I found Mr. Daniel Schuch exhibiting his girder-like tone arm on the floor of one of the big main halls. As a group of fascinated Japanese audiophiles looked on, Schuch demonstrated the workings of his pivoted tangential-tracking tonearm, which he modestly characterizes as "The perfect pick-up arm."
New tone arms on display at Munich's High End 2013 point towards a renewed interest in their design and execution, especially among German enthusiasts.
At Munich High End 2013 German manufacturer AMG (Analog Manufaktur Germany) introduced a new 9" version of its innovative tone arm that the company has been packaging with its Viella turntable. You can see cutaways of the arm's innards in the CES 2013 show report.
Named for a mythical Nordic eight legged horse whose name means "smooth" or "gliding", the Sleipner Reference looks and feels as smooth as its true air bearing, belt driven 20 pound aluminum platter floats and its air "bearing" arm slides.
The Da Vinci Audio AAS Gabriel MK2 Reference Turntable is a thing of beauty to be sure. It is obviously a mass-loaded design and the build quality appears extremely high with a commensurate price tag of around $50,000.
The Hartvig TT Signature turntable features a 30 pound platter of aluminum and acrylic and a hardened steel bearing shaft with an aluminum base, plus a precision honed bronze bushing with a ceramic ball and Teflon thrust pad.
In addition to showing his almost menacing looking mega-mass Stabi M turntable we highlighted in CES 2013 coverage, Franc Kuzma introduced a line of MC phono cartridges with motors manufactured to his specs in Japan and bodies he machines in Slovenia.
Not everyone would strap a GoPro camera onto his head and walk around the High End Show in Munich. But I did. Videos will be posted as soon as they are downloaded and edited!
American WADAX distributor Rick Brown holding a test pressing of a new vinyl reissue of one of Todd Garfinkle's most highly regarded m-a recordings, Será Una Noche
The Munich High End Show is probably the world's best attended audio event and the industry's most important. It is of greater significance than even the International Consumer Electronics Show held in Las Vegas every January.