High End 2011 - Munich, Germany

Crystal Cable's Arabesque Mini (12,000€ per pair) is constructed from aluminum (silver or black is available), a radical departure from the all-glass Arabesque. The form factor is still beautiful, though, and the performance is high. The two-way Mini has a 1" beryllium-dome tweeter and a 5" Scan-Speak Illuminator mid-woofer. The stand is included in the price. [www.crystalcable.com]

The Amphion Argon1 isn't a relaunch of the original Argon. It's the smallest speaker in the new Argon line, now composed of four models. The Argon1 is a two-way design composed of a 1" titanium-dome tweeter and a 5.25" aluminum midrange. The price is 1299€ per pair in black or white. [www.amphion.fi]

The largest speaker in Amphion's Argon line is the Argon7L, a two-way vented design that uses two 6.5" aluminum midrange drivers and a 1" titanium-dome tweeter. Bass response is claimed to extend to 27Hz (-3dB), quite deep for its cabinet size. [www.amphion.fi]

Although it looks very similar to Vitus Audio's more expensive products, the new RI-100 integrated amplifier is priced at a reasonable-for-Vitus 8000€. The RI-100 is specified to produce at least 150Wpc and can be ordered with a built-in DAC and/or phono stage. [www.vitusaudio.com]

The inside of the Vitus Audio RI-100 shows a massive transformer, a hallmark of the Vitus design brief for his amplifiers. Also of note is the extra space behind the transformer -- this is where the optional modules go. [www.vitusaudio.com]

The Vitus Audio RL-101 single-chassis preamplifier (top) is seen here without the top panel. The RL-101 is priced at 7000€ and not only looks great on the outside . . .

. . . but on the inside as well. Note the neatly laid-out and soldered circuit board of the Vitus Audio RL-101. [www.vitusaudio.com]

In the Nordost room we saw the QRT Qv2 system AC enhancer (349€), which is claimed to lower the noise floor of your incoming wall power. What do you do with it? Plug it into an unused outlet on your power bar and let it do its thing (although we can't describe exactly what that is). [www.nordost.com]

The huge Acapella Audio Arts Poseydon (185,000€ per pair) is a three-way loudspeaker with two horn-loaded drivers and 12(!) 10" woofers per side. The newest horn design from Acapella is the Hyper-Spherical horn seen here in blue housing the midrange driver.

The new Kharma DB9 is the largest speaker in the company's Elegance Collection. This three-way loudspeaker is interesting because it uses a new in-house-designed carbon-fiber midrange driver. We thought the look of the DB9 was, well, quite elegant. The retail price is 28,000€ per pair.

The Kaiser Vivace loudspeaker looked striking in orange and black. This three-way reflex design uses a Mundorf AMT ribbon tweeter along with a paper-cone midrange and rear-firing woofer. The price ranges from 25,000€ to 32,000€ per pair based on . . .

 . . . finish options as well as . . .

. . . crossover options that include the very best Mundorf components and VertexAQ "structural acoustic absorption techniques."

Purist Audio Design displayed their 25th-anniversary cables, the Praesto Revisions. The speaker cables seen here sell for 11,200€ for a 2.5m pair.

Seen here in blue casing is the Trilogy 908 preamplifier priced at 2500€. What's interesting about the design of Trilogy components is the unique amplifier technology (992 monos at left, 4990€ per pair) that uses a tube input stage along with a FET-bipolar output stage. A lot of technology in a small package, these.

YBA has updated its long-running Signature series of electronic components. Shown from left is the Signature CD (12,000€), Signature Amp (16,000€) and Signature Pre (12,000€). Beauty is more than skin deep on the new YBAs, as witnessed from . . .

. . . peering into the inside of the Signature Pre. What's unique in this chassis design is that the heavy top half of it can simply be lifted off.

Shunyata Research's new Python interconnects are priced at 1500€ per 1m pair (RCA as shown, or XLR). Also available are matching Python speaker cables that retail for 2500€ per 2.5m pair.