Audiosmile at the National Audio Show (Sept)

We are pleased to announce that we'll be in room S28 on the ground floor ( near the big Henley room).

The Kensai, (new) Advantage and super tweeters will be on demo so please do pay us a visit.

There will be beer and wine to keep things flowing so even if you aren't in the market for loudspeakers, do pop in for a drink and a chat

See you there!




http://www.chestergroup.org/index.php?option=com_joomd&view=joomd&Itemid=232

 

I will be there and will pop in for a listen. What amplification are you going to use?

 

Will be good to see you Mark.

Hopefully Lyngdorf digital pre (main speaker Kensai/Advantage is active with built-in amps) and streaming as source.

As a back up for the passive Kensai, well I have 15 amplifiers here + whatever Simon has, so that will be a surprise

 

You too.

Lyngdorf - really! You surprise me - is this for the DSP aspect?

 

Yes, and to keep thinks simple, fed from the digital output of an iMac so that folk can browse through some 1400 albums available on it.

Thats the plan.

 

Well I understand the appeal - but honestly, that isn't the front end I would choose, even given an Apple as source (there's nothing 'simple' about those Lyngdorf amps).

 

What would you do to link an iMac and active speakers?

We could use an AudioSmile modded DEQ2496 as DAC and room EQ, plus a passive volume control. Price wise they are un-matched though.

Another option with room EQ is the Trinov, but that is very pricey.

I heard a TacT RCS2.2 with my active PMC AML1 a way back, and it sounded really superb.

 

Mark, my 'simple' refers to low box count and ease of use.
However, I would disagree with your view on the sound quality as we feel that differences, where audible, are relatively trivial between examples of good digital electronics, and the Lyngdorf is more than good in our view.

Simon, I've some nice EQ plug ins running on the Mac at the moment giving graphic and as many bands of parametric as required. Seems to work very well. Could be an alternative.

 

Ah well, we will have to agree to differ then as I do not share your views with regard to amplification. I have to say, I was not all that taken with the Lyngdorf demonstration I attended. I thought the DSP processing was quite effective at taming the bass excess when the speakers were placed in the corners of the room - but they sounded better still when they were more optimally positioned and the DSP processing was turned off.

 

You never know how much DSP is needed until actually in the demo room. Might well find it sounds fine when flat.
Whatever happens, we'll be using acoustic treatments to do the job first, with DSP second and used sparingly if at all.

I agree that heavy use of DSP is often unacceptable, especially if trying to correct for the sound in different areas of the room and merging the results as some systems do.

Most show rooms are horrid acoustically though, and doing nothing is rarely an option for good sound IME.

 

We won't use Lyngdorf 'amps' as such, just the pre-amp. The power amps will be a nice linear design inside the Advantage.

 

An update since we are closing near 'show time' now!

After all the above discussion we will in fact be using a Naim Supernait. This will acts as our DAC, a pre-amp for the active speakers and an integrated when we want to drive the Kensai stand-alone.

It's funny, I contacted a couple of other brands too, and even after more than a week I didn't know for sure if I had the kit to use. I contacted Naim yesterday and directly they said 'no problem Simon, it will be delivered to the show for you'. Naim service continues to impress!

So, the show is this Saturday and Sunday and AudioSmile is in S28 on the ground floor, so please come and enjoy! It looks to be a good one this year.

 

Good luck Simon. I'd love to be there but I can't this weekend , I'll be on holidays.

 

So, we are at the end of the hi-fi show weekend. We stay tomorrow to do a trade only day though and hopefully find some dealers for the Kensai and Advantage system.

The sound for this show has been one of the best we have got at a show so very pleased.

Here are a couple of photos of our room.

... bah it is too slow on mobile inter web ill add it later when I can





an equipment rack as it should be!

 

You were making good sounds yesterday Rob. The brass band was rendered in miniature when heard from the sofa seat but everything else sounded appropriate. A well balanced room as usual.

 

I really liked the Audiosmile room and the effort that had gone in to making it more like a living room. I thought the speakers looked super too. The sound was really very good, with excellent stereo focus and imagery,they seemed really well integrated too.

The sound stage was miniaturised, but that was fine with me. I would rather have the focus than a larger and more vague presentation.

Something odd was pointed out to me though. If you put your ear to the super-tweeters, that were resting on the top of each speaker, you could clearly hear lots of tweeter type sound (so they obviously produce lots of output lower than 20k). However, when I listened to the actual tweeters in the speakers, I couldn't hear any sound at all coming from them!

The sub-woofer stands didn't seem to go very low either and seemed more like add-on mid/bass woofers to me (the room wasn't booming though, as many were).

 

Hi,

Here are the Greek amps.






The Acapella horns



Einstein amps



Together


Origin Live room



Voigt Speakers





Icon Amps







Jordan Acoustics room





Moon Electronics room









SCIDB

 

Congrats, Simon and Rob, one of the best sounds at the show for me

 

Well done Simon and Rob

Getting the basics right - room acoustics, speaker positioning, tidy electronics, good music at the right level - should not be too difficult and, in my estimation, only about one in four exhibitors got close to that.

For me, Audiosmile and Music First (with two or three others not far behind) achieved that. Well done.