Silverstone show, visitor reports.

Good to meet Rob, Nando and see Simon (tenson) and Dev again.

Think we need a new thread to talk about the show though...

..made nice change for me... drove back to MK for the pub in about ten minutes, and home in another 5 !....

 

hi, chris just got back, nice to have met you, i know what the best room was, new thead is a good idea,
nando.

 

Lots on show, but many of them were struggling having pointlessly plonked big dick speakers in the middle of cavernous room with zero thought for acoustics. At least Absolute sounds made sure the Wilsons were correctly placed, and it showed, ( their audio fireworks demo was shit though).

Cabasse, Gamut, gash.

Focal, best i've heard them sound, which is damning them with faint praise.

ABC audio room, down compared to last years Heathrow show, but still very good, one of the best.

Trilogy Audio, tiny speakers, awesome sounding, coherent, accurate, lacking real bass but they were tiny.

Naim DAC, I saved £2000 today, nuff said.

Can't remember the room, but not a Henley room, the SHiraz cartridge sounded very good, defo one to investigate.

The ROy Gregory, science looking for a buyer dog and pony show.


Well , well well, so we can now measure the effects of jitter and see it, closeup. That's what this was a demo of the measureable differences between repeated red book playback. Frequency and time domain responses were analyzed, when fioo was added reductions in noise (the noise they were looking at not total noise) were reduced by 35%. What they nglected to mention is that 35% at -130db is an absolutely inaudible slice of inaudibility.

Sure they swapped cables and everyone ooed and arred when they showed graphs of the reductions they measured for the same component swaps, but did I hear a difference, did I buggery, despite being told what I'd heard.

When we were done questions were allowed, so i asked, " it's great to see that advances are being made in measurement and that we can now measure the differences in signal that appear to come from 'treatments', but what correlation has been performed to prove that these differences are audible? I see everyone nodding their heads as Roy tells us what we heard, but that's not the same as proving anyone can actually hear these measurement levels, is it? is there any intent to join up the measurement proof with audibility proof?"

You can imagine the rambling response which skirted the question.
" So that's a no then, i take it?"

They really have the opportunity to do some good science here, and provide real proof of audibility to the claims the foo makers have made for years. I can't help but think they aren't bothered, proof of measurable difference is all they are after, audibility of same be damned.....

A well attended show, with some very average sounds.

 

That must have been a lousy pint!.

 

The Audio Note room seemed to be the only room making music IMHO

 

haha! nice one

what did you think of those Cabasse Spheres Dev? Have you ever seen anything stranger in speaker-land?

Straight from Doctor Who..

http://www.macintom.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/cabasse-sphere.png

 

they even sounded like him, , would you have them in your house?
simon would, ha ha,
nando.

 

your friend and i nver got to lissen to the cona room,
nando.

 

Great to meet everyone again yesterday and nice to meet Chris for the the first time.

A very enjoyable show. Some great conversation, met some interesting people and for me that's what makes shows worthwhile.
TBH the sound in most room ranged from mediocre to poor and the venue brought no benefits over the usual Heathrow venues.

There were two stand out rooms for me:
Stamford Audio were playing a pair of large Magneplanars and that sounded clean and effortless. Excellent performance and worth the £6k IMO.

Second was the little Naim system featuring the Uniti.
They deserve every success with the new integrated unit which sounded better being fed from an iPod than many systems at 10x the price.

All I can say about the new Naim DAC is that it sounded at least as good as the CDX2 feeding it. I only heard a couple tracks so cannot say how much better it performs (if at all) compared to the CDX2 but that is praise in itself as that is a superb machine IMO. If I can stream into the new £2k DAC and it sounds like a middleweight Naim integrated palyer, well I wouldn't complain

 

quote

i agree , the show was a little big poor, most exivitors were ott, some brought nostalgia of era that was once a wonderfull venue and industry that thrived on enthusiasem, fun, and personal views with humour, the thing that enjoyed most was meeting ,not only manufacturers from time gone by, but the good laughs and conversations that we from the forum had, and the bar that we visited as much as we could, thanks friends for helping me walk, and thanks dev for that tuna sanwitch, nice one rob and cograts simon,
nando.

 

I've never seen as many rooms where speakers were just dropped into the middle of the room with not so much as a seconds thought being given to acoustics.

The smaller rooms did much better in general.

 

i did like the new quad valve integrated amp, shame about the speakers they used, and the old feshion looking new pre-mp, i wonder what the intgrated will sound like with a pair of tannoy dual concentrics? looked very nice, hard to say as to it's full potential,
nando.

 

Nando as the world wooshes past!




Rob and Nando/ The best part of the show really was sitting out in the garden and having a drink and a chat.





Chris, Chris' friend (sorry!), and Dev.





JonR (from PFM).





Mr. Messenger at the Critic stand.





Peter Comeau, Doug Graham and Rob.





Alan Sircom presenting my prestigous award for Standmount Loudspeaker Product of the Year Highly Comkmended. Don't I look happy, haha





Chris utilising the 'Pleasure Control'






The most frequencted room of the show.





And now the other photos.

 

The best machinese at the show!

 

thaks simon , the world did woooossshhh by ,nice photos mr david baily, i did enjoy our day out, i will pm you as dealers,
hope the next show has better service at the bar, congrats again,
nando.

 

Probably best not to comment on the styling but sound-wise I quite liked them, but not enough to want to buy them, even if I could afford them. They are worth are simply not worth £70k to me (I think that's what was quoted). I've heard better.

 

I really liked those Magneplanar ribbons that Rob mentioned too.

All they lacked was punch in the bass - but after hearing some agressive sounding systems it was a refreshing change.

The model I believe is the 3.6. I noticed there is a pair on Audiogon for 3,600 euro. A great price for a £6k speaker that sounded as good as anything at the show.

http://www.magnepan.com/_mg36.php

It was nice to tag a listen to the Pioneer Tad S1EX floorstanders

http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/307piosex/

These use a Berillium diaphragm in a dual concentric tweeter/midrange unit. It's not a compression driver, but is dual concentric. There are a couple of bass cones below. The cabs are about 70kg apiece, and the sound is very monitor-like but full.

The TAD/Pioneers were somewhat troubled by bass reflected from the sidewalls. Traps existed behind the listener and the speakers themselves, but for such a full sounding system it wasn't enough.

The Naim Ovator speakers suffered in much the same way.

http://www.naim-audio.com/products/ovator.html

People who associate Naim speakers with being somewhat thin wall-placed things have not heard these !

The most full sounding and enjoyable Naim speaker I've ever heard. Definately one for the larger room, and again in the room it didn't give of it's best.


For me walking away - the importance of room acoustics and gettig these bare-bones right has only been highlighted.

No wonder panels won me over on the day, suffer (as they don't) in this way.


Lots of other thoughts, but those are my key words.

I am also looking forward to buying this software -

http://www.audioaffair.co.uk/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=2748&gclid=CPKRzdzckp0CFaBb4wod60JJ3Q

Here we have a PC soundcard/ mike and the software that goes with it.. soo simple to use.

Plot how your system sounds in real time -flexible and best of all '5 year olds' could use it.

You really need to see it working to want it (badly!) like I do.

This will really help me with acoustic treatments after the sound-proofing work in my new home.

Top stuff.

 

Hi,

Went to the show today. Very enjoyable overall.

Nice drive down and was easy to get to. Good to see free parking on offer. Bumped into many people of various forums and various people from the industry.

Popped into many rooms on my travels around the show. Some nice looking stuff, some weird looking items, some impresive & some not so. Some very high prices on offer as well.

I like the sound of the Trlilogy room with those funky looking amps and those mega expensive speakers. £11,000 for those small speakers. The sound flowed well but was surprised would I found out the price of the speakers.

The Icon audio room sounded ok. I liked the look of those 845 monos for £2500. Might investigate a pair at some stage.

Popped into the ABC room and met Paul Benge. Nice chap. I thought the sound was good with some interesting looking amps driving some Pioneer speakers.

Saw the new Quad amp which I thought looked interesting. I quite liked the looks.

Spent a fair bit of time in the Avid room. I liked the Acutus anniversary deck that was playing and those funky looking Escalante Fremont. I do feel that the room was holding them back. I endied up playing "DJ" while Conrad Mass was doing other things. Very enjoyable.

The Real Hifi room with the Horning amps and speakers sounded ok but was very expensive . The speakers are something I wouldn't mind trying.

The Puresound/Aspara room sounded very good to me. The room was massive. I like the Aspara HL1 speakers and may investigate further. They gave good intergration of the sound with a fine sense of naturalness and musical flow. Kept my attention. I even like the looks.

The Naim stuff looked fine, the dac didn't sound poor but I could tell if it was a gaint killer or not.

Quite liked the Zu speakers which gave a good account of themselves. Quite dynamic and made music flow. Didn't match the aspara speakers but don't cost as much.

Saw the prototype of the new Systemdek turntable, The 3D. This looked very good and sounded promising. I enjoyed listening to it.

The Audionote Room sounded very good as always. They were playing Rage against the Machine when I popped in.

Had a listen to the Stax headphones. starting at £450 ish upto a very many peenies. On that listen, I thought the cheap ones had the best value and didn't sound too far behind the more expensive ones. Another one to investigate.

Had a listen to a modded Technics via headphones. The Technics had a jelco arm, Audio Technica cart, powers supply upgrade etc. Didn't sound like a giant killer to me. It sounded alright. Something to investigate further.

I very much liked the look of the Big funky retro looking EAR 912 pre amp.Complete with analogue Vu meters. It looks the part.

I also found that the music played could have been more adventurous. Too safe (too bland) in too many rooms. I brought along a few items that were well received by a number of people demming and helped to fill their rooms.

So a good day out and I look forward to next year.

Dean