so saturday then....

How long have you been in southampton martin? You are just down the road from me.

I'll be the guy in the suit with the longish hair hanging around syndicate room 8 or 9, but i'll try and escape to the bar at 3ish, the pink shirt and tie should be enough for you to spot me

Chris.

 

Hi Chris, I've actually been in Southampton for just over a year now, so I ought to change my 'location' comment I guess! I'll make sure I pop into your room to say hello tomorrow,

Martin

 

What are the members views of the show? I arrived on Saturday about 2:50pm and first went to the ART room. The look of the loudspeakers they were playing seemed to follow to many other 'modern contemporary' designed boxes, in silver too! I have always been one to say that looks are low down on my list so spending time trying to listen in this room wore my patience very thin.
First there was the clan of people who seemed to know the exhibitors and spent considerable time getting excited over certain pieces of vinyl in the room, but above all, both the exhibitors and their 'associates' were creating far too much noise of their own.
When I was able to listen I found the ART sound to be very dry and thin. More time was needed here to really exploit a wider musical genre with less background noise from the idiots in the room!
Next room I went to was my old Buddies Ian and Peter of Alium Distribution. They had a very nice Consonance set up with their new CD player at £1800, passive pre-amp at £1700, mono-blocs at £4000, and some new spkears from France costing around £3000.
We got a chance to play a wide selection of music and considering they only received the speakers from the manufacturer on Thursday morning, I was very impressed with the sound from this set-up/room (probably one of the best at the show). There was some definite signs of lack of control in the bass but we put this down to the speakers still needing to be run-in, so I'm quite looking forward to hearing this system again once there are a few more hours on it.
TacT room sounded terrible, so I will stop there!
Dropped by the (I think) Audiophile Club as I noticed they were using a KR Audio Antares 320 in the demo system. When I arrived they were also using some other mono-blocs by a different manufacturer which I think were about £12k but I could not tell which units they had set up and the exhibitor was busy. I planned to go back but never made it.
A Audio Solutions room with the Dali loudspeakers and McIntosh components was pretty impressive, but, as many visitors may testify, Andy likes to toe-in his speakers considerably and while in the past visiting his other demo systems which have worked quite well, this time I felt the toe-in was just too much, creating a 'confused' image on one particular CD. Still, this system has huge potential (I did ask Andy if he is still carrying the Korato line and he responde dby saying that he is but finding it difficult to get dealers to take a product that performs at such a high level but is priced considerably less. He has managed to sign up only one dealer so far).
My next lengthy stop was with the Noteworthy Audio boys who were running some very large corner horns. I know that Peter is a big tube and horn guy and he put together a very nice system, but for my tastes I felt it was purely 'nice', just not involving enough. Mark Orr was also in attendance, he builds the Something Solid range of equipment and speakers stands. All the equipment was stacked up on Mark's tensile wire racks, which Peter testifies perform superbly. I know having spent time looking at other similar types of designs in the past Mark's prices probably represent a true bargain for what you are getting.
I have to say that I was not overly excited by anything I saw or heard at the show, and what was worrying is that (as one exhibitor expressed it),..."There is a serious lack of young people here today, everyone seems to be well over 30 and it's becoming more and more like and enthusiasts/geeks industry".
Exhibitors expressed to me that more dealers are going out of business and if we get another hot summer there will definitely be more to follow. Yes, there was plenty of woe and grief expressed to me, but then I was once part of this industry so maybe it's just people who know me well enough using me to vent off at because of how slow things are.
Be interested to read what others felt about the show and what they thought was memorable. :JOEL:

 

i'd agree with the aging market comment but what do you expect? i think mike summed it up best with: it's a lovely sunny day and i'm stuck in here listening to this jazz shite. the industry is targeting the pipe and slipper brigade so that's what it gets. the most upbeat thing i heard at the show was some ac/dc which was immediately followed by some religeous muzak so they lost credibility pretty quick. most requests for something more upbeat or with balls were greeted with quizical looks or neatly glossed over in favour of saint krall, lord brubeck or similar.

that said the audio note room was pretty good in an inoffensive - could listen to it all day kind of way and there were a few other rooms which struck me as not bad - dali, tusk, renasance (solid state) whilst the avid room was good for reasons other than the sound (which was awful).
my biggest problem with most of the rooms was the harsh / bright quality that seems to be masquerading as 'hi-fi' these days. now i'm a bit of a naimie so that's somethign comming from me. there were very few systems that didn't make me want to leave after a few minutes (and most of those that i could listen to had a macintosh amp somewhere in the mix). i walked straight out of the leema instant headache room, towshend was playing opera and was using supertweeters which set my teeth on edge and the avid room only kept me in thanks to a rubberclad arse but the horrid noises eventually soured even that.
the noteworthy audio room was good although a bit 'outdoor eventish' the metropolis / boulder room was underwhelming in the extreme for a 100k+ system and that's about it the rest of it was pretty unremarkable.
imho the industry needs a right kick up the arse. make big speakers fasionable again and design some amps that sound good with modern music instead of with only classical, opera and jazz - what self respecting 20 something listens to that?
cheers


julian

 

We're not all over 30. We just don't go in for all that hifi show crap.

 

Amen to that. The industry is partly the cause of its own downfall I am afraid. Hifi is just not interesting enough to the majority of young twenty something guys. I did see a couple of younger guys going around (dragging their girlfriends) but what must they have thought after going into room after room playing soft jazz shit/female vocalists. Its enough to put them off for life. Most of these guys are spending their money on AV and I can only see it getting worse I am afraid.

Kudos to the perigee room for actually having a more real world collection of music (eg PIL) and being prepared to play it.

What speakers were they using? I forget now.

There were an inordinate amount of Macintosh amps being used and I am not suprised as they are fab. The audio-note room and the macintosh room were the best rooms at the show for me, but the best rooms of the day were my living room and Merlin's living room before we actually got to the show.

Cheers

 

There were some very accommodating dealers. Tusk, Noteworthy, Art and one or two others (whose name I can't remember) asked me if I had any requests (switching off was not considered a good request) or my own CDs. I think the dealers can never win in this situation. If they play something with balls, it empties the room quickly. In other words anything other than middle of the road stuff is about as welcomed as a fart in a lift.

On the whole I enjoyed this show because it was all HiFi (apart from one room) and it was a small and friendly gathering and you could talk to the exhibitors and in some systems you could listen to good music.

 

IMO good rooms:

1) audionote.
these audionote speakers have a really non-fatigueing listen-for-hours sound. All powered from an 8w audionote amp.

2) lector/viva/art audio

Mick P would be happy, seeing a garrard in use.
Those Viva amps really appeal. nice big fat 845's (it seemed to me my favorite valve amps of the day used 805s/845s or 211's or some combination).
Lector CDP's and phono stages look to be good value.
art audio made some good sounds, although those long-throw drivers would be poor for near field listening IMO. Needs a big room.

3) audio aero capitole/audio aero prestige monoblocks/ BC acoustique

bc acoustique - an awful lot of speaker, 4.5k. treble was owww when too close, sounded much better 10ft+ away, like the art audio's.

capitoles - sounded decent.

pretige monoblocks - again with the large 845 valves. Really more 'snappy sounding' perhaps a good power supply? at 12k for the pair silly money. very nice though mmmmmm.

Dissapointments

1) Dynavector

Why when showing 'superstereo' do they insist on using the cheapest crappest speakers they can get??? people who pay £6 for hifi shows havent got 30 quid speakers.

2) Leema speakers

nasty and shit. we had a giggle and left after about 10 seconds.

3) noteworthy audio.

I know what big horns and large cones can do, but for some reason they didnt get a decent sound. I don't know why. My eyes bugged out when I saw grf's/autographs/vitavox speakers in the room, and my heart sank when I heard them. The room was a cavern, which probably didnt help. I'd have liked to have heard the autographs. Seems like a waste to cart 200kg speakers all that way and then leave them stuffed in a corner.

In short:

Shindo labs, viva, audio aero, lector all impressed the most.


oh, and yeah Im bloody sick of Diana Krall - the only alternative to lounge lizzard music seems to be audiophile silly label stuff. get real.

as for the low attendance, well its that type of event. Its Britains 5th or 6th biggest annual hifi show. nuff said.

 

Well if anyone wants to set up an exhibit in the future but have access to my vinyl collection which not only contains years of material from sedate listening excursions but also a wealth of electronic musik from the underground dance scene then they are more than welcome, I may even come out of retirement as DJ/mix-master supreme for the weekend
Noteworthy did play 'Verve Remixed' (no, not the band The Verve but the old Jazz label), this is a great album especially tunes like See-Line Woman by Nina Simone remixed by Masters at Work, but for me it did not sound right at all on their system.
I also went into the True Colours room while they were just finishing a loudspeaker cable comparison test and they were playing Faithless.
But it was too little amidst a wealth of snobby musical ideas.
I did speak to the Allen & Heath guys at Plasa last year about their top of the line valve mixer and asked them if they had any plans to produce a set of amps to match the quality of the mixer, they agreed that in the pro-circuit there really wasn't anything in the way of power amps to balance out the quality of the valve mixer/pre-amp.
Maybe we should start a new forum called 'Age-Gain', where we strive to only play modern music for the younger generation so they can be educated on the levels of sound performance in relation to equipment!! :MILD:

 

I've been pleased to meet at least four young'uns - five if I count 'a grumpy young fogey' - from this Forum in Edinburgh over the past year in some sort of bake-off, so not sure that its as bad as you're painting. Seems like a call for an 'age poll' here on ZG. Maybe its a 'what shall I do on one of the sunniest weekends of the year?' question.

 

Hey, don't make me out as being the bad one here, I wa sonly repeating and summarising the comments of those I met at the show!

I don't consider myself 'old' even though 40 is fast approaching (or so my wife keeps reminding me). But we have to agree, this industry needs a serious kick up the butt, the real question is who's man enough to pull it off considering what we know so far about who runs the shows and how certain magazines try to run things?

 

Quite right Listenear,
Your bang on the money, prehaps a stout fellow as yourself should get things rolling on this . I mean most of the hifi industry is so bed togther its almost Incestious.
More youngsters are required, anyone care to poll the average age at the show?

 

"stout fellow",...hahaha,...yes you are correct Oh Wadia Master

A little too stout if you want the truth!!

Why don't we as Zero Gain members put on an exhibit at a show? I am sure between us, with our contacts we can get the equipment together for the room, and I can't be the only one with access to a large and varried collection.

Only problem is funds for the rent of the room, which if split between enough members would not actually be that much.

Takers anyone?

Hey if the old Jamaican sound systems that ran valve amps made out of milk crates could run those huge 'Reggae Sunsplash' type events then I'm sure we can do something on a reduced but more refined level.

What would be the equipment of choice though (can see an argument arising over this one!)?

 

I liked the AudioNote and Tusk rooms, Tusk a new name to me, a modified Naim CD3 into their own preamp and power amp - built into a Linn amp case, classy - into JMR speakers didn't try to do anything spectacular and sounded basically pretty good, and the Tusk blokes seemed to have decent music taste. AudioNote got all the important things right, and was fine, easily the best room. The Noteworthy room was a disappointment, I agree with bottleneck, on paper it should have been great, but wasn't. There were a fair number of expensive, and basically shite, speakers, on display, and lots of bling electronics for those who like that sort of thing.

Nice to see Dean (SCIDB) again, didn't spot any other ZGers.

I managed to play Faust, Kraftwerk, Congotronics, and Wadada Leo Smith without getting thrown out of any rooms, although the Faust track might have been pushing it a bit

Hardly anybody there, again. I wonder for how much longer anyone will bother to exhibit there.

-- Ian

 

it's a shame as basicly for all my bitching it is my favorite hi-fi show. you get to see some fantasticly outlandish bits of kit (even though most don;t sound too hot thanks to the rooms). i for one have best wishes for it and will continue to attend as long as it goes on. bristol is now basicly an a/v show and big heathrow is going that way too. i'll probably still go to both heathrows but skip brizzle next year.
cheers


julian

 

Well this is the first Hi-Fi show I have been to and I really enjoyed it! I went along slightly worried I would come away thinking my system was pants compared to the mega buck ones and feel the upgrade itch in a major way, but I didn't!

For me the best rooms have to be the one with the Wilson Benesch A.C.T and the TacT room. The Acoustistat room was utter crap, never heard such a wishy-washy sound.

The room with the new Wilson Beneschh ACT sounded very dynamic and clean while having a good soundstage. Really my sort of sound if some measures to fix the room were in place. How much do they cost? I think if I were to move up the ladder I would still stick to PMC, but they were certainly nice.

The TacT room was also extremely dynamic though slightly harsh in the treble. Although the bass had a flat frequency response (better than most rooms already) there was still quite obviously boom in the room from a longer RT60 than would be preferred. For the money of £6K making the entire system its very impressive.

Going home I notice that although my system is far far better controlled and sure of itself, the simple scale is not there compared to many of the large systems at the show. Now I am left asking the question is this because I should have a better front end than my Cambridge Audio Disc Magic and Behringer DEQ2496 or is it the fact my room is tiny and the speakers are smaller?

I didn't see Mr.Resolution, did anyone? I think he would be the only person capable of making a worse sound than Acoustistat. The sound just hung around the speakers and didn't feel like coming over too the listener to play! Soundstage was wide but had no pinpointing ability.

I sat in the bar at around 3:15 wearing my Guinness shirt but no one tapped me on the shoulder to say Hi, I'm from ZeroGain!

 

Oh I liked the Audio Note room as well but maybe that was because someone was playing some Rage Against the Machine when I went in there! On vinyl as well.

 

Yes, sorry I meant to say that I did not see anyone from ZA either although there was a point in the Noteworthy Audio room where apparently someone called me by my screen name (Listening Ear), but I did not hear them (the Noteworthy guy told me after the other guy left the room!!!).
Whoever it was, apologies, I was not ignoring you, just obviously paying too much attention to something else.

 

Tenson, interesting to note that you liked the WB act room (I assume you mean the music matters one). Sure it was dynamic and clean, but to me it was clinical and sterile. Move two doors down to the McIntosh / Dali room and you get dynamic and detailed with plenty of body. For me it was the best system at the show by some margin. I suppose its all down to personal taste.

Has anyone tried the dynavector superstereo in a proper system? It seemed to add quite a lot to his setup, but it was hard to tell with those piddly little anthony gallo's he was using as the main speakers. I wonder if the low output from the dynavector adapter would get swamped with larger main speakers and amp.

 

Hi,

It was an interesting show.

It was good to meet up with Ian (Sideshowbob) and hear about his tales from Japan.

I like the Audionote room (as usual), this sounded very natural and enjoyable.

I like the Tusk audio room. Nice looking stuff that will engaging sound.

The Whest phono stage looked & sounded interesting and is an item to look out for.

The Laser turntable didn't sound any better than a top notch deck.

I found the Emporium/Viva/ Art loudspeakers system impressive looking but lacked a magic to the sound. Wouldn't mind trying this with some other speakers.

Didn't like the sound form the Audiocraft room, The combo of the budget Rogues and the Marten Design speakers didn't sound too clever.

The Audiophile club room with Audio Aero stuff and the KR Audio amps sounded ok but at a big price.

The Acoustat speakers didn't perform very well. I don't think the amp was up to the job.

ALium audio had a very good looking cd player on offer and loads of reasonable priced valve gear.

The Avid room ddidn't sound very good. This was disappointing because I have heard some excellent sounds from Avid in the past. They were sharing with Chord and playing at low volumes. One of the best looking rooms with the 'bling' choral gear and the PVC clad young lady. Why can't more companies do this.

I like the look of the Noteworthy room with a range of good looking gear but the sound from the £25000 Vitvox was a bit disappointing. It was nice sounding and effortless. But having heard a pair of Living Voice horns do the biz I know where my money will go. There were some Octave horn speakers lined up on the side wall. It would have been nice to hear those. I like the look of the CEC Cd transport.

The McIntosh stuff looked good as always.

The HiFidelity room with the big Hybrid digital amp didn't do it for me. Nice looking amp with power meters.

On the whole, I'm not rushing out with my cheque book but there was food for thought.

The music on the whole was better than most shows I have been to. I didn't hear any Nora Jones. When Ian and I went round on Sunday, none of the exhibitors refused to play or records or cds. Too be truthful, they do have a tough time to entertain people with different choices of music. So always bring some music with you. I have done this for the last few years at shows.

The show was very relaxed. It allowed us to wander around at our lesure. There wasn't alot people there and at many times, we were the only people in many rooms.

I'm sorry if I didn't meet up with any one. Chris Jennings and Tension were there on Sunday, I think. Chris, Ian and I were in your room. We should have said hello. You were in the room with Lamm amps? You couldn't miss me, I was the one with the bright orange jacket and funky record bag.

I must admit, a number of high priced systems don't show high potential at shows. Shows should help to sow seeds and get people thinking about Hi Fi.

On the music front, I played Gregory Isaacs, Amp Fiddler, Roland Alphonso and Herbie Mann.

SCIDB