Bristol show?

I'm hoping that we'll get some thoughts on here regarding Bristol this year, just surprised that there isn't a thread already.

So what stood out as being good, bad, indifferent?

I had planned to go again, but then realised that going to Bristol really wasn't that useful over the previous three years. What has been far more helpfuly was being lucky enough to listen to a variety of kit in peoples homes whilst dealing with my system upgrades over the last 2-3 years. That has shown me how good systems can shine (or not as the case may be) when setup well and integrated well with a room.

 

I found the cyrus room very poor. Similar set up to Hammersmith last year and playing dreary music through Wilson Benech speakers which just dont give the equipment any life.

The revelation speaker stand was noteworthy for their continued belief ( significantly misguided) that shoving a kenwood car hifi speaker into a wooden box creates a sound that anyone could like (possibly not even the designer's mother could love these).

The plus points were a FANTASTIC runko projector. Wow that thing was brilliant. Now where did I put those RSJs to mount it onto my ceiling.

Dynaudio again showing off the focus range well set up with good choices of music. I am always impressed with the depth and range they get out of their mid priced ranges.

Vienna Acoustics Grand Beethoven speakers were nice but suffering with the room acoustics.

And the Jamo infinate baffle speakers - I wouldnt pay 7500 for them or play classical on them but for certain types of music they sang (Santana was a brilliant choice here). Brilliant immense soundstage. But there is the feeling in the back of your mind that you could knock them up yourself with a bit of assistance from B &Q !!!!!

Yet again it was either Star Wars or Pink Floyd or even possibly both of the above as musical / movie choices. :SLEEP: :SLEEP:

 

Wrong way round! The Wilson Benesch speakers are simply showing what mid-range kit is really like. They are too good for Cyrus (or anything else under a grand).

Cyrus would be better of with a more midrange speaker like Castle Conway 3, Mission 782 (or whatever the latest incarnation is), B&W DM603, KEF Q7 etc.

 

Those who have already read this on Hifi Wigwam can skip it as it is the same

A slightly different show for me this year. Normally I try to see everything. This year I had a plan. Avoid any room with a TV in it. Although I did make one exception...

I wanted to hear the big Jamo dipoles and they were showing an interesting looking movie clip that I hadn't seen before. Shame they didn't play some music but from what I heard, I'd say they'd probably be worth a listen.

First room I headed for was Dynaudio. They were demming a Focus 140 on the end of Naim kit. Didn't sound as good as my Contour 1.1s. The midrange wasn't right. I wonder if they were fully run in? I wonder if the Focus 110 would have been better or if Dynaudio have made a big mistake.

Next up was Audionet/Wilson Benesch where the Arcs were in full effect. I particularly wanted to hear this combo as I now have an ART v2. Played some Dire Straits (Calling Elvis) and some death-metal Mussorgsky (from Pictures At An Exhibition). Both extremely enjoyable. Easily bettered the Contour 1.1s in midrange texture and depth. And the bass was deep, fast and clean. Most impressive. I asked them how much help was coming from the sub and they obligingly switched it off for me. The Arcs manage very nicely on their own thankyou. When I eventually grow tired of the Dyns and want something better, the Arcs will likely be top of the list.

I then paid my first visit to Coherent Systems. Tony has assembled a very good system there. The dynamics on offer were certainly beyond question. The system was also entirely fatigue-free, even at high levels. The death-metal Mussorgsky was full of drama and impact, the brass very clean - this is where most systems fall down. It was missing something in the mids though. The texture and depth evident with the Arcs was just not there (to be fair I didn't hear it in any other system either). The CD player was only 3 days old though and will I'm sure improve as time goes by. Academic really though as the CD player alone costs more than my entire system ever will

I just had to visit Resolution Audio to see what all the fuss is about. Could only just get in the door, so overflowing was this room with technical bull****. I've read a lot about speaker building and this guy was spouting tut of the highest order. So how did they sound? Like very cheap car speakers. The treble was far too strong and dominated everything. The midrange was so bad that words fail me. There was little evidence that this was a full-range speaker. Bass didn't go very low at all. Ghastly.

World Designs were showing a large 2-way standmount with what looked like an 8 inch paper coned bass-mid. Midrange was bad. I heard some awful noises come out of this in my short stay in this room.

I don't know what was wrong with the Living Voice dem. I have always liked the OBX-Rs but this year something was seriously amiss.

Pro-Ac were showing what I assume was the new Studio 140. Might have been nice but it was impossible to tell as it totally overpowered the room with bass. It would have been good to hear the standmount instead.

The Pinsch speakers with ribbon tweeters sounded promising but they were using a mid-price Rotel CD player and it really didn't sound too good. When I told the guy he should use better electronics, he said the Rotel was the best player he had heard up to £10,000. I just looked. When the power of speech returned, I advised him to go listen to the Audionet/Wilson Benesch system for a while.

The Nbien speakers sounded OK but needed more interesting electronics to get them really singing.

Those small Neat floorstanders made a nice sound in a small sort of way. (I asked if they shrunk in the wash ) Not enough grunt for me but nice if you don't like it too loud.

Loved the Teac clock-radios and bedside CD player type things. Nice industrial design there. Almost made me want one.

Tannoy were showing the Mini-Autographs and the new Prestige (pre-production model). The Mini-Autograph had a lovely clear mid and top but where was the bass? No match for my Dynaudios there I'm afraid. The Prestige sounded big as you would expect. Nice bass. Nice treble. Excellent top to bottom coherence and transients. The mid was missing a bit in terms of detail and texture though. This speaker is still at the tweaking stage so I'm sure it will improve by the time it is released. They take a bit of running in too. Very efficient - one for valve fans to watch at £4000.

Spendor S8e sounded, well, splendid really. Not a lot to gripe about. Nice musical performance but I wouldn't take them over Arcs on this showing. Perhaps I'm just biased towards standmounts. I just think they offer much more magic for your money.

I listened to the Naim CD555 et al driving active DBLs. Man, those are ugly speakers! Nice mid and top but the bass was a bit strange. The CD replay was very smooth and clean and involving. For more than £10000, it bloody well should be of course. I bet 3 grands worth of record deck etc. would still give it a hard time. I also listened to the real-world option, a CDS2, forget the amp? and Allaes. Those are truly dreadful speakers. Truly. The bass was soft and one note. Horrid.

I noticed an awful lot of Naim equipment at the show this year, particularly among folk who were trying to demonstrate speakers. Why? Naim only shows half of what a speaker can do. Sure it sounds nice but there is so much more to be had. And why were some speaker manufacturers demming their speakers with movie presentations? What's the point? Most any competent speaker can do movies. It's music where the men are separated from the boys. So I can't say how good the Focal floorstanders are. The standmounts sounded promising (1007Be) but they were playing some hideous violin concerto that was deeply boring and annoying. I wasn't interested enough to wait for a change of music.

That's as much as I bothered to listen to. Spent quite a while in Tony's room just enjoying the sound. Very good indeed. Also spent quite a while in the Conservatory with Audionet and Wilson Benesch. Magical.

So...from this show...if I wanted a system from scratch, to play in my real-world living room and had deep enough pockets, which one would I take home? The Audionet/Wilson Benesch system with Arcs. Fabulous. Just fabulous

 

Thanks for the comprehensive round up. What was the system in Tony's room?

 

Not very comprehensive I'm afraid. There was a lot I just didn't bother with, mainly because it was all AV.

Tony had a Teac Esoteric X-01 LE CD player, a brace of Bel Cantos (Evo 2?) and Meadowlark Blue Heron 2 speakers. Needless to say they had all been tinkered with by our Tone to extract better performance than the stock components are capable of. Naturally various high quality bits of wire were in evidence.

It certainly did dynamics and went very loud without distress and without fatigue. It did full justice to my Mussorgsky CD. My only gripe concerned midrange transparency. I was missing a bit of depth (acoustic) and air around the snare drums in particular that had been amply evident in the Audionet/Wilson Benesch setup. However the CD player was only 3 days old so a bit harsh to judge it so soon. I'm looking forward to hearing it again in a few weeks time when it has settled in.

Edit: one other point, there was a notable lack of room interaction in the bass. It was very well behaved in spite of being deep and powerful.

 

oooh, chris, u have a new cd player, the art v2 - do tell ..... !

 

Fear not dear boy! I shall be having another bake-off quite soon

It's a pretty impressive machine. Very musical. Huge soundstage- wide and deep - the speakers keep disappearing. Very coherent. Great transients. Great bass. Great vocals. Great piano. The list goes on. I love it. One for Martin - it sounds good no matter where you sit

 

Went to the show yesterday. Some good demos and some dissapointing ones. Was looking forward to hearing the NAD Master Series. This sounded pretty good, but I think that either the PSB speakers or the room accousttics contributed to the nasty bass boom. Also spoke to the chaps from Lenbrook about the NetCap - this looked interesting when it was annouced. Apparantly the supplier they were using for the chipsets went under before launch, hence why it was shelved. They do plan to redevelop the product though - and I offered a few suggestions such as a wider range of formats, plus a display on the device, rather than just relying on a TV.

KEF demo sounded good - amazing what can be done with a well designed sat/sub system. The Rotel/B&W room sounded pretty good too!

Totem audio/Rega sounded very nice. Funk Audio room also very good - it was great to see plenty of turntables in use. Very helpful chap from Henley Designs gave me some helpful advice about my turntable that isn't outputting sound at the moment. Rega room sounded pretty good, but not convinced by the speakers - they sounded sort of 'shut in'.

Naim multichannel demo dissapointing. Good test disc used - Jarre's Aero, which I know very well, but it still confirms that I'm not keen on Naim speakers.

Ruark/Vincent room sounded good - first time I'd heard any Chinese audio and I was impressed. Ruark speakers always sound good.

Coherent Systems put in a good showing as usual! Some good music being played. Like that TEAC player - very very revealing of the recording. It sounded good in Tony's system, but I suspect could be fatiguing in a very bright setup. I would have paid a second visit, but I ran out of time unfortunately, having bumped a colleague I used to work with in my old job and also was catching up with my sister for a quick drink after the show.

Qiuad/Audiolab/Mission stand - very dissapointing. No Quad amps/CD players, Quad Ls have very little bass and sounded unconvincing on the end of Audiolab gear. Pathetic showing from Mission this year - M cubes all round a plasma TV and a few token showings of some of their other speakers.

Resolution Audio - not so good - harsh, bright and destinctly lacking in bass! The Rogers room sounded good - I'd read a lot about their speakers, but didn't hear them till yesterday. Sounded very nice on the end of some valves.

HD plasmas look very nice - that 63" Fujitsu was a monster, but looked lovely. Up until HD, I was unconvinced by plasma or LCD for picture quality, but HD has definately changed my opinions. Agree with the poor Sky HD demo.

Didn't see anything that made me think 'I must upgrade', but I'm now finally happy with how my system sounds. Just need to get that turntable fixed and I'm sorted

 

I've already moaned on another thread but apart from Tony's set up which sounded impressive 90% of the other rooms sounded ****e! it amazes me how companys dare charge as much as they do for such rubbish

 

Arf. I might darken your door again soon in that case

 

The X01 does give a presentation on the cool side of neutral, so a spot of warmth does help.
Its a superb player, stunning transparancy and dynamics, and truly natural feel, expansive staging and imaging oh and groove to die for coupled with a flight of foot that is just smile inducing.
It needs a good couple of weeks solid use to really come to life, however patience is benefical here.
There are some very good CDP's on the market currently, though none begin to approach its arthuritive musical expressiveness and sheer closeness to the event. Wm

 

Overall I thought it was a pretty poor show.

The Kondo stuff was good and I was impressed with the Wilson Benesch room as usual but as usual the same things bug me...

1. All the AV demo's judder when panning, some of the worst being the SIM2 1-chip and the Runco.

2. All the Plasma/LCD TV's were unnacceptable.

3. Almost all the hifi rooms were playing the same undemanding music. It's all acoustic or single intrument at a time and after a while it seems to suggest to me that some exhibitors are afraid to play anything complex in case it shows their systems up to be poor.

4. Almost all the AV demo's were too loud and simply rumbled along deliberately trying to wow the punters. It's not Dixons the people attending the show tend to be informed and aren't impressed by bass and volume.

Much better stuff at Heathrow, and the other 2 chaps I went with felt the same.

 

I've wanted to hear the Wilson Benesch speakers for a while. Do the floorstanders sound similar to the meadowlark Blue Herons?

 

Out of interest, what music was playing in the Coherent room? I can't imagine Tone spinning the latest Eva and Norah?

 

The highlights for me were.

ProAc - thought the 140's sounded good on the music they were playing when I was there. The D25's being used on the Mitchell deck demo sounded poor. I know they are capable so what was it, the deck, the amp or cables?

Project decks looked nice and sounded good to.

The Vincent gear looked good and sounded ok - can't tell in those rooms really.

Copland CDA823 and their KT88 based valve amp - very nice, will be auditionin the 823 on Thurs.


The why bothers were.

Linn's demo. All sounded harsh and the system was being over driven - too loud and too small in that room.

Tannoy Westminster Speakers in a bedroom! WHY? - Linn should have used them instead

All the cable companies. Cat5/6e is better for both speaker and interconnects

Wilson B. Nice big room but the stand mounted speakers lacked bass and presence.

It made me realise that I am really happy with my Amp and Speakers. It performs better to my ears than almost everything I heard.
My CDP needs upgrading though - in hand.

What would have been good was to be left alone in a decent sized room and had free pick of all the gear for the day.
Copland, Wadia, Project, ProAc, Vincent, ok the Westminsters for fun and big Wilson B's would have been on my list.

 

Quick few thoughts from me -

MERIDIAN - As per the last umpteen years, by far the best of the show. Demo far too loud though!

NAIM - Allae-based system sounded superb. DBL-based system would have sounded far better if they'd remembered to connect the tweeters and the bass drivers in the speakers. Nice midrange but would have thought it was difficult to get so LITTLE bass out of things that size.

TOTEM - the more i hear these speakers, the more i love them. The Winds were too big for the room but still managed some real bass notes rather than the overblown booms most were kicking out. Mites were also very impressive until the chappie turned them up too loud and they started suffering a bit.

N'BIEN - Sounded OK until the bass line kicked in. I have never heard the bass from Jennifer Warnes' "Somewhere, Somebody" reproduced so badly.

PROAC - Fab sounds, both in their room and in the Michell Room.

WILSON BENESCH - Dreadful, both in the conservatory and in the Cyrus room. Sorry, but i cannot understand the fuss.

RESOLUTION - Hahahahahahahahahahaaaaaa!!! Put 'em back in the Escort they came out of.................

HENLEY DESIGNS - Nice sounds, both from the Roksan and Project front ends. Liked the Roksan speakers, too, but not sure they're worth £2k.......

FUNK FIRM - Nice looking deck but shame they weren't playing any music on the FOUR occasions i went in, just having nerdy chats with Sondek owners................

EXPOSURE - Dreadful, harsh mess. One of my favourite rooms last year when they were using Vandersteen's, but those ART speakers were truly nasty!!

KEF - Impressed with the new Eggs, which are much better than the old ones, but the subwoofer isn't worthy enough for them - it sounded limp and wasn't keeping up with the rest of the frequency range.

And on the rest of the AV dark side all i can really remember was that most subwoofers were turned up far too high, REL were merrily booming uncontrollably as always and the only people who actually had set their subwoofers up properly were Yamaha and B&W.
The Yamahas had serious explosion grunt, integrated beautifully with the rest of the speakers and didn't dominate at all. First time i'd heard the B&W PV1 and again it just goes to show that subs can sound good, but it's a rare event to actually experience it!

 

I was intending to go on Saturday, but had to change plans at short notice and missed it.

Reading summaries here & on PFM, what strikes me is how different people heard the different rooms; some thought the Rega room was the bee's knees, others thought it was the pits, ditto the Naim room, ditto the WB speakers, ditto the Living Voice speakers.

So maybe reading reviews of hifi isn't so daft after all; once you find a reviewer whose opinions coincide with your own about one piece of kit, chances are you'll like other stuff he recommends, whereas if he likes one piece of kit you think sounds awful, it's unlikely you'll care much for other stuff he praises. Of course you need to use your own ears to help make the final decision, but identifying 'friendly' reviewers might help in concocting a shortlist.

 

These are good speakers. I have enjoyed them many times. On this occasion however, something was wrong. The bass was largely missing and what there was sounded boxy. Maybe they had them out of phase? Something was amiss with the setup when I went in that room. I couldn't believe what I was hearing but I wouldn't blame the speakers because I know this model can sound great.

 

I thought that the integration between the big new REL Brittania sub and the Vienna Acoustics floorstanders was superb with just the right amount of underpinning and no boom or bloat whatsoever.