-known repertoire, eagerly checking how my favorite songs would sound on the German speakers.”⁣

“Music played with contagious enthusiasm and freedom, devoid of technical ossification and sterile analyticalism, but brimming with emotions and almost palpable flow between the musicians.”⁣⁣

“However, the thing that made them, not so much easy to digest, but rather having an organicity addictive from the first notes, was their exceptional coherence. Zero audible differences, or seams between one sub-range and another. It was as if one full-range driver was playing.”

The review concludes:

“I assume that both for you and for me the German Physiks HRS-130 do not seem to be the first or even second choice loudspeakers. However, it is enough to break the stereotypes, trust your own ears this time, not your eyes, and just listen, and it seems to me that the audiophile experience you have gained over the years will be divided into the one before and after having listened to the 130s. Although I also do not rule out a situation when, once heard, they may not leave your system, which to be honest would not surprise me much.”⁣

You can read the full review their web site here.

Our sincere thanks for Jacek and Marcin at Audio Rebels and to Andrzej at Audio Anatomy our distributor in Poland for arranging the review.

Visit the HRS-130 web page

Visit the Audio Anatomy web site

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If we can be of help with anything at all, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us here. You can find your national distributor here.