Athens Hi End Show 2010

New Kids In Town!

This year's show may not have the pulse and the participation of past years, which largely logical and expected, but hid a pleasant surprise: Many new instances (the majority of them belong to the domestic market) and several interesting devices and systems. If anything, the site is not showing signs of stagnation and that can only be good!

With the general sentiment is at its lowest, it is not surprising that the High End Show in Athens was not the most cheerful of recent years. Between us, it would be worrying if the space does not react so given the circumstances. On the other hand, the gloomy predictions proved too bleak. Indeed, the size of the entire organization in terms of exhibitors were lower than last year and visitors were also fewer. But this-in the view of myself-not detract from the event. The confirmation of this claim was in fact by the following curious: Most of those who visited the show were left with good impressions: They saw a lot of new things (and people), interesting new ideas and products that were quite important for the space. Observant found-likely-a major opening to space the price.

This year the show was to show a lot of great pieces at very high prices, but at the same time, many devices and very high quality with reasonable price. The first phenomenon is perhaps sample maturation of exhibitors who do not hesitate to invest in a presentation devices very expensive while the latter phenomenon is due, probably, to strategic choices of manufacturers who, for obvious reasons they give great importance to the ratio of price to performance. In any case I think we should be satisfied with the mix of exhibits as there was something for everyone.

Important was the presence of new companies that were not in the show in 2009. We saw for the first time the boosters Abrahamsson and Aries Cerat, speakers and amplifiers Bluetone of Canta and Cosmos Audio Labs while in the same sector also surprised us with new Spicom series DHT. Visitors had the opportunity to listen to a large model of MBL in large space (demo mode they prefer and parent-judging from the corresponding report of Munich), the Italian electronic Norma, the first amplifier of Porfyra Audio, the Sigma speakers using ceramic Accuton units as well as a full range of electronic Vamp and the MPS-5 Playback Designs.

In all the above you should add several new handsets from well known manufacturers in the Greek market, such as the 4713 TRANSPORT 47 Laboratories, the speaker AMT One of the Amazon, the new small active monitor of the ATC, the premier of phono Burmester, the new preamplifier Statement of Clearaudio, the dynamic resurgence of Plinius, Fact 8 of the PMC, the smallest model of Tune Audio and big speaker XTZ. This list is clearly not limited to the above.

Ultimately the Athens High End Show was a good and interesting report.