[m00hk00h]

Hi there!

This is a short report about the IFA 2009 in Berlin. I will mention only headphone related stuff.
The IFA is the world's leading trade show for consumer electronics and home appliances, for those of you who didn't know.

The exhibitors I will report on are sorted alphabetically. Pictures are clickable thumbnails and open a bigger version in a new window/tab.

AKG / Harman:

No, not a chance at all! Harman set up a big tent underneath the Funktum. But it was not open to the general public! Only dealers and press members were allowed to enter. But several Harman employees told me that they were displaying new products and prototypes in up in the Funkturm. But! As they did not prohibit taking fotos we would know for quite some time now, if there was any interesting new regarding AKG or new models in general. I also did a little research in the Internet and found nothing with regard to that. And AKG didn't even release any new press releases on their homepage.

AlexAcoustic:


The chinese company AlexAcoustic was located in the international halls and displayed a few inears behind glass. They wouldn't allow me to take photos so I took a brochure. They have inears with wood housing and very strange formed angular housings, besides the "standard" inears in different colors. They aren't listed on their homepage yet. But of there is enough interest I will try to get the brochure online.

audio-technica:

That's where I spend most of the IFA as part of the audio-technica Germany team.



Note: a-t is always a little late in Germany. If I tell you something you already know please just ignore it. I am not aware of the situation in the US or other parts of the world.

a-t displayed the new ANC7b. The old one was to me ears one of the best sounding noise canceling headphones with a very good price-performance ratio. However, the ANC7 was redesigned and got a little bigger. But it rewards the added size with even better sound quality. A little warmer in the mids, a little more present in the heights. No difference in the NC department, though.

I also got information to a headphone that's being engineered at the moment, the ES10. A new high end portable phone that will use a 53mm driver like all the high-fi headphones of a-t are utilizing.
I'm looking forward to this as you may have guessed.

For the bling-bling posse a-t Europe came up with the following idea:



ATH-Pro700 and ATH-ES7, assembled by hand with many, many black and white Swarovski crystalls. These pics show the actual prototypes. Retail prices are expected to be up to more then 1500€.

Bling!

I also had the honor to meet the CEO of Comply. He told me that in the future a-t inears will also be shipped with Comply Tips as standard ear piece, together with the normal silicon tips.

Audio Bone:

The company Audio Bone had a little booth to display their bone conducting headphones.
Very interesting experience to head music without having headphones on and still be able to hear everything else just normal. But don't expect hi end hifi quality!
Unfortunately these phone leak a lot of sound due to the big amplitued that are necessary for bone conduction. You also need a to use little amp to power up the weak PMP signals.

beyerdynamic:

Compared to the last years the beyer booth was really small this year and felt a bit improvisational. The whole booth was targeted towards the display of the T1 and A1 of which two pieces each were placed right in the middle of the booth for a test listening.



Please refer to the official T1 thread for further information about this headphone.

Cobalt:

At the Cobalt booth I got the biggest catalog of all headphone exhibitors. Even thicker than the Sennheiser's!
This company from Hong Kong seems to produce everything that is related to headphones. Their whole product range can be looked at online on their website.

I-Mego:

I-Mego is a US based company that's aiming for skaters and other style oriented groups. Their product range is close to what Scullcandy has to offer and can be looked at on line.
I should mention that they also have wood-housed inears.

Monster:

Monster marketing:



A little PA speaker player the music of music videos in which you can see the beats. A beamer projected the videos on a wall. It was really loud and really annoying as they didn't play the whole song but only the few seconds in which the beats can be seen. Especially annoying when you are on the booth next to them and have to hear it 8 hours a day for 6 days long.

Philips:

Philips had a very large hall for them selfs, just like the other years.
Pictures are pretty much self-explanatory.



Ultimate Ears / Logitech

I came by the Logitech booth by chance only and took a quick snapshot.



Sennheiser:

Sennheiser took out the big guns once again. Very large booth. They displayed their hole product range (headphones only) which you could listen to on several listening stations.




Continued in the next post due to picture limit.

m00h

 

[m00hk00h]

The new PX100 II and PX200 II:




The "highlight" on their both was the HD800 presentation which took place in a small fish-tank-like plexiglass room. But this room was open to the top so that it didn't really protect from the show noise.
But it sure helped maintain the exclusivity.



Skullcandy

Without words.



Yoga:

I first got in contact with Yoga at the IFA 2007. They were looking for OEM partners as they distribute their own brand in Taiwan only.
In 2007 I bought three headphones directly from their booth on the last day.
This year they even gave me a headphone for free (and they didn't even know it was my birthday)! It the the headphone to the very left on the fourth pic. Not hiend but very passable sound quality.

I know of Equation using Yoga phones and Thomann (big German music store) as well as the Berlin based Company Teufel .



Other:

I also met a lot of other people again (e.g. Norbert Lehmann (Lehmannaudio)) but most of them are from Germany so probably don't really know em.
However I collected quite a few business cards and made a lot of new contacts, took care about my old contacts and met a lot of interesting people on our booth, as well as from other companies.

So even it didn't rain new headphones like it did that last two years I am quite satisfied with the outgoing of the IFA 2009.

Last but not least I would like to introduce you to this girl. I declared her my personal "Miss IFA 2009" as she really helped me get over that last day of the IFA.



So I hope I didn't forget anything important. Questions are very welcome.

Thanks for your attention and until next year!

m00h

 

[fhuang]

thanks again m00h.

 

[DoYouRight]

ES10 is it like ESW10?

 

[m00hk00h]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DoYouRight /img/forum/go_quote.gif ES10 is it like ESW10?

Does the ESW10 have 53mm drivers?

I don't have any more information. It's in development and will definitely hit the market. I don't know when, though.
But I'm looking forward to it.

m00h