Half day booked off work, myself and Mrs Cno headed to Belfast early to get parked, have a meal and dander about, as the big football match between NI and Greece was being held down the road from Lyric and crowds were expected.
Fed watered and comfortable, we strolled into Lyric at the allotted time. There were about 14 people, which included Michael and Ross (Lyric), Jonathan (Kef), Mick (Arcam), as well as Rob and Nick (Audioquest).
Mrs. Cno being the only lady there decided to make a beeline for the wine, while I went into the room with the Arcam Solo Movie playing through Kef T Series speakers. It was very pleasant and immersive with no headache inducing treble...then after the last straggler arrived, having been held up by the match traffic, the evening began.
First on the podium was Jonathan from Kef, who was amusing, knowledgeable and very affable. He took us through his products and how they came about. The speakers being demonstrated were LS50, Ref 1 and Ref 3, though at this stage, the only thing we heard was their very new portable Bluetooth speaker called Muo. It was small, had no wires and held a 12 hour charge, cost £300.....and sounded better than it had any right to, given its size. If you want stereo, you need 2 of them. As a small, portable, wireless speaker, it's the best I've come across...and was Mrs. Cno's favourite item out of the whole evening.
It was at this point that the evening took a few unexpected turns, in the way that only hifi can. Following on from Kef, Rob from Audioquest stepped up. For those of you old enough to remember the Nyteck amp...it was the brainchild of his father....anyway, despite having a lot of expensive cables attached to the back of the various bits of kit, he demoed ETHERNET CABLES!! Now, as I can already sense the hackles of every sane person on this forum rise at the insanity of this, I'm not going to go into what I heard...but will reluctantly do so, if there is a general appetite for such madness. My credibility is bad enough already.
Passing swiftly on, it was Arcam's turn. Mick demoed the 3 amps he had there. Well, strictly it was 4, but the left channel of the P49 had been blown the previous day, due to some over enthusiastic "setup enjoyment".
The source for all demos was their CD/Streamer, which is around £900.
The 3 working amps were the A29/39/49 and played through LS50/Ref1/Ref3. This again is where things were unexpected. The basic system (A29/LS50) sounded clean and musical, with surprising scale and impact for its size. As the systems got more expensive, they sounded very "Hifi" and initially impressive, but there was a hardness to the treble that that got worse with each "improvement". I have heard the A49/Ref 3s sounding wonderful, but that was with an Akurate DS. I strongly suspect that the Arcam Streamer was increasingly out of its depth as the systems got more revealing. It's a great example of how you can get very different impressions of the same amp/speakers/room....last time I heard them I eulogised on here about how good they were and on Thursday night I could see the potential, but was ultimately left cold.
Their new AVR 850 was not available in time for them to bring over, which was a pity.
At 10.30pm, the evening disbanded and we fought our way out of Belfast through the mass of happy NI supporters who were revelling, having qualified .
I would like to give a big thank you to the good folk from Arcam, Kef and Audioquest, who gave up their time and made the evening interesting and informative....and all done in a spirit of friendliness and humour. I would also like to mention Lyric Hifi for hosting the event and thank them for the hospitality.
Fed watered and comfortable, we strolled into Lyric at the allotted time. There were about 14 people, which included Michael and Ross (Lyric), Jonathan (Kef), Mick (Arcam), as well as Rob and Nick (Audioquest).
Mrs. Cno being the only lady there decided to make a beeline for the wine, while I went into the room with the Arcam Solo Movie playing through Kef T Series speakers. It was very pleasant and immersive with no headache inducing treble...then after the last straggler arrived, having been held up by the match traffic, the evening began.
First on the podium was Jonathan from Kef, who was amusing, knowledgeable and very affable. He took us through his products and how they came about. The speakers being demonstrated were LS50, Ref 1 and Ref 3, though at this stage, the only thing we heard was their very new portable Bluetooth speaker called Muo. It was small, had no wires and held a 12 hour charge, cost £300.....and sounded better than it had any right to, given its size. If you want stereo, you need 2 of them. As a small, portable, wireless speaker, it's the best I've come across...and was Mrs. Cno's favourite item out of the whole evening.
It was at this point that the evening took a few unexpected turns, in the way that only hifi can. Following on from Kef, Rob from Audioquest stepped up. For those of you old enough to remember the Nyteck amp...it was the brainchild of his father....anyway, despite having a lot of expensive cables attached to the back of the various bits of kit, he demoed ETHERNET CABLES!! Now, as I can already sense the hackles of every sane person on this forum rise at the insanity of this, I'm not going to go into what I heard...but will reluctantly do so, if there is a general appetite for such madness. My credibility is bad enough already.
Passing swiftly on, it was Arcam's turn. Mick demoed the 3 amps he had there. Well, strictly it was 4, but the left channel of the P49 had been blown the previous day, due to some over enthusiastic "setup enjoyment".
The source for all demos was their CD/Streamer, which is around £900.
The 3 working amps were the A29/39/49 and played through LS50/Ref1/Ref3. This again is where things were unexpected. The basic system (A29/LS50) sounded clean and musical, with surprising scale and impact for its size. As the systems got more expensive, they sounded very "Hifi" and initially impressive, but there was a hardness to the treble that that got worse with each "improvement". I have heard the A49/Ref 3s sounding wonderful, but that was with an Akurate DS. I strongly suspect that the Arcam Streamer was increasingly out of its depth as the systems got more revealing. It's a great example of how you can get very different impressions of the same amp/speakers/room....last time I heard them I eulogised on here about how good they were and on Thursday night I could see the potential, but was ultimately left cold.
Their new AVR 850 was not available in time for them to bring over, which was a pity.
At 10.30pm, the evening disbanded and we fought our way out of Belfast through the mass of happy NI supporters who were revelling, having qualified .
I would like to give a big thank you to the good folk from Arcam, Kef and Audioquest, who gave up their time and made the evening interesting and informative....and all done in a spirit of friendliness and humour. I would also like to mention Lyric Hifi for hosting the event and thank them for the hospitality.
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