Even though this is the third year I have attended all three days, I still didn't get round the whole show. These are my personal thoughts on the show, although to give any meaningful appraisal of any one piece of equipment, I'd need to hear it in a familiar system (and room) with music of my own choice.
First up was Innuos. I've been using an Innuos Zen Mini for a good 6-7 months now, and it's been a great bit of kit - and it's about to get better! The looks of the current stuff was fine, but the new "chiselled" look moves away from the curved cornered Apple look. And it looks much better in the flesh, as it's not as angled as photos would suggest. Also gone is the very PC looking rear panel, now looking more like a piece of hi-fi equipment. The biggest change though is the user interface, which looks great and also allows editing before or after ripping via a phone or tablet - so now you don't need a PC at all! Good times.
The KEF room usually sounds good, and this year was no exception. Plus it was a little refreshing to be looking at three hi-fi systems with no AV system in sight. The Jean Michell Jarre track filled the room from the little LS50s, which was being run from a Rega Apollo-R and Brio-R. The R700s sounded fantastic on the end of the one box Moon Ace system. The Reference 3s on the end of the crazy price Moon system fed with a VPI turntable sounded fabulous, but I think the R700s stole it for me from a value perspective.
The PMC room sounded great. I didn't really get to hear much of the Twenty.22s in there, but I mainly went to hear the BB5SE monsters - and monsters they were too! I was very impressed by the Kraftwerk track through them, which really gave the huge bass drivers a good work out! Some nice info from Tom Barron too, regarding the mastering of various albums.
Spendor's rooms sounded good last year, so I popped in this year to see if they were as good - they were. I didn't clock the system they were playing from, but I believe it was a Cyrus system.?
Neat's "floorstanders" were interesting. They certainly do stand on the floor, but they don't really stand particularly tall! I only got to hear a couple of tracks on them, and to me they sounded slightly thin, but I think that may have been down to the music that was playing (which I wasn't familiar with), and to be fair, they were a good few feet from the wall. Closer to a wall (and on a suspended floor) would probably give them a little more bottom end. We need more of this thinking from speaker manufacturers - I don't get why we are still seeing large, rear ported loudspeakers hitting the market - I'd expect speakers to be be getting smaller, or at least utilising a sealed cabinet seeing as many people don't want large hi-fi encroaching on their personal living space.
I popped into the Devialet room to see what was going on, and the Phantoms were playing. Whilst I appreciate their capabilities for such small cabinets, they were just way too bassy.?
Audioquest won a Clarity award for the best looking room, and deservedly so. Top marks to Nick and the boys! It was explained to me what was plugged into what, but I forget now after the Friday night binge...
I briefly listened to the ProAc DB1s, but I'd already heard them in store, and really like them. I think I'd take them over D18s myself, as they just seemed to get out of the way and let the music flow. Both drivers sounded like they were perfectly integrated, making them sound more 'together' and accomplished.
Rega's new Planar 3 really looks the part. The RP3 was a great turntable (still is), but now you can have something that sounds even better and looks more in line with an RP6! I'll say more on this when we get on in store over the next week or so.?
Tannoy were using an RP6 as a source to show off their new £300 floorstanders, which actually sounded really good! The first track I heard on them sounded a tad boxy, but the track played after (Gary Moore's Parisienne Walkways) that quickly removed that issue - silly value for money.?
Michell were using their new 'own brand' cartridge, which has been a long time coming! I'll say more on this when I hear it in store.
Sound Fowndations had three rooms. One had bits and bobs in which didn't involve music, but one had an interesting new cartridge that uses light to create a signal rather than magnets, despite still tracking the groove with a conventional stylus. I'm awaiting the technical data to find out more about this. Also in this room was seemingly the happiest rep at the whole show - the flamboyant Chris - who seems to rather like his "It's Album Time With Todd Terje" LP. He was having a good time even if no one else was! The Led Zep sessions LP played through this system sounded amazing - I want a copy!?
The Kudos room were showing off their Titan loudspeakers again this year - unfortunately I think I preferred how they sounded last year.?
The system in NuNu Distribution's TAD room was reassuringly expensive, reassuringly well built, and reassuringly fantastic sounding. I popped in as I had never heard any of the TAD speakers before, and was greeted with a completely holographic image in front of me. No overhang, no smearing, nothing. Beautiful looking CD player too, a little stealthy looking. This was the last room I visited, and wish I'd have gone in their previously, as the chap in there was fascinating to talk to, and said what he meant!?
I did pop in to the Hegel room, but I liked the sound they were producing last year - not so much this year.?
The Technics rooms were interesting. It seems they've listened to feedback and decided not to use their speakers in one of their rooms this year! The room with the SCM11s were in sounded great, but the one with their speakers in was probably the worst of the show for me, which I don't quite understand, as those speakers sounded pretty good last year.?
Air Audio had an interesting multi-room alternative to the usual - let's hope they get the product out their into good quality dealers who can do the product justice. Promising...
I'll probably get flamed for this, but I'm still yet to be impressed by a JL demo. Using SCM19s, the huge sub was switched in and out to show the difference it made - to me it just added more rumble than real punch. When the sub was switched off, the SCM19s didn't seem to sound as good as the SCM11s in the Technics room. The AV demo was just excessively bassy, but it seemed to be impressing those in the room. I personally wouldn't feel comfortable demonstrating a system like this.
Canton's floorstanders looked rather nice - beautifully finished and sounded good too, certainly worthy of their price. Their bass presence was impressive, but not overdone, but they were using some electronics I'd not heard of before, and I don't know to what extent they were having a say in what was coming from the speakers.
Ophidian's room was interesting. Tiny speakers with tiny drive units. Not cheap, but seemed to produce a good enough sound given that the laws of physics were stacked against them! Like the Neat room (and seemingly most other rooms), these were pulled out a good metre into the room, which I understand from the point of view of trying to get an even response in as large a slace as possible, but just not feasible in the average living room. It'd be interesting to hear these in familiar surroundings.
The MBL speakers were interesting too. I heard these once before at a high end show in London and thought they sounded amazing (I think they were higher in the range). These didn't sound quite as good, but the room (rainforest?) was much smaller. Nice open sound from unconventional drive units...
Musical Fidelity's Encore system was sounding pretty amazing - the speakers used escape me at the moment (B&W 805 D3 I think?) but it looks to be a genuine high end solution for those that want some storage space but don't want to involve a PC or external NAS drive.
Henley Designs' Roksan room was sounding rather good with their new turntable and using their own speakers. There were also some new Roksan models with some reassuringly large displays that you will be able to read from the deepest depths of your garden - roll on summer!
Last year I visited the Entotem room to see what "Plato" was all about. I did so this year too, only to find the product has been overhauled and vastly improved! For those that can't remember, this is a one box, do-it-all solution, which will also store music and video on its internal HDD space (SSD option coming). Whether the source is CD, vinyl or tape, it will rip to its internal memory for you to call on at will, and will also add metadata to all of the above too! This year sees a number of improvements, the biggest being the user interface, which looks far more slick and stylish. There's more colour options now, and it will also be available as a "source only" product with the amplification removed to use with your own choice of amplification.?
I'd already heard Monitor Audio's PL500 loudspeakers at the dealer launch a month or so ago. That was a pretty large room though, so this was a chance to hear them in a more conventional sized room. They sounded much better this time round. There were a few tracks used that were very impressive, but I don't know what they are, so can't tell you! But the Red Hot Chili Pepper's track used from Stadium Arcadium came across exactly how I expect their stuff to come across. Powerful, punchy, and not scared to reproduce anything thrown at them. Dave Brubeck's Take 5 really should have had more volume...
I've saved the best till last. Arcam's rather extravagant Atmos system! Wow. Admittedly, this was a fairly large room, but the system had no problems producing really scary volume levels when called upon to do so. To me - and I mean this in a positive way - it sounded much more like a real cinema than a home theatre system. That's rare. I'm aware most cinemas are a bit naff, but you can't generally compare cinemas against home theatre systems as the acoustic space they're in are world's apart, and the electronics and speakers used for each equally so. But this system is exactly what real cinemas should sound like! The choral demo was impressive, making it sound like they were in the room with you. Crazy dynamics and effortless power just helped make the plane that Tom Cruise was holding onto at the beginning of Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation sound like you were taking off with him! The impressive opening scene to Spectre was equally dynamic, making you feel you were right in there with DC. And as for the opening scene of Mad Max...interesting comment about the guy who mixed Mad Max hearing this system and commenting that he could hear things that he didn't even realise we're there!
Massive credit their to the Arcam boys for setting that up, and you could tell Andy Moore was suitably proud of the system he was demonstrating.?
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