Heathrow Show

To be fair, Naim are not the only ones who are being forced onto the AV bandwagon in an effort it seems to bolster sales. Harbeths NRG range of speakers seem to be moving away from the true values of the brand. I guess though if its a case of sink or swim, then values are likely to be compromised.

 

True Robbo,

Oh how the mighty have fallen

In Harbeth's case, I found it sad to see Alan trying to sell a product that did not look good enough to have been made in China.

 

Robbo in an 'about face' of this forum I thought the SL2 room sounded really good, easily as good as anything else I heard anyway.

But hey YMMV

 

Gary,

Its about time you came over and listened to a decent system. The best thing of all is that it cost 1/5 of the price of that SL2 system. But then again, if you like Naim speakers, it would be a lost cause.

Cheers, Robbo

 

THe little Quads are made in China and look rather nice (how they sound is another matter).
The NRG speakers do not look nice in photos, and I can quite imagine they are not nice in the flesh.
He should have created an upmarket surround brand that played very heavily on the BBC heritage, but looked good (something I am a bit dubious of his ability to do TBH) and be placed close to walls and integrated easlily with subwoofers. Stubborn man, didn't listen.

 

Oh dear What Bollox

So another shows passes by not with a bang, but a sodden wimper
The standard was utter cobblers and then some.
Garyi, we are going to agree The chord room was serial pants with bling factor 11. the so called 'Best digital front end in exsistance' was sounding so digital, the binary codes were hitting you in the face when it playing, no presence at all either. Even Dean, commented 'Just a big pa rig' and piss poor one at that still if you like blue LEDS
47 labs pretty grim too, harbeths room (the new range) also naff
Naims dvd player, jeeze tosch 330 land at best, the cds3/250/sl2's candidate for one of the worst of the show, so forward, no bass and 'Rock hard MR grimsdale' Mr Darwin was gent & passed pleasantries to be fair.
The smaller naim room was listenable and quite enjoyable
The Krell demo, Merlin's comment of "you got hear this its even Dynamic enough for you' worth a challenge I reckoned?, hummm I fell asleep (really), the picture was on a par with naims effort, the krell standard is well 'very basic,basic standard' the new £10K ref floorstanders showed they have promise, give it 6 months audiogon $5K worth a look then
Sounas Flabbers, arh................superb looks and styling, but the sound' like well you know...................'
Notts Analogue nice room, Tom always a gent, very musical and quality sound, though £17K for a TT it sodding ought to be
Tact, produced some passible dynamics, nice and open, though bass was floopy and disjointed, room issue yes, but its showing some promise at last.
Pmc ok.
The avid room with the "gay speakers", need to brush up on synergistic partnerships I feel.
Admission time 2 wadia on show a 301 in the dynevector super stereo room (Help grim sound) and those £70K standmounts, with 4 yes four gamut 200's and a wadia 270/27ix sounding ultra hifi, airy fairy dire (made me cry at such abuse of quality kit)
Worst sound at show DCS room playing Floyd's "Time'(by a large margin it made the chord room sound good!!!) some people would nomiate just for that alone eh Iain?
Must have been a problem? because it sounded worse than nait 3 with leaking caps and a shagged bridge rectifer like a 4 foot tea-towel had been placed across the speakers).
Art Audio room, not impressed, hard on some tracks and lacking involvement, though possible a valve change may have accounted for this.
Mind you I'm not a fan of the opus 21, so possible a bit of bais there.
Big amphions, utter hifi again just where was the bass hiding?
Exposure & Vanderstein had some involving & groovy sounds, not strickly hifi but damn fine all the same.
Again far too many rooms overloaded with 'bass', the gallo room, in need of mains treatments badly, but passable, not the worst av of the day for sure.
The little leema's showed they have promise also, with some quality kit (not the shandling) reckon they'll sing
The neat acoustic room, big disappointment here, sorry just not doing on the day, bass lag issues again? shame, cuz I do like em'
Only 2 rooms took my fancy both with valves in
So much dross, difficult to pick a winner
will post some picks on monday.
Good to meet the guys & Titain again. cheers Wm

 

I've just read Daytona's review of the naim a/v rig, humm perhaps he travells the interstella highways more than I do.

 

Wadia Said: 'Tact, produced some passible dynamics, nice and open, though bass was floopy and disjointed, room issue yes, but its showing some promise at last...'

I though with tact there was no 'room issues' any more lol. I thought it sounded shite

I did like one room a lot, but cant remember the name god damn, I think over kill. There was another room where the guy was desperatly keen to tell me the sub speaker was not on, its just the two satellites. I thought it sounded really poor.

Infact I thought renaissance side was all in really bad sounding. What makes me laugh is those tiny rooms are rented out every evening probably for 200 quid or something

 

Oh, another thing that I noticed was the age of the punters, i.e. there were very few guys in their 20s around. Years ago that was not the case. If I was in the hifi biz, I'd be very worried as it would tend to signal beginning of the end of high quality 2 channel hifi. When the current generation of hifi buff dies out/goes deaf, who is going to buy any of this kit?

 

Sorry if I got the price wrong but the TACT system really was awful on Friday. All that's bad about high-end sound even if not high-end price - so how much are those multi-driver speakers? Chord were also demonstrating that high-end wallowy sound that really isn't music, as usual. The Naim SL2 room played music much better than either but was hardly exciting, especially for the money. I thought the Naim DVD picture was pretty good.

I agree the Harbeths looked like a bad Taiwanese makeover but they did sound quite good (a 28in CRT telly looked a little out of place). Talking of bad makeovers, the prize must still go to Rega's red spray paint version. The decks in the Walrus room looked wonderful and made an excellent sound when the speakers didn't set the room off. Overkill was just as bad as last year (on CD). The AR, Wilsons were in a different league to anything else, I thought. Getting Absolute Sounds to play the Eels was a coup in itself.

In general, good to see lots of TTs and the AV was much less boomy than usual (ie MJ, Revel); either subs are getting better or people are learning how to use them (or both).

 

Damn, I wish I was there.

Not sure of the cost of the speakers, but they were under £20K. The electronics easily came to under £10K for the whole lot, ignoring the dcs transport which was not in use. We listened to a live recording of Pink floyd yesterday, and the Tact approach does seem to hold some promise, I just think it takes an age to set up properly.

 

Obviously, I agree that set-up, warm up are major show issues but I'm not sure they should be rolled out annually as excuses. If you can't set-up, warm up in time for the trade day then book in earlier and make sure you do. Must be worth the money. Path Premier/Mark Levinson used to do that and apparently managed to get a great sound out of their ref gear. Naim were proudly exclaiming that the Kan replacement's drivers arrived the day before and had only been bolted in on Thursday evening. Brinkmanship maybe, in-built excuse for poor show sound, maybe. Its hardly as though the show dates are announced the day before.

 

Ive always thought ''poor room acoustics'' is a bad excuse for poor sound at shows.

Its not as if the average punter has the perfect listening environment! - in fact a rather crap sounding hotel room is a good leveller, and no better than what most of us try to get a good sound out of at home I'd say.

 

Based on what was heard yesterday, only a very small amount of kit would have been worth a shop audition, let alone a home one Chris.

 

Went to the show yesterday and have to agree there were some systems that cost 10 times more than mine and sounded much worst IMO. However I did think there was some cool stuff on show that sounded pretty good. Some very good Danish alternative speakers(emilie by Raidho were good with the Cyrus), the Dali's with that Mackintosh amp sounded great!

I just get the impression that a lot of guys that go to these shows aren't in it for the music! Is it not about improving your set up to max. the sound you get for your fave tunes?? A lot seem more interested in buying the latest pulsar points or whatever. Agree that there was a lack of people in their 20's/30's which is a worry I think for the future of 2 channel sounds. Glad I didn't take my girlfriend along as there was a distinct lack of deodorant between hotels!!

On the flip side PMC were prepared to play some quality tunes which was refreshing. I hated the Rega red spray job but they play good music in that room. Where do most companies get off when it comes to shite music i.e. Norah Jones, Bulgarian orchestra stuff and the like? How are you going to attract younger folk into the rooms with that stuff? Get some dance, rock, chillout and some cooler music mixed into the crap and we may see an improvement IMO.

Did anyone go into the MelAudio room? Lovely looking gear but god, how harsh sould a 4k amp sound? The Cambridge room sounded better! Naim room...well I've never been a fan of their stuff...I really like the Pathos Logos Valve amp. Super sounding machine and mighty impressive looks. :MILD: Would that drive my Dyns??

Anyway I did enjoy a few rooms I saw so can't go on the negative side too much.

Cheers!

Iain

 

the other thing i found that in all of the rooms there was sound bleed from the surrounding room's systems and worst of all - inconsiderate gits (usually trade) blethering away over the music whilst joe public strains to listen. in fact i'd say there was a large amount of dealer apathy - if not out and out rudeness towards joe public, condecension was rife and the choice of music dire. the number of people who hung around outside a room as there were a couple of chinwagging 'red necklaces' blocking the way was astounding.
never mind home theater the high end's worst enemy is itself.
cheers


julian

 

Bugger! Haven't been able to make it after all :grrr: . Although...

...maybe not such a bad miss after all.

A fair point I reckon. Apart from I guess when it comes to trying to sell seriously big floorstanding speakers, which you could easily see would be overpowering in small rooms. Of course the sellers of such speakers should really get themselves bigger rooms, but I guess these come at a premium/are of limited number.

 

Julian, you're right about the music: I still hear more bloody Dire Straits in a day than I normally would in a decade, Floyd fan as I am - come on! Acoustic Energy refused to play anything other than Jamie Cullam, presumably in fear that anything more challenging would blow up the latest version of the AE1 - fears well founded I might add. At least PMC were playing Porcupine Tree although the thrill was diluted by having Steve Wilson suspended from the ceiling behind my left ear.

 

From my experience at the Tokyo show, there'd have been many fewer problems if they had turned the volume down. That said, totally unreal stunt bass seems to be the order of the day, so perhaps there really is no hope for high-fidelity.

 

Just to explain Gary, the Tact suboofers are designed to load a rear corner. Sadly the rear wall in their room was glass which required a compromise that still manged to impress a great number of non flatties. I thought it sounded OK, but then what do I know, I thought your Naim speakers sounded laughable