The folks at My Hi-end have posted photos from the Tokyo Audio Show 2014 that was held a couple of weeks ago. If you  want to see the details, or get more of the atmosphere of Tokyo, you should visit the link.

I thought some of the systems featured at the show had a unique combination of components that made sharing them here worthwhile.

[OK, so I like to gawk! :-)]

Beautiful poster above. Not sure what makes a show ‘international’. I suppose they are trying to indicate that the show is large and welcomes international exhibitors and attendees – however the Tokyo show seems smaller than many others [in particular RMAF, which starts here tomorrow!].

As you can see from above, it was mostly Japanese companies, with a few Euro and U.S. companies thrown in.

 

Certainly a significantly-sized building that the show takes place in.

 

Audio Research on Franco Serblin speakers. Typically the U.S. importer puts Air Tight on these speakers, so ARC would have been fun to hear.

 

 

Cute little carrot-colored Carrot One headphone amps

 

 

Cutaway view of the TechDAS Air Force Two turntable. Hate to think they wasted a platter for this demonstration :-), but fun to look – I’ve never seen anyone do this before.

 

 

DartZeel amps on Vienna Acoustics speakers. Typically the U.S. importer puts darTZeel on their own Evolution Acoustics speakers [and at  Munich they were on Marten speakers]. So putting them on a speakers which is very popular here in the U.S. would have been interesting.

 

 

Esoteric electronics on Avantgarde horn speakers? And beefy Esoteric amps it looks like. As you can see below, there were quite a few people listening to this system. I bet it could go LOUD.

 

The audience listening closely to Esoteric electronics driving Avantgarde speakers.

 

 

Krell, and I am not sure what else, on YG Acoustics speakers. This setup we see quite often here in the U.S., and the fact that they use the same setup in Japan is interesting – that this is quite a statement about what YG Acoustics thinks goes great with their speakers.

 

Emm Labs (Meitner) digital into Mola Mola amps driving Lansche speakers. Starting to see more and more Lansche at shows these days.

 

 

Pass Labs and, alternatively,  McIntosh amps on Magico S3 speakers. Nordost cables. All from the U.S. Nice to see more commonly found gear driving the Magicos.

 

 

Haven’t seen Piega speakers at a show in, like , for-ev-er. Well, we saw them at CES in 2012, but before that it was 2005 in NYC.

 

 

This look like Boulder / Denver today. But it is colder here [no short sleeves like those guys] and no coffee truck outside the Marriott Hotel (RMAF)

 

 

Sonus Faber (Italy) speakers on Audio Research (USA) amps [sometimes] and Burmester (Germany) amps [other times]. Have heard Sonus Faber on ARC amps plenty of times, but on Burmester amps? Here in the U.S. that combo is just so unlikely given that the two importers probably don’t even think about showing together.

 

 

 

There is some large number of rooms who swap in and out various amps every so often during the exhibition [like our room used to do at RMAF in the olden days] and sometimes speakers. Here we see D’Agostino amps and FM Acosutics amps driving various Wilson Audio speakers.

Well. Hope that was as fun for you… Tide us over until tomorrow. 🙂