Virtually everything at the Renaissance was deeply average I thought. The Tact room sounded a bit flat and lifeless, but I have heard it sounding much better (at Bristol a couple of years ago). I think a simpler Tact system in a smaller room would have been a much better idea. I liked the Mel Audio room a lot - beautiful gear, nice sounds, and the designer liked John Zorn so much he wrote down the name of the CD I played. My kind of guy. I also liked the Ferguson Hill room more than I thought I would. Having heard these before and been underwhelmed, I thought they did a good job of what horns do well. Silly money mind you, for a speaker with such obvious limitations.
The Park Inn had the quirkier, more entertaining systems. I liked the second IES room, Metronome CD transport/DAC 64/Lamm preamp/Renaissance monoblocks/Wilson Benesch Discoveries. I've never been much taken with WB speakers, but these sounded good, very clean and analytical, and they were playing good music in this room, which always helps. I only had a brief listen to the Neat AV room but it certainly had sufficient low-end welly, and no subwoofer required.
The Harbeth NRG speakers. Hmm. They look horrible in the flesh, and it was pretty obvious from chatting with Alan Shaw that his preference is for Harbeth old-style, but for what they are they didn't sound too bad. Too expensive compared to the competition in the UK (the floorstanders are £1200 or so, another £400 would get a pair of Compact 7s, no contest really), but apparently they're selling well in China, and to a younger market than Harbeth's traditional speakers, so maybe it makes some commercial sense outside the UK.
GT Audio was pretty good, beautiful DPS turntable into Tron amps and Avantguarde Duo horns, but, again, horns are horns, and probably not good enough all-rounders for me. The Walrus room (Brinkmann LaGrange TT, Air Tangent arm, Polish Amplifon valve amp into Duevels) was pretty good too, I like Duevels a lot, although they do look utterly ridiculous.
The best room of the lot, and the one I spent the longest in by far, was the 47 Labs room. A brief visit to hear the top of the range CD and vinyl setup (£21K transport anyone?), through Gaincard amps into Konus Essence single-driver speakers, was promising, I went back later and heard the "entry-level" Shigaraki stuff into tiny single-driver mini-monitors, which sounded great fun, and then got the chance to listen to Zorn, Kraftwerk, and a few other things, through the main setup again. I really like the Konus speakers, the Zorn track (Ne'eman, from Masada Live in Middelheim if anyone cares) absolutely f*cking rocked through this setup, probably the best I've ever heard it. Real attack and bite on Zorn's sax and Douglas's trumpet, but not in the least fatiguing. If I was a brand whore with more money than sense I'd be happy with a full 47 Labs setup. As well as sounding great it's also the coolest gear on the planet IMO.
Nice to meet up with the regulars again, and to meet Tony L for the first time. The socialising aspect is always the best thing about these shows.
-- Ian