High End & Smart Home Show 2024

Dubai is growing at a rate seldom seen in the West. Everywhere you look, there are building works, and the city’s population – Emirati and especially expatriates – is increasing at a double-digit pace. And yet, traditionally, Dubai has been more a place for custom-installed audio/video systems than conventional audio. However, that is changing and like everything in Dubai, it’s changing fast.

That’s why Dubai held its first audio show ever in September this year; the High End & Smart Home Show, 2024. While this is still – understandably – a small event, it has two strong things up its sleeve. Rivalries were set aside, with local distributors and dealers (often both, such as Bon HiFi, Dubai Audio and Pult, Raw Music Store) working together to improve Dubai’s place on the worldwide audio map. And it was incredibly well organised. Most shows take a few years to get this professional, but the High End & Smart Home Show hit the ground running.

As the name suggests, the show was split between traditional two-channel audio and home cinema systems on display to the public and a showcase and seminar event for connected home installers, all running from the Radisson Red Hotel in the Dubai Silicon Oasis. This meant the event was a 30-minute cab ride from Downtown Dubai. Most of the audio show took place on one floor of this hotel with the custom install section taking the adjacent conference space, but there was a lot of through-flow between the events. And, in a city that has more five-star hotels than anywhere apart from London, the Radisson Red is a more down-to-earth, artsy, pet-friendly, millennial-chummy four-star place.

While there’s nothing wrong with this, especially as a business-to-business location, the rooms weren’t the largest or most salubrious around. The trendy room décor also meant the rooms were a little bright sounding in general. But, if the show proves as successful as its first outing suggests, it will likely outgrow the venue quickly. With more than 2,000 attendees over the two-day event, there is a market for such products in Dubai. And while this wasn’t the venue to launch new products, that sentence feels like it should end with a very exciting “…yet!”

The regulars who spend their lives moving from show to show can be a cynical bunch. Their excitement at travelling to some seemingly exotic location to set up an event is tempered by spending months on end living out of a suitcase. But even those seasoned audio professionals with enough air miles to get their own Airbus came away impressed by the High End & Smart Home Show. No one expected this show to be so good, so well attended, and the rooms have such a vibe. We’re expecting great things from the High End & Smart Home Show.

Here’s some of the best in show in Dubai this year:

If the show is new, then so is the Kalista Dreamplay XC streaming DAC preamplifier, looking great on a dedicated stand made by Artisania Audio in a custom tricolour finish. Jean-Marie Clauzel of Metronome/Kalista was on hand to discuss the company’s new flagship. Kalista is distributed by Qualia in Dubai.

BonHiFi distributes many of the best-known European brands into Dubai, including AVM, Canton, Focal, Inakustik, and Naim. The company took several rooms at the show, dividing between hi-fi and home cinema systems. The AVM Ovation CS8.3 Black Edition was launched earlier this year and this was one of its first public outings.

Founded in 2002, Alpha Audio is one of the longest-running distributors in the region. It carries a broad range of hi-fi, home cinema and custom installation products around, as this combination of Burmester, Classé and Monitor Audio’s Hyphn loudspeakers ably demonstrates.

The high-end scene is well catered for by Dubai Audio. The company has retail outlets in several locations (including a destination store in the Dubai Hills Mall) and lists many of the leading high-end brands in its line-up. This was one of the first public outings for the D’Agostino Momentum C2 preamplifier, and D’Agostino’s President, Bill McKiegan was on hand to showcase its many strengths. This was demonstrated with an MSB digital front-end, Momentum mono power amps and the reborn Wilson Audio WATT/Puppy loudspeakers, all fed by a Stromtank power supply.

As an example of the scope of Dubai Audio’s portfolio, the company also showed a fill MBL system, comprising CD transport, DAC, preamp and mono power amplifiers from the company’s top Reference Line coupled to a pair of Radialstrahler 101E Mk II loudspeakers. Antoine Furbur, MBL’s Sales Director was on hand to talk through the design of this distinctive system.

Unlike most branches of Audio Note, Audio Note Dubai also distributes other lines in addition to the tube-based brand, including Lindemann Audio and Grimm Audio. But it was perhaps the back-to-basics approach with the new Audio Note Cobra integrated amplifier playing into AN-J/D loudspeakers with hemp bass cones that showed what the company can do best: approachable music!

MKB Bespoke held an eclectic range of products, including the new Niagra XT2 glass floorstanding loudspeakers from Waterfall Audio. These new towers sounded good, and were the perfect foil for the art that adorned every room in the Radisson Red hotel.

To prove it is not simply a personal audio specialist, Dr Head also showed off a complete NAD Masters system running DALI’s Epikore 11 standmount loudspeakers. It was also running some excellent headphone demonstrations, but these were constantly occupied, in a very busy room.

Raw Music Store began live as Dubai’s only record store. It has grown to become one of the mainstays of high-end audio in the city. It is the distributor and retailer of brands like ATC, Luxman, Gold Note and more. Such is the success of Raw Music that it had many international representatives at the show. One of the highlights of the show was playing open-reel master tape through a high-performance – and long discontinued – Studer.

Perhaps more familiar to European readers, Raw Music Store also demonstrated a fine-sounding room comprising a broad range of Hegel’s electronics and two sets of Elac floorstanding speakers, powered by IsoTek power conditioners and featuring the sunburst Fender X turntable from MoFi Electronics. Representatives from all three companies attended the show, too.

In Lexa Lifestyle’s larger, but challenging, room, Audio Group Denmark showcased the company’s portfolio of brands, including Aavik, Ansuz, Axsess and Borresen. The company demonstrated a complete Axxess, including two Forte amplifiers, the matching Axxess cable line and new L1 stand-mount loudspeakers.

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