heathrow hi-fi show.?

You taking the piss Nick? or did you take the wrong pills?.

Even Tony could not defend the sound we were hearing on Sunday.

 

Neither could any of the other rooms. And it still sounded better than the last time I heard jmlabs 5 years ago.

 

OK, I see what you mean. Ouch (from 5 years ago).

 

I have to say that, even without a room of any kind interfering, I fail to see how a pair of reasonably talented standmounts could have acheived Tony's claims anyway. I was very surprised to see the system that was playing in that room.

 

What was the deck in the mac room S&M? I sent you a PM but I guess you ignored it

 

Well there was a Thorns box sitting next to the deck. It had blue LEDs spelling the name which I could not focus on to read!

 

Opus Continuo Granite Reference with Cantus arm. Always impresses.

 

No wonder I didnt recognise it. Shame it wasnt playing.

 

yellow submarine

i could not believe that conrad made an acutus in yellow special for naim, it looked arghhh, mustard, still the boys could not play it properly, oh well i prefer my chrome, nando:MILD:

 

Looking at Rob's photos it looks like Andy had a Thorens TD2030 in the smaller Mac room. I didn't get in there.

 

Stereo,
I kind of got the impression that virtually every system at the show was compromised by the room acoustics. Whilst I agree that WMs system clearly wasn't singing as expected, baiting someone who's added a LOT to this forum doesn't seem too polite.

 

What did anyone think of the Meidy amplifier in the HFN show , noticed they were using an ipod as source !!

 

ipod

did you read what i said earlier about a certain manufacturer using an ipod through a very expensive set up girls giggling while they were enjoying themselfs over playing silly music using that thing as a main source ! very funny i thought .. yeah right .next please. it deserves an official complaint to the powers that be, i think personally is an insult to us all in this industry who have given invested lots of time and money to take our customers there to show them the new products and try to enlighten them to upgrade, very embarrased..nando

 

Mike, I'm sure you will agree I'm not known for standing on ceremony.

I questioned the claims at the time - they seemed to be the kind that really should have appeared in the trade advertisers area IMO. I call a spade a spade I'm afraid. If that system was good I would have made a point of mentioning it as would you.

Anyone who makes claims on forums has to be able to stand by them, especially when they have a financial interest.

 

What I cannot understand is that everyone knows about these apparently bad room acoustics. So why do professional people have such expectations and publicly claims them? On the other hand I think is always good to have high obectives.

I have also a question to those people who always give room acoustics as excuse for "bad" sound:
Do you really believe that the average of the Hifi-fans have better room acoustics in their rooms at home?
I'm quite convinced that the sound of those systems at Heathrow wouldn't be better in an average room at home.
But most people are convinced that their systems sound better than what they heard at the show. So now what's the problem? The systems at the show or the fact that the sound at home is always better than outdoor? Or what else?

 

Rose tinted ears perhaps

 

There are some professionals that consistently get good results at shows - Kevin Scott for instance always get's praise from experienced quarters.

One simple trick is to reduce the room's influence by increasing the amount of direct sound reaching the listener. Acoustic treatments are a must as is something like cara and a room layout in advance. I believe it is possible to maximise performance for one hot seat quite effectively but only with some forethought. I did try to help out and give Tony some advice on positioning on the Friday but I don't know whether they experimented later or not.

 

I think we can put Wm pre show claim down to bravado at worst. I've been in a similar position ...where you tell someone how good something is then get it in there system and it sound pooh ....

That said WM room was not that bad a sound, there were far worse.. but I expect that WM was as unhappy as the rest of us that the system and room etc just didn't gell.

Off the wall suggestions IMO

.........DO NOT READ FURTHER if your not comfortable with the notion of Fen Shui, dowsing and geopathic stress !




Having returned from the show...I was suprised at how badly many of the rooms performed regardless of gear....So out with the dowsing rods ....these are my brief conclusions for wm room

There is an area of geopathic stress passing through the room, this negative influence rising from a low level in the outside corridor to very strong around the second door bedroom entrance area. This "field" reduced slightly within the room but remained high around the bed area. Those of you who are into Fen Shui will be able see that object placment in the room could have been a problem too.

But from a dowsers point of veiw there was[still is] at least one "discarded entity" in the room that would effect everyone entering. This is not a ghost that haunts as such more just a area effect cause by the entity not "passing on", that can draw some of the "well being, bon homme" from its surroundings. This often creates an uncomfortable feeling at a subconcious level that will affect the receptiveness people in the same area. At higher levels can be felt as a cold spot in rooms.

Thats not to discount the effect of hundreds of people passing through the rooms ...if you recall it was at the end of the corridor and thus a lot of people with increasingly negative thoughts could also have an effect detrimental to the percived sound.

Now I'm not asking any one to believe this its just my conclusions its just one possible aspect to consider.....

If your not comfortable with the notion why are you reading past the warning ? and secondly if you think it's bollocks I'm not going to try an convince you otherwise, its your problem and you have to deal with as best you can. None belief is a very negative aspect in life that I'm fortunate not afflicted with or affected by.

 

My interpretation was somewhat different and reied on a tape measure and acoustics theory.

The speakers were placed so that the distances from side walls, rear wall and floor were virtually identical.

Neither they nor the listening position were placed ideally with regards to the main roon node.

The side walls were far too close and under damped at first reflection.

To get any half decent sound given these obstacles deserves some credit. Let's hope Tony's room sounds better next time as I'm sure it will.

 

Good morning all,

Seems I'm getting a mauling (as per usual: D )
I will address a few points here for those 'professionals' who are in the trade! .
The room was not at the standard we wished for or achieved Fact, I make no bones about it. buck stops with me.
Try as we could, moving the system in countless postions, configurations and mains points, we could not extract the performance we know the equipment is more than capable of giving, including having acoustic panels at our call.
The set up changed 4 times, on Sunday after lunch it was making some pleasing sound, no not as I stated a week or so back.
That was merely part of the show build up bravado and general good natured banter and interplay that goes on.
I would like to add that we had 2 other industry professionals with us over the exhibition period,. Whom I know Stereo Mic voiced his concerns too . Despite all our efforts will simply did not achieve anywhere near our full potential. It wasn't for the lack of skill/experience or effort.
As for most listening environments being close to the hotel bedrooms at the Park Inn .
All I can see here (which is my experiences) I have yet to encounter any listening rooms that have posed such problems as we came across (that is not to say they will never be any, would be foolish to think so).
We had a lot more compliments than expletives, you simply cannot please everyone. Its not going to happen period.
One really interesting point for us (and a lot of the other exhibitors too) were the vast majority of the public did take into account the poor level of sound quality throughout both shows which was hearting
Other exhibitors managed to extract more out of their systems without question, we did not!
As for Living Voice, while waiting for the car parking ticket on Sunday night, I bumped into Kevin Scott; we had a chat about the weekend and concluded that it was a very positive one.
Though he did express concern, that he struggled to achieve potential in his room due to the ceiling tiles, and that at one or two points in the show period he had concidered if it would have been better just to bring a small integated amplifier, a pair of auditoriums and a basic deck
On Monday, I demonstrated the same system we used on the sunday to a gentlemen in his own living room (22 by 15 by 7'2" concrete walls and lightly artexed ceiling and plasterboard coving, bay window and a fireplace), set up took a little over 3 hours, its still there now.
Making some special sounds he's over the moon with it.
Just goes to show one very important issue that effects ALL sound systems (which I have said from the outset)
If there ever was a case in point, the show demonstrated above all else how important room/speaker/acoustics play a part in controlling the finished sound.
Nick did pop along and say hello, we had a brief chat and expressed views on how bitter and twisted people/ideas can cause you much enjoyment through the day.
Also to Dev,Chris/Robbo and Ju2002 sorry I didn't get chance to say hi proberbly.
We had a great weekend, and I feel all the hard work was worth it, even though we didn't not achieve fully our main aim.
thanks T.