Bristol Show

nah...


the novelty'll wear off, promise.....

 

I will be there, big tall bloke with a walking stick and probably trying to find a seat as quickly as possible with my back problems

Will be with a friend who is fairly big, has long hair,...looks like a rocker but his looks are very misleading hehe.

 

I will be there on Saturday, with Dom

 

Well, I wore my technobadge all day but nobody said hello. Oh well

Overall the show was poor from my perspective but there were a few rays of sunshine. I took a notepad round with me this time so the notes that follow are pretty much verbatim what I wrote down. All my opinion, you may hear differently, etc. etc.

THE GOOD

Logitech

The Logitech Duet. Didn't get to listen to it as a Transporter was serving the tunes, but that handset is just soooooo nice. I want one.

Also in the Logitech room, they had some very quiet fanless servers from Tranquil PC (courtesy of Ripcaster). I will be taking a closer look at those. Prices didn't look too unreasonable - a first for any kind of silent computer, most such machines are way too expensive.

I didn't feel their system did the Transporter full justice. They were using a Naim amp and Dali Mentor 6. The sound was a bit hard and thin, much as I would expect from a mix of Naim and Dali. That was a real shame. The Transporter sounds much better in my system.

Mission

Mission had some interesting new speakers which look a bit like a smarter more mature 782/783. They were the new 79 series, of which I listened to the 796 top model. The electronics was Audiolab and there was a Mission sub joining in. The sound was very good. One of the best sounds I heard at the show. Clean, tight, smooth, transparent but not cold or hard like so many others. Sadly they don't have 78 series prices. The 796 is £1199 and is up against some formidable competition at that price but on this showing I think they are a worthy competitor.

Vita

Not strictly hifi, but this tabletop all-in-one with iPod dock, USB, CD, DAB sounded surprisingly good and would make a decent bedroom system if you just wanted music and weren't fussed about a soundstage. It threw out a big clear sound that belied its size. I can imagine a lot of people not really 'into' hifi loving this. Great for student digs if space is tight. Oh, and it has an uber-cool remote. Apparently it will be lauched at around £500 - £550. The Meridian toaster had better watch out!

Wilson Benesch

WB have the distinction of appearing here and also in the 'bad' section below. They are here for their AV demo with the Square Series helped by what looked like an Arcam processor and Audionet power amps. A fantastic AV system. Excellent.

REL & Vienna Acoustics

I'm a bit out of touch on subs as I no longer own one but REL's latest ranges certainly look good and appear to have retained all the virtues that made their earlier stuff so popular. Only heard a little pint pot one doing AV duties but it was doing a fair job.

The AV dem also showcased the Vienna Schonberg (with a musical film piece). Sounded pretty good and excellent for the price.

THE BAD

Naim

Naim had several rooms at the show. I started with the midrange CDX2/Supernait/Allaes/Sub. It sounded pants. When the sub was turned off it sounded absolutely anaemic. The CD, amp and speakers total nearly £8000 before adding the sub or the cables. The mind boggles.

Next up was a more high-end CDS3/282/250x2/SL2 and a smattering of external PSUs. In truth this system wasn't bad to listen to. Not bad at all but not better than what I have at home. Then I added up the price of the components. Piss-taking of the highest order.

Then we had what looked like a 555/DBL system, I couldn't get close enough to see as the room was full of sheep all nodding in appreciation. The sound was terrible. Shouty, screachy, poor ill-defined bass. Absolutely beyond all belief.

Spendor

Spendor were showing off their new SA1, a £1500 standmount with a fancy ring/dome hybrid tweeter using a Naim CDX2 and Supernait. The sound was a bit shouty and blaring at times with upper mid distortion, at least that's how it sounded to me. There was also no bass. These need a sub (or a decent amp).

Amadeus

Not sure which speaker we were listening too but they were big. The electronics were called Ypsilon. There was a huge valve amp. The sound was hifi, not music. Firmly wedded to the speakers, no credible soundstage or image. They didn't seem to scale despite their size. The sound always seemed to be constrained, not free. The bass was rather soft, not tight. The price? Ludicrous.

AVI

The little ADM9's were doing their stuff. Really needed a sub in that room, not much bass. Not high-end but it didn't offend. A decent budget standmount with DAC and amp built in. It's certainly a neat package. In terms of value for money, not bad but not worthy of the hype.

Adam

The studio monitor folks have a new hifi range with AMT tweeters. They have odd dispersion characteristics. The sound varied greatly from sitting straight on to sitting to one side. There is a narrow sweetspot and careful toe-in would be required to get the best out of them. The sound didn't seem to escape the speaker. Rather like the similar big brutes in the Amadeus room. They had good weight, speed and slam. Clarity head-on was good. All in all flawed though. I didn't ask the price. Oh, the electronics was Chord.

Metropolis (Ayon)

In the Metropolis room, I heard the Ayon Herran speakers through Ayon CD1 and Ayon Spark. Pants. The sound was hard, plain, a-musical. And this from a valve amp!

Dali

Heard the Dali IKON 6 (or was it 5?) with some Primare kit. The bass didn't seem to go very deep but was quite punchy and bouncy. The top end was nice, better than last time I heard them - better electronics I guess. Only 86dB sensitivity. You can get better for the money.

Tannoy

Here we had a new budget floorstander, the Reference Signature with a tiny dual-concentric and tiny bass driver. Driven by some sort of server and a valve amp. And the sound? Tiny. They sounded like toys, not hifi.

Leema

I heard the Leema Zero. For some reason I didn't bother to note which electronics were in use. I wrote: "Hard. Spitty. No Bass. Ouch my ears hurt!". No, really!

I also heard, in the next room, the Leema Zone driven by the Antila and Tucana. On the plus side, great soundstage and imaging. Otherwise, I put down: "A bit hard. Lacks the fluidity of my Croft. Needs a sub. Little bit 'matter of fact' in the mid." Not a great endorsement of 6 grands worth of electronics.

KEF

In the first room I heard the Reference 201/2 with Electrocompaniet. Not bad. A bit lightweight. A little bit of midrange 'fizz' and very slightly hard - nowhere near as bad as most others where I've used that term but still, at the price, not really good enough.


In the second room, I heard the Muon with some Musical Fidelity gear. Nothing prepared me for the size of these. They're HUGE. The mid and top was reminiscent of the 201/2, not surprisingly really, so the same comments apply. The room could have done with a few treatments but even so I wasn't overly impressed by the bass. Given the level of engineering and four large drivers in a closed box configuration, I was expecting something much cleaner and tighter in the bass. A joke at the price. Art, not hifi.

PMC

Yes, I know, each year I go back to see if PMC have learned to make speakers yet. Once again I am disappointed. The iSeries OB1 with Bryston's best, bi-amped to the max - boomy, soft, not very dynamic, sounded compressed, boring. They had an OB1 crossover on display. Interesting to note that this is the knew iSeries OB1 and yet the crossover components are the same mostly cheap crap as was in my Triangles.

HiAudio

They were showing the Usher Dancer with NuForce Ref. 9SE when I went in. The sound was boxy and hard.

Monitor Audio

Here we had an AV dem using Arcam electronics. I didn't note the models as it sounded awful so I left.

In another room, MA had the Platinum PL100 standmounts with a Moon Supernova CD and I7 amp and Nordost ribbon type speaker cables. The midrange sounded a bit vague. The sound was otherwise clean but boring, it just didn't connect me in any way with the music.

Exposure

Listened to the new MCX tower (which actually looks pretty good in the metal) through Focal Diva (I think) Utopia Be. Looks good. Sounds good. Very nice. However, for what it costs (a lot), not much of a step up if at all from what I have now. Hardness was becoming a bit of a theme for this show but this system managed to avoid it but it was still not as fluid and natural as the sound I'm getting at home since introducing the Croft. Too much money for not enough music here.

Michell

I heard a Michell Orbe SE (arm and cart - no idea) through a Sugden A21SE and ProAc Response D Two. The sound was a bit hard and glary/glassy at times. The piano piece they played sounded absolutely horrid. Not a great advert for vinyl (and not the only poor sounding vinyl at the show either).

ProAc

The Response D Two sounded a lot better in the ProAc room on the end of Primare. Much better. Not a bad sound at all really. In fact this should probably be in the good section.

Totem

Some tiny floorstanders being thrashed within an inch of their life by Rega CD and amp. I wrote: "Hard as nails. Ouch!"

Audio Reference

These guys were showing a very expensive Gamut system with some big Ushers. Very hifi. No music. Yeuck!

Eclipse

Some of those funky little egg-shaped speakers with single drivers were being driven by Naim. The sound was quacky, thin and shut-in.

Neat

The Neat Momentum 4 was shown with Naim CDX2/XPS and a Supernait. Bass was boomy - at different positions in the room. The sound was clean and clear but a bit hard and rather cold.

Chapter Audio / Mark & Daniel

M&D were showing the Sapphire, a standmount made out of marble composite with a ribbon tweeter. I didn't note the Chapter models but they were the ones that featured recently in the 'ugliest hifi' thread - they look as bad in real life. The sound was cold and hard. The timing didn't seem right. They sounded boring. My toes were not tapping to a piece of music that I know should be inducing bodily gyrations. Total failure.

World Audio Design

Beware! This room is run by a chap who looks normal but is capable of behaving like a complete arsehole.

I thought I was at a hifi show but it seems the doorway to this room is a portal to a concentration camp.

I will not be taking any more interest in, let alone buying anything from WAD in this lifetime.

It sounded pretty pants anyway.

Focal

Here I heard the Chorus 816SE through Arcam CD38 and A38. I know these Arcams sound good elsewhere so what went wrong here? It was awful. Shouty. Gritty. Resonant in the mids. Then I learnt that these speakers cost £1399!!! That's as much as my Celii. Oh dear. The Mission 976 mentioned earlier is well ahead of these and for less. Poor.

Wilson Benesch

Having put on such a good AV dem, I'm afraid the music dem didn't do so well. The speakers were Trinity which is like a taller version of the Arc with a small dome supertweeter added. Electronics were Audionet which I have heard sounding very good in the past (into Arcs). The source was a turntable. Not being a TT user I didn't look too closely but I assume it would be a WB TT. The sound was disappointing. I didn't actually note it down at the time but I remember it seemed a bit compressed and undynamic and there seemed to be a fair bit of distortion. It was all a touch hard too. It did however connect musically and I was able to get involved in the piece (Sheherezade) in spite of the shortcomings. Another poor advert for vinyl.

Chord

The Red Reference CD, CPM3000 pre and SPM1050 power were playing into a Dynaudio Contour S3.4 (not a Confidence as I originally reported). I wrote: "Hard. Bright, Thin, Cold. Glare. Ouch!". Then I left.

NAD

There was a bunch of stuff in the NAD room including the new VISO range which is plain ugly but there was also a cute mini-system designed to see off Onkyo, Denon and Yamaha. At £325 for FM and £375 for DAB it will need to be good. NAD weren't demming it - BUT another stand was. On the Grado stand I listened to NAD's new baby through a £1000 pair of Grados. It sounded pants although for the price probably no worse than one might expect. Was it better than Denon/Onkyo etc. Hmmm. I wonder? Dunno. Cute though.

Cyrus

I didn't note the models but there were some big Monitor Audio floorstanders with salad bowls for woofers and ribbon tweeters. I didn't write much because I could only stay in the room for 10 seconds. It was ear-shreddingly bright. Ouch!

Denon

We were treated to a superb video dem with blu-ray high definition and it was stunning. Really really stunning. And from a projector at that. So why is it in the bad section then? The sound through the B&W Nautilus speakers was as flat as a pancake. The centre speaker did a very good job of making sure that most of the sound came from there and nowhere else. OK, there were some surround effects but there was no height to the sound. It was firmly in the plain of the speakers only. It also seemed a bit muffled. Voices could have done with a bit more air and sparkle. This from 10 grands worth of electronics. Video - great. Sound - not impressed.

B&W Zepellin

The cigar shaped active speaker with iPod dock. It sounded boomy. In an open sided elliptical room where there are no standing waves, it sounded boomy. Go figure! Pants.

THE UGLY

Rountree

Here we had a floorstanding omni speaker with the bass-mid driver mounted into the top of the cabinet with the magnet etc, exposed. This is attached to some steel work and a ribbon tweeter. Electronics were Mistral and LFD. The sound wasn't bad, but not brilliant either. Only 86db sensitivity. A touch of glare and bloom, but boy are they ugly!

Dynaudio

Here I heard the new Sapphire floorstander driven by Plinius. Opinions will vary but I thought they were ugly. They were also too new because the sound was a touch hard and glary, boxy, with a touch of sqeak or sqeal and tiring to listen to.



TO SUM UP

It was good chatting with the Ripcaster guys about the Logitech stuff and servers, etc.

Other than that this was a pretty poor show. There was nothing there that I would take, even if offered for nowt, to replace the kit I already own.

I'm amazed at how many dems actually hurt my ears.

I'm also very privileged and very spoilt to own a Croft Sytegra. It's such a welcome relief after hearing so many hard un-musical sounding systems today.

 

Think i'll take a miss then.
Stick to me garden and manure.

Chris, if i'd had been there today would of said Hi. Will catch up one day when the world slows down...

 

I'll be having a bake-off soon I hope. Maybe you'll be free for that. Would be good to catch up with you and Mrs P

 

Thanks for the report Chris. I can't go

 

Here's my summary

I was there with a pal auditioning speakers.
He has Ruark Tallisman II's that he is happy with sound wise but he would like something a bit smaller for his room. I have ProAC D25's that I am currently very happy with.
Oddly or thankfully we have similar ears and pretty much have consensus on the sound. Often one of would pop in and have a quick listen to some kit and say to the other "don't even bother going in there - terrible" sure enough it would be bad (to our ears, I hasten to add).

A lot of the gear sounded too aggressive in the mid and upper. Some didn't handle complex music very well. Why of why must they keep play us JAZZ Probably to mask the harshness, perhaps it is down to room acoustics and what's driving them.

Speakers we liked
Totum's - (small floorstanders that make a nice balanced sound) The bigger of the two they were demo'ing sounded the best.

Focal - (mid size stand mounts ~£1.75K). I auditioned their floorstanders of comparable price to my ProAcs and did not like them...
There sounded pretty good - my pal is pretty interested in these.

Neat - small to mid floorstanders. I believe we heard the Momentum 4i's. Metal sort of pushed in looking dome tweeters.
Quite nice sound. bit harsh on some vocals that were played but not as bad as many we heard at the show.

ProAc response D2 (£1.75K+ stands, again mid size stand mounts) - didn't like them that much - Primare tranny stuff driving them - perhaps it was that. Mids and highs were harsh to my ears.

Kef's Muon (big demo room, £70K -OMG, I thought they were £10K and worth about that silver things) Liked them - more of an all body experience rather than a listening session
When I win the lottery perhaps

Dynaaudio Sapphire (£8.5K - not bad - too big for my lounge.


Speakers we didn't like
PMC - total waste of time to my ears.

Tannoy - agree with the comment above.

Eclipse - No bass - needed sub but eh guy was convinced they sounded good like that, thin sound - looked like eyes staring at you...

Wilson Beneech - Again the room layout was odd to hear the true sound - more a visual display really. Over priced?

In general the tube powered stuff sounded better but not across the board - speakers do make the interpretation of the sound you are hearing after all.

I was interested in Noise canceling phones purely for the train.
I was in luck - Sennheiser had their £240's on demo - not bad. Not as good as the HD-650's IMO but close.
- Audio Technica had their ATH-ANC7's rrp £130. They had two sweet cutie's out and about demo'ing them. We listened first on their MP3 players and then on our Nokia N81 / My N82 - good enough sound, good noise canceling and an offer price of £100 - could I resist?! NOPE!
Listened to them a fair bit on the train home - I like them. Shame the dark haired cutie didn't come with them

All in all a good day - It's a good way to confirm what you have is good and not spend money on upgrades...

Off to listen to my kit now to confirm it is v. good
Ooh and try the phones up against the 650's.

 

Err...aren't they £70k

Even if they were £10k, they wouldn't be worth it.

I once heard the KEF R109 'The Maidstone' at Heathrow. I think it was something like £12k. Now that was a £12k speaker. Fantastic!

KEF have lost the plot. The R201/2 really wasn't great. Maybe it wasn't fully run in? Maybe it needed a better amp or source?

But that isn't the point is it? FFS! This was the 21st birthday of this show. That means we have had this type of hifi exhibition for 21 years and yet still the manufacturers cannot, for the most part, show us a decent sound in a hotel bedroom.

If not after 21 years then when FFS?

They don't deserve to stay in business (and I don't mean just KEF).

 

Technobear,
Yep you are right £70K - £10K would have been about right
I see even the Ref 207/2's cost £12K

 

Technobear,

I get the impression that these days you think music servers and PC techno gizmos are great and that hifi is crap. If that is the case, why go to a hifi show if I might ask?

 

When he mentioned hifi and then yuck, I took that as meaning the sort of emotionless, fragile and uninvolved sound that more and more manufacturers seem to be going for. If you've heard anything with Accuton drivers such as Marten or Avalon designs then you'll know exactly what sort of sound I'm talking about.

 

No, that's not it. I'm not against CD players although there don't seem to be many that beat the Transporter. I had a showdown between the Transporter and the Audionet ART v2 recently and the Transporter walked it - and that's with CDs that have been treated in every way we know how to get a better sound from a CD player. Thankfully the ART's new owner loves it.

At this show, the vinyl demos that I heard (and I didn't hear them all) seemed to have considerable distortion that is absent from digital sources - and these were not cheap TTs.

However, my main criticism is I think with speakers and amps. My Croft gives a more relaxed approachable sound than I've heard from an awful lot of solid state amps. The Croft is of course solid state in the output section itself. It uses MOSFETs but in a valve-style circuit.

I hope I haven't given the impression that the Croft is a typical soft warm lush valve amp. It isn't. It has superb transient response, deep firm tight bass, airy highs, excellent detail, crystalline transparency but it seems to do it all without adding a 'hardness' that many SS amps seemed to be adding at the show. It has very good timing and just sounds involving and natural.

One thing I didn't do at this show was to look at the cables that were in use (except in one case where the Nordost was being showcased). Cables could have explained some of what I was hearing.

Lack of running in would also have explained some of what I heard.

I find it interesting that the one system that did really capture my interest and sound very good without sounding cold or hard or harsh was a relatively inexpensive Mission/Audiolab system. I never thought I would find myself saying this about Audiolab having hated their stuff and the TAG MacLaren stuff in the past but if Audiolab have discovered at last how to make a hifi amp that plays music then all credit to them.

And then there were the ribbons and AMT tweeters. On paper these devices look very good. They have very low moving mass, very low stored energy. They have superb transient response and exemplary CSD* plots. They also have rapidly increading harmonic distortion as one approaches the lowest frequencies of operation (1 - 2 kHz typically). They need to be crossed over high or very steeply (or both). They are also quite directional and don't vary in their directionality the way a dome does. This makes them a bugger to integrate with the midrange driver and makes a mess of the off-axis performance of the speaker. This is why they are not more popular - that and they are harder and more expensive to make than domes. From the ones I head at this show, it seems that nobody has got it right yet. Pity, they hold much promise.

Errm, I seem to be rambling. Did I answer your question?

*CSD - Cumulative Spectal Decay (aka. waterfall diagram)

 

Yes, that's exactly what I meant.

The sound was hifi in that it ticked all the entries in the hifi reviewers lexicon of hifi buzzwords but totally failed to convey any kind of emotional connection to the music. I'm tempted to put this down to poor timing or poor phase alignment through the crossover region. It's sounds unnatural.

 

I have to more rather than less agree with what's been said about the show so far. I went on Friday and it's the first time for about 3 or 4 years since I've been. Will never go again!

Parking for disabled patrons is practicaly non-existent, quality of product on show very poor, in fact I really struggled to see who would really benefit from this show as a consumer.

The most ridiculous dem we wasted our time with was the Isotek room, the guy doing it was just aweful with the product but kept coming out with sales quips 2-a-penny that he expected everyone to agree with. The demo was not convincing at all, in fact the system sounded better in our ears when it was connected to the cheap plastic mains strip than when he switched over to the Isotek gear, which just seemed to completely deaden the sound and make it totally lifeless.

 

Hi,

I didn't go this year. I got up this morning and didn't fancy the drive there and back. Most reports I have seen haven't been brilliant.

I do plan to go to the Heathrow show at the end of March.

SCIDB

 

I didn't go either, my wife reminded me that we had arranged to go to our niece's. I was rewarded by a quick drive in her husband's 911. So it wasn't too disappointing.

See you at Heathrow hopefully. Plan to go on Saturday.

 

"in fact I really struggled to see who would really benefit from this show as a consumer."

Well, it's a day out and there were some 'consumers' consuming kit for serious money when I paid for my £100 bargain headphones from the sales room...

 

I'm intrigued to know why you think this - more details please!

 

John Casswell was on the door when I visited WD.
You couldn't wish to meet a nicer man.
WD head honcho Peter Comeau is also one of the industry good guys so it can't have been him.

Who was this mystery arsehole?