With some articles, the wording of the headline is the biggest hurdle to be taken. This one is no exception. I could just as well have chosen "A visit to Audiaz". But when you set off for the mountains on an autumnal Foehn weather day and can clearly see them already in Munich, the above title at least seems to be the most appropriate.

Strictly speaking, we – unfortunately – did not head for Lake Chiemsee, as we left the highway towards the city of Rosenheim shortly before. That's where Dr. Helmuth Weber is domiciled, who has been working with Günter Hartl for a quarter of a century in the production of high-quality loudspeakers. At the turn of the millennium, the two of them founded the Audiaz speaker manufactory, thus laying the foundation for the small-series production of high-end loudspeakers. A few years later, the print magazine I was working for at the time awarded a prize to an Audiaz creation. After that, the concentration on analogue and my recording activities, and later on the development work for hifistatement.net and my intensive occupation with the exciting as well as complicated digital technology were the reason for loosing track on the nearby located loudspeaker manufacture.

Some time ago, I then met up with Helmuth Weber, who once again has increasingly been involved with Audiaz and his hi-fi studio Chiemsee Hifi. He offered his current project, the Cadenza, for a review and also to bring them to Gröbenzell in advance for facilitating the planning of the test. Of course, it would be easier to get an idea of the Cadenza’s capabilities in their home environment to then decide which of the illustrious hifistatement authors would be the appropriate host for them. Since I tend to spend way too much rather than too little time in my listening room these days and neither wanted to move a good 200 kilograms of Goebel Epoque Aeon Fine out of the room for a brief listening impression nor to have the Audiaz standing side by side with the Goebel bending wave transducers, I gladly accepted the invitation to Rosenheim. I'm happy to admit that there was also a little extrinsic motivation at play: not far from a motorway service station along the way our current favourite coffee roastery is located - for us a good opportunity to replenish our stocks quite incidentally.