SME in the City of Music
Few cities belong to music as Vienna does. The city of Mozart and Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert and Mahler, Vienna has shaped the way the world listens, and the sound of the orchestra is woven into its very streets. There could be no more fitting stage for the first Vienna edition of HIGH END, and over four memorable days in June, SME took its place there among the finest names in high-end audio.
Held at the Austria Center Vienna, the first HIGH END Vienna followed the long-running Munich show into a new era, and the city of music made it welcome from the first note. SME appeared alongside its German distributor Audio Reference whose presence filled an entire floor of the venue with more than 1,000 square metres, by far the largest at the show. From the opening of the doors to the closing bars on Sunday, every analogue record heard on Audio Reference’s floor began its journey on an SME turntable.
SME Model 60 in the Grand Concert Hall
The Grand Concert Hall was Audio Reference’s flagship room, and the heart of everything SME presented in Vienna. To be seated there was a privilege, granted by reservation and among the most desired the show could offer. Those who claimed a place found the SME Model 60 One of One before them, unveiled to the public for the first time in a deep Burgundy finish made for this one piece. Serving as the analogue source of a reference system of Wilson Audio, dCS, Dan D’Agostino and Nordost, it lent the room a presence to match its name. When the stylus settled into the groove, the boundary between listener and music quietly dissolved.
The occasion also brought a world premiere from Audio-Technica: the AT-MCD1 cartridge, paired exclusively with the Model 60 One of One and heard nowhere else but Vienna.
SME Model 35: Product of the Year Award
Vienna brought a distinction of its own. SoundStage! Network honoured the SME Model 35 with the SME Series Vi tonearm as its Product of the Year for Outstanding Performance among turntables, an award presented during the show and accepted by Alester Kells, SME’s Product Specialist and Head of Service. Newest among SME’s precision turntables, the Model 35 has drawn an honour of real weight in its opening year.
SME turntables at home & in the VTL room
At the centre of the floor, two living room settings traded the focus of the concert hall for the ease of the home. One was built around the SME Model 8, the other around a Model 35, each placed within soft seating, fine furniture and works of art, presented as turntables made to be lived with as much as admired. In the company of Wilson Audio loudspeakers and Dan D’Agostino and VTL electronics, both SME turntables looked entirely at home, a reminder that engineering of this calibre belongs as naturally in the living room as in any dedicated listening space.
Precision crafted in England – Desired the world over
Away from the music, the SME showcase let the engineering speak. The Synergy MK2 Diamond Series stood front and centre, an arm bearing, arm yokeheads, damper reservoirs and control brackets laid out under glass like exhibits in a gallery. SME makes more of its own work than any other turntable maker, and here in Vienna, set apart from the listening rooms, the fruits of that in-house craft could be examined one piece at a time.
SME Music: A rare glimpse on the platter
For those in the right room at the right moment, there was something rarer still. SME Music, SME’s own analogue record label, brought a single white label test pressing of its first release to Vienna: SME M 001, the music of Mussorgsky and Ravel with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London. Unannounced and unscheduled, it found its way onto the SME turntables now and then across the four days, a fleeting first hearing of a purely analogue record not yet released.
