10. No need to leave the exhibit area in search of food. 9. Product spiels are in German, so you don’t feel guilty about tuning them out. 8. Million dollar cars with high zoot audio ...

The top 5 weirdest products seen at this year's Munich show.

From reading TAS, you already know Munich is a different sort of audio show. Perhaps you have seen that it is bigger than anything in the U.S., and that different manufacturers attend. If you thought ...

Perhaps it’s no surprise, given that Munich is smack dab in the middle of car country, that the city’s audio show also included a miniature auto show. Of course, this particular auto event was open ...

Good old-fashioned American chauvinism notwithstanding, Munich is by consensus the world’s most important high-end audio show, replacing CES as the place to do business—that is, if doing business in Europe and the Far East are ...

The Munich show has become the “must-visit” show on of the year for manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and journalists. One American manufacturer told me that if you’re not exhibiting in Munich, you’ll never break into the ...

The view from my room was Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. Photographed at night, the light on this part of Madison Ave is an ethereal thing. The Gothic spires on this grand old church poked serenely through ...

If last year’s New York Audio Show was a rebirth, 2013 saw its fruition. Everything about this year’s show was better. “We can actually get our gear to the rooms,” marveled Andy Singer of Sound ...

I don’t know anyone who is ambivalent about New York City. It’s a “love it” or “hate it” thing. My wife is not on the “love it” side of that particular fence, and I can ...

For a vendor, an audio show is an expensive thing. There’s several thousand dollars they put out for the demo space, there’s the shipping and handling, the room and board, and the opportunity costs associated ...

I read too much, I think that’s fairly clear. Which might explain why, when a fire alarm goes off in a crowded hotel anywhere near Chicago, my first thought isn’t “grease fire over at Gibsons”. ...

The Chicago AXPONA show was a bit of a gamble—as is any first show in a city—but this is one gamble that paid off. The Doubletree Hotel at O’Hare airport featured many fine-sounding exhibits, excellent ...

Apropos of nothing in particular, let’s change things up a bit: what do you know about analog tape? The answer in my case is a solid “not much” – but I’m learning. Why? Well, mainly ...

Not since 1994, when the Summer CES stopped camping out yearly along Michigan Avenue and Lake Shore Drive, has the Windy City played annual host to a large high-end audio show. That situation will certainly ...

Chicago … in March. Really. Is it just me? Turns out, as my completely scientific survey of 5 randomly overheard conversations in a hotel elevator confirms, that there was quite a lot of head-scratching going ...