Good stuff at Heathrow

Good Stuff at Heathrow.

Just a quick round up of what caught my ear at Heathrow.

Best sounds for me were

Audiofreaks (Conrad Johnson, Avalon)
EAR (Townsend, EAR)
Absolute Sounds (Audio Reseach/Martin Logan)
Audio Reference (Cabasse/Halcro)

Most Disappointing

Chord (Chord/Dynaudio)
Naim (Bloody SL2 or whatever....I still don't get it!)

Best Looking new Kit

Meridian's new range

Best Value

Usher. Really showing what good value really means, paricularly the 150wpc Class A power amp for fourteen hundred quid!!!

Biggest rip off

Tannoy's new Active AV setup. This is basically a set of Dynaudio Air's , with different drivers in cheap veneered boxes. Cost of Dynaudios is 6k. The Tannoys are 20K. All electronics, dsp, Dacs are lifted straight from the Airs. Total rip off for the consumer market.

And the interesting thing is that all the rooms I enjoyed were using those bloody tube things

 

Micheal,

What about the Proacs? Any good?

Cheers, Neil

 

Neil,

Great room, sadly the only one I had to talk phones in

It's one of the biggest and most impressive displays there, with new launches for the D25, D38 and the awesome D100. When we were there, they were playing some bombastic Graham N style melee through the D38's which sounded good. But given the size of the room, I reckon the D100's will be the ones to really sing

Bargain hunters, get down to Usher audio and get their dem stock cheap on Sunday

 

I would recommend the Rogue//Amphion room, which for me was the best at show. 225watts of ultralinear KT88 goodness.



Awesome.

 

Yes Lee Forgot to mention that.

they were playing Roger Waters when we were in there and it did sound excellent. The Pre was nice too

 

225 valve watts?
How much?
Can I have one?

 

Six grand to you sir Oh and about 100% on your leccy bills and 16 valves to replace annually

 

£6k?
Not too bad with the power to send a small city to the moon...
And with 120 valve watts at the moment the leccy bills wouldn't be that much higher!
Praps I should just get an active pre and balance the greater available volume against the lesser clarity...

 

Two light bulbs.

 

Of course as you all know, an amp putting out 120 watts per channel will draw considerably more power than that. In fact, if it's class A it will take over 1 kW of power (someone will no doubt know precisely how much). Nice in winter although even your kettle mains leads won't do.

 

I know, only teasing.

I've got 350 wpc of class A (mines bigger than yours), and it does take the chill off the room on cold mornings.

 

For me I really liked the Amphion room. That bass from their new 6k spkrs was lovely, and they had been given a shite room as well.

Anyone interested in Xenons (the ones on my avatar), they've recently had a cone material change (better resolution aparantly).

I also loved the cabasse in audiofreaks. Shame that a guy was demoing some shun mook pendants. Tried to show how changing the length of the pendant changed the sound. Everyone in the room said that they couldnt hear any change - he looked a tad embarressed and blamed it on the room. He said it was 'symapthetic resonanses'. The only thing sympathetic was the crowd after theyd seen the guy blush.

Overall - much better than last year - and the new Meridian kit looked lush. very nice.

 

Hi

I look forward to hearing the stuff in this room. This was one of the best rooms last year. I look forward to hearing the Amphion speakers again. That amp looks interesting. I bet it weighs a ton.

I'll look out for the Shun Mook dem. It sounds interesting.

Roll on tomorrow.


SCIDB

 

I liked the EAR, Harbeth, Roksan, Rogue Audio, Audiofreaks (Kuzma front end driving some v. expensive speakers), Rega/Totem, and Sugden Masterclass/Proac rooms. Wasn't at all convinced by the Amphions in the Rogue room, but they were far too big for the room and we were sitting far too close to them. Also enjoyed the Alon room, mostly because they were playing some very groovy music.

Enjoyed the 47 Labs/Konus room. First time I've seen this stuff close-up. The Konus speakers are very nice, and watching the Uri Gellar lookalike salesman and his not very glamourous assistant jiggling enthusiastically to the music was highly entertaining.

Chord win the prize for most cynical new product. £4200 for a CD transport matching the cheaper DAC64 is taking the p*ss.

The Quad room's good, lots of old Quad gear and Ken Kessler waxing his moustache in the corner.

Nothing earth-shattering anywhere, and nothing that made me want to spend any money, but an enjoyable day. Not too crowded today, and nice to meet cookiemonster (Dino) and carpchaser (Ian).

-- Ian

 

Will you be going tomorrow Ian?

I was planning to attend today, but business matters came to the fore and I sold my dpas:banana:

Cheers, Neil

 

analogue aplenty

Went on the look out for a new t/t and thought that the Nottingham Analogue hyperspace was fab despite them playing Gilbert and Sullivan and using Shahinian speakers.
Love the quasar as well but £4k was a bit steep - although a bargain comapred to the £9k Nordic Concept Signature ( plus arm and cartridge). Spent the next hour being revived by St John's Ambulance .
I also accidentally picked up the Origin Live dealer price list so will obviously be asking for a substantial discount if I go down this route.
Very enjoyable show but way too many combovers on display lads.
Glenda.

 

Maybe not. My new cd player arrived this morning, and I might have to spend the day playing with that instead...

Having said that, I may turn up for the booze.

-- Ian

 

I liked the Rogue (bloody monstrous 'Zeus')/Amphion room (crap room) - The new speakers - can't remember the model, did some things superbly, but i felt they were a bit slow - but that was after having just listening to some magna planars partnered with some Vecteur kit which didn't help.

My favourite room was with the proacs. They had the benefit of a large room too. But they produce some serious sound, and i was highly impressed with everything they did. Think the D38's were running at the time - can't remember. The big beasts (D100?) are enormous mountains. Would have liked to heard those going, but did not have the chance.

Spent some time in the Harbeth room - really open sounding, but i thought a bit warm, and didn't really do it for me overall.

The Kef room was a cynical corporate reference AV load of pants.

Some good stuff, some pap, but interesting day. Nice to meet sideshow .

 

Hi Glenda

Just thought Id point this out for you if you're looking at Notts TT's.

Nottingham Analogue - Mentor with Reference PSU + LV Mystic Mat £1950 £3580
Nottinhgam Analogue - Dais turntable with LV Mystic Mat - lovely £2500 £3500
Nottingham Analogue - Interspace turntable + RB300 - scratch and dink £500 £768
Nottingham Analogue - Horizon turntable - RB250 - new £400 £590

http://www.definitiveaudio.co.uk/stuff.htm

Cheers
Chris

NB - to those who went to the show - I went last year, and although I enjoyed it the acoustics in every room were pants - which kind of took the shine off (it was at the renaissance) - is it the same this time or sorted?

 

Friday - Heathrow

Chaps,

Took in the show on Friday, and came away with mixed emotions.
Enjoyed the Krell sacd/theta/wilsom combo. Liked the CEC (Sanyo?) trans and dac set up. Impressed with the Moon Nova cdp and int'gd, thru superb Pergrees.
Favourite set up by Resolution Audio, liked the cdp already, but looking forward to getting hands on with the new amp.

Best soundstage demo was with Marantz, and guru Ken.

Much of the sound was bloody awful, and the industry needs its arse spanked and sent to bed.

Most impressed by KK's waxed moustache, now you don't get many of those to the pound.