Heathow Hi-fi Show,

ok guys, if we are meteing here is my mobile hope to meet you all, 07811 594 587
regards nando.

 

simon what time are you getting there?
nando.

 

There was very little that REALLY impressed me.

..apart from the Marten designs speakers, Marten and Isophon speakers using these drive units continue to impress.

...all I need now is £13,000.


The Puresound room sounded good, with the best value for money speakers of the show.

A nice new standmount from Proac, Response 2 D I think it was called. Should work well for a lot of people, worth a listen.

I liked the Usher Compass standmount (maybe). Uses a berillyum tweeter. Hard to judge really, the program material played was odd and unfamiliar.

Returning home and firing up my Audionote E's, they sound as good as most of the speakers on show. There would be little I would swap for, Marten speakers for sure, Isophon Cassiano, little else would make me want to jump.



A pleasure to meet Simon (Tenson) for the first time. Shame I didn't get to meet more people.

Hope you all enjoy the show.

Apart from the Podium speakers not being my cup of tea - for shear huge budget for dreadful sound, my award goes to the Krell room. Seriously, I can't believe how awful this sounded. Revelatory!

 

The Martens weren't bad were they? The Puresound room, for the price really good, I also thought the Usher speakers sounded ok, and even the Zingali's in the Audio Boffs room , the krell room I shan't forget that in a hurry!

 

The Martens were in hindsight a bit too much of an audiophile speaker for me. When we went in they played Armagiddion Time by the Clash on vinyl. By coincidence, I was listening to the same track on CD the previous night and commented to Chris. All I remember of the track on the Martens was the bells and high hats standing out. It's a bloody dub track. If it was mixed to sound tinkly and without real meat I'd be amazed. Hear the same track on non audiophool speakers and the balance of energy is very different and almost certainly more true to the music.

 

Absolute 100% agreement.

Martin.

 

SM you should have said hello and told me you didn't like it. I don't take offence.

 

I am glad I went - There was nothing jawdropping apart from some prices- Generally I was underwhelmed. So I came away with a feeling of contentment with my own system.

The Origin live room I liked a lot and for me this was the best sound I heard by far. Several Belcanto seteps sounded Ok.
I went into a room with podiums in, the music was a mess however the Chord room got my worst in show award. Meridian did run them close. Naim saved themselves by virtue of using vinyl.

Krell seem to be going backwards this was the worst Krell demo of three over a period of twenty years I had been to.

There wasnt many electrostatic speakers here which seems sad. I came away being even more sure that Vinyl is getting stronger each year and Box speakers sound boxy.

 

Krell kills music stone dead ( they are not the only culprits unfortunately).

 

Hi everyone,
Thank you to the people who introduced themselves, nice to put faces to names, hope you enjoyed the show. Seemed to be this year a half hearted attempt. Not as previous shows. Heard marten
design speakers and isophon previously,yes the are fairly spectacular, only their price is restrctive(any exdem or second hand out there). As for turntables, came away even more disallusioned. However reasonably impressed with cartridge mans parallel tracker with acoustic solid turntable. Some other reasonably impressive equipment was nuforce and bel canto amps . Never went to krell room ,large boxes stuffed mostly with air Can any one else comment. hope you all had safe trip home only just got back to norwich (pm.
Keep on Rocking
John

 

Hey Addict. If I'd told everyone what I thought I would have probably had my car keyed and tyres let down!

In your case, it wasn't really a case of liking or disliking, more an observation on the presentation. It's just a shame to me that so many people are convinced they are hearing transparency when auditioning a lot of audiophile kit - a bugbear of mine.

Many modern hifi speakers seem to be voiced from the top down because of this perception's affect on sales. I prefer more natural designs that are voiced from the bottom up.

Compared to the noise being made by Absolute Scams, your room was an oasis of musical enjoyment.

 

Show Report for me and my opinions : I went along with friend Bryan, from another Forum.

Nothing there was "outstanding / must have or I will die", but some fun listening was had. It was intriguing to hear things that other forum members rave about but which sounded either very ordinary or downright poor. Of course, 'show conditions' yada yada ... but IME good kit can shine irrespective.

I took along a couple of my fave CDs to annoy the company reps with - Parallel Dreams by Loreena McKennitt and Malcolm Arnold Symphony No. 3 on Naxos.

OK, so .... some of The Best Bits (IMO) ... in no particular order ....

Duevel omni-directional speakers. £3.75k jobbies, I think. I'd not heard these before and was expecting a vague and blurry soundstage - not a bit of it! They showed much promise in this department - sadly, the reps didn't seem to want to play my CDs - so I can't be sure of the sound. Overall, they sounded great if a bit bass heavy - but I suspect that pulling them another foot or so into the room would have sorted that. Defo on my "Speaker Hit List".

The award for Best VFM must go to the Aurousal A1 single-driver speaker. HUGE fun (and more than a little coloured) at £495 a pair. Just so open and bouncy - and surprisingly extended at both ends. Yup, one of the Best At Show for us.

Isophon standmount speakers - lively with a nice deep punchy bass. Nicely focussed sound too.

Reference 3A floorstanders - I haven't liked their standmounters at previous Shows (despite all the hype from some mags, they just sounded very ordinary and lack-lustre to me) but these big-jobs were nicely focussed, neutral and very open. Yup, I liked them a lot. Bryan wasn't so keen on these though.

:torkmada: I definitely got a bit lustful when I saw the latest PS Audio mains regenerator - I used to have the P300 and finally got rid of it despite it's excellent abilities cos of its fan noise and limited power output. The new £1800 unit seems to have these things sorted though. Me want !!!

Art Audio (valve amps) - Bryan got very thoughtful here - methinks he was into serious lust ... and yes, it was a very nice sound indeed - can't remember what the spkrs were though (but they were nice)

The Meridian £1.5k boombox. Hey, this sounded really quite nice - despite my bias & expectations!! Room-filling sound and enjoyable too. Who'da thought it?!



& now .... The Worst Bits .... (all IMO YMMV etc etc)

:newbie: JM Lab Focal speakers. Dry and thinned out midrange tonality. As heard in the Coherent Audio room with some standmounts (nice to meet you, though, Tony !!) and in another room with the 1037Be floorstanders. Totally unmusical and yuk. We both thought so. Bryan assured me that this is what they always sound like.

:zzzz: Pure Sound A30. The only system we heard them in was with £1k Heco speakers - and the system sounded decidedly ho-hum. The Aurausal A1 room had the A30 there as well, but the guy said it didn't sound very good and used the Audiolab 8000A instead!!

:crazy: Art speakers - I can't remember the model name - the 2 drive unit one's Paul Messenger reviewed in HiFi+ where he liked the £9k Sigs. They had PM's review tacked on the wall above them so I assumed they were the Sigs. Listened to them ..... sounded like a fairly decent pair of £1.5k speakers to me. I then learned that they were the latest Silver Sig version for .... £20k .... :yikes: .... . Just so totally ridiculous. Very, very ordinary indeed. We both thought so. After we left the room, Bryan congratulated me on managing to keep a straight face when the Art guy (I assume) told me the price.

Podium speakers. The ones everyone but me hates. Well, I wasn't at all impressed this time either. Weird sounding things - they look quite different to my last audition - maybe they changed the sonics too? Not that it was all bad - played 'medium' they could sound very good, but they seemed to lose it when the going got going!

:SLEEP: Phonosophie - said to be the German Naim. Yup, I can believe that - mono-chromatic, dull and dynamics were not really present - just soft or LOUD. Nope, we couldn't see the point at all.

Bosendorfer speakers - I'd wanted to hear these for years - finally here they were (and the big ones, too) in the Audusa room. Oh deary me - coloured and smeared. Yes, I know that's what I should have expected from them having resonating panels deliberately attached to their sides, but somehow I hoped for something better.

MBL - usually my Best Of Show, but here the mid-line radialstrahlers were placed in quite a small sound booth - and they boomed and tizzed like there was no tomorrow. Still on my Want List - but now relegated to 'serious audition before purchase' status (which is only sensible anyway, of course, especially at their price).

:SLEEP: Beauhorn B2's were their usual vague and uninteresting selves.

Electrocompaniet had an interesting demo of a cool-looking amp that can go from "pure stereo" mode to full 5 channel mode at the click of a remote control button. A neat idea I thought - but it sounded harsh and bright and screechy thru top-of-the-line KEF speakers.

One of my fave speakers of all time was the original Proac Response2 standmounter. So open and dynamic - but VERY dependent on a good solid and massive stand being used. The new Response D 2 in the Proac room looked pretty much the same, but they had them mounted on cheap and flimsy looking stands - and they sounded very ordinary indeed. Perhaps a sensible stand would redeem their performance - I certainly hope so. A real disappointment for me.

_____

Lots of other stuff there of course, but the above were most of the main things that attracted my attention.

Yup, a very worthwhile show, much enjoyed. Will defo go again next year. :banana:

 

As I have stated on the Podium thread, I was really captivated by the new Rountree omnidirectional speakers, which (for once) show some really unique thinking while still managing to look attractive. The 'cabinet' is not actually a cabinet in the ordinary sense, but an omnidirectional resonator of astonishingly light weight and clever design. To my ears they were graceful and musical - perhaps lacking a bit in ultimate bass extension, but very suitable for real world domestic settings with neighbours etc.

I have to agree with the comments above about JM Labs speakers in the Coherent room. The Utopias sounded pretty dire, but I had a demo of the effect of different speaker stands on Electra 1007s in the Music Works/Quadraspire room which was startling, and which left me feeling that I could indeed live happily with Electras (on acrylic stands!). So, horses for courses there, and a telling demonstration of the importance of setup and context. So, it's a shame that many exhibitors do not manage to get the best out of good gear, then open themselves up to a slagging off on the internet forums!

In a similar vein, the Beauhorn B2s sounded as bad as my preconceptions had suggested. Maybe it's the setup thing again. I'd love to be proved wrong here, as the design is unique and witty.

I went into the Audusa room filled with expectations for the Bosendorfer speakers. I rather like design which wilfully breaks the 'rules' and I expected some magic. As mentioned by JANDL100, I too found them to be coloured and smeary. Maybe they excel on piano.

I went into the DPS room when nobody was there, but the Primary Drive speakers were playing something unfamiliar. On such a fleeting acquaintance, I was favourably impressed by a nice open sound, and wish to know more.

I missed the entire corridor with Origin Live etc in, mainly because of a need to avoid the Friday afternoon M25 traffic jam. That was a shame, as I'm sure there were some gems to be seen along there. I did have time to peruse the vinyl on sale in the foyer, though, and came away with a few gems.

Did anyone buy a lunch in the Park? We went to the bar, and on seeing £29 for a bit of steak and chips, we walked along the road to McDonalds. The coffee in McDonalds is better, too!

 

Hi Jerry,

Just proves how dangerous it can be to form opinions from a show. In your post it's clear you heard stuff bomb that you know can work well.

Imagine if you had heard them there first. What would your view have been then?

The only use of show demos, IMO, is if you hear something sound good - at least you know it can.

An open mind is difficult once you've heard something underperform. For that reason I wouldn't rush to judge stuff that didn't sound good in a hotel room.


Steve

 

Yup, that's a fair point, Steve.

It could also be fairly said that my opinions may well differ substantially from other folks, even hearing the same things. E.g. my comments on the Phonosophie kit may seem well clear of the mark for an avid Naim devotee.

If nothing else in response to my "Show Report" above, contrary views would be both enlightening and entertaining

 

show impressions

poorly organised
carpark issues plus queing
disappointed with the lack of vinyl sources

Nothing in the show blew me away hifi wise
although the sim2 £ 18k pj was awesome

I thought the mbl room was good there you are.

DCS very dissappointed
Chord poor
phonosymphonie? awful

Einstein cd player and valve amps
were good

Bel canto monoblocks seemed to be used a bit sounded good

overall there were


impressed with the icon valve amps room


I prefer my system than 95 % of what was there
BTW Krell room WTF

 

I didn't go to the show, not sure if I'd like it because of the reason listed above. That and all the kit I can't afford. Does anyone know how many sales actually get made there?

I would add that I've heard the JM Labs at Tony's and they sounded great, and musical to me. I was a bit surprised because I'd always read that they were 'dry'.

 

I think it depends on what kit you are running through jm lab speakers as to whether they sound dry or not. In my experience the same speaker can sound very different when paired with other amp/preamps and so I think making blanket statements can give a false impression.
regards, fro.

 

^^ Well, both Focal based systems at the Show sounded the same. And presumambly (?) the demonstrators knew what they were doing(?)

Anyway, just reporting what we heard.

 

is this a thing with the jordan FR driver similar to the one used by nelson pass in j-lo?