Some thoughts on Heathrow

They were Avanti mk III's and I would tend to agree that the bass was a bit loose. I think the room was too small for them.

Which demo track didn't you like; Faithless, Roger Waters or the unnamed Norwegian lady?

 

You can't really judge the bass performance of the vast majority of systems in a hi-fi show.

There are just too many constraints on speaker positioning and room nodes. You have to work with a listening area that is very different to a real listening room. It's generally after 9.00 or 10.00pm on the Friday night before most exhibitors even manage to get into their room, unload their equipment from the van and get any sound whatsoever. There really isn't enough time to do the adjustments needed and there's nothing like the warm-up time that most would like.

Even then, the difference between the bass response as you move from one chair to another is generally vast.

Forgedaboudit.

Regards
Steve

 

Steve,

Forgive me for being a little contrarian, but what you note above is an excellent description of problems that have all and sundary solutions.

To state the problems is to have identified them and to be therefore able to solve them, should one be so inclined.

That is a bit more of a problem, but again one ameanable to analysis and solution.

So, what you are really saying is that the purveyors of hugely expensive equipment (present company excluded) cannot be bothered to do their homework and to make sure they turn up with a system and the tools required to attain good sound!!??

Quite frankly, newbies and companies with very limited resources who make fairly affordable gear (eg. 3D Sonics/Real HiFi in 2003/2004 at the Radisson Edwardian and later at the Penta) MAY be excused on grounds like the above (though they rarely need it), yet even there, if you are going to spend a few grand on attending a show, why not do the few little bits of homework to make your stuff sounds good?

Anyway any truely appaling sound (and there is a lot of that at shows) and then from very expensive systems simply illustrates a massive incompetence (that is the nice option) or worth a cynism of extreme degree and to the detriment of the customer from those well resourced and funded larger companies.

No wonder this hobby is on the way to Walthamstow. If a £ 500 Sony Stak stsyem at home sounds no worse than 100K of gear, why bother?

Ciao T

 

I would like to refer the gentleman (7v) to Bristol 2006, where Coherent Syatems demonstrated bass control as it should be (even for a Hotel room)

 

The fact that most exhibitors weren't making sounds until late Friday evening was a function of when we were able to gain access to our rooms. Some of us then had to wait 2 hours for a trolley (which wouldn't fit into my car so I couldn't bring one) and another hour for the equipment stand manufacturer to have his stand ready for set up (not that I have any complaints there at all as Townsend clearly and correctly had other priorities)

In fairness, I wasn't talking about sounds in general but of bass response in particular. 3D Sonics uses dipoles which don't suffer from the same problems, 7V separates the bass below 150Hz which makes positioning and set up much easier and Coherent tames bass response with magic cables, mains treatments, flybees and whybees (and why notbees?).

Other than the comments I made about changes in room nodes and anti-nodes as one moves from chair to chair, I wasn't referring to us guys as much as to the other poor slobs. Specifically, I was trying to defend the Avantis mentioned above.

I agree that many of the 'majors' either don't know how or can't be bothered to achieve a decent sound. Maybe they don't have to. The sad truth is that the less well known companies have to make considerably more effort while the majors will sell equipment no matter how bad it sounds - but not for ever, the bastards

Regards
Steve

 

Hi,

Forgive for saying so, but all these are merely down to not having really stamped down on things. We brought our own High End stands from skandinavian manufacture, when trolleys where needed a small "dash" for the porters did wonders, having worked out the system setup in both cases up front and having made sure all needed was present we where up and running in no time.

In fact, at the two expos I was at I had good enough sound early enough to go have a nice supper at the restaurant and a few beer.

Well, we use dipoles mixed with monopoles for the low bass and I always have a Behringer DEQ in the pocket, with all cables needed to loop them into the subwoofer path and to use the subwoofer output if needed up to 150Hz to discourage room mode boom. Any other speaker can use the same priciple, a sub in each corner and antiphase energy to de-energise room mores.

My point is that there are many methodes to make sure the problem is not a problem, one merely needs to make the effort.

Node/antinode variations can be helped by adding some small subs to in effect operate against the room modes. Or you can re-arrange your whole listening setup diagonally and place the seats for reduced interaction. Again, many options.

To me, walking into a room, sitting down to £ 10K worth of equipment and to be annoyed at the sound is making me being there a waste of (my) time (as Visitor). And that ultimatly makes it a waste of time to be there as exhibitor.

Ciao T

 

Thanks for the recommendation, it's playing now and I like it a lot.

 

You're very welcome Markus. As you can guess, I've listened to it a lot in the last couple of days. I've also bought Masters Of Percussion (MRCD 1012) after hearing it in the Pinsh (?) room. I haven't played it yet though, only arrived today. I expect it to be a bit tamer but still good.

 

Was anyone demo-ing any kind of room correction kit?
The Copland for example? I would think the compromised rooms at such a show would be a great place to sit people down play a bit uncorrected and then switch it over.

 

http://www.lyngdorfaudio.co.uk/NEWS/SHOWS/LHR-4-06/

Regards
Bob

 

Slightly late entry into this thread...

Hi Steve (7_V),

It was a nice surprise to see that Seventh Veil were exhibiting at the show and on my brief visit I thought the sounds being made by your Nonsuch speakers very good indeed. I saw you sitting there nodding away quite happily to the sound too! I would have liked to pop over for a chat but thought that I would just spoil it for everyone else so I thought I'd better not!

Oh well, another time eh!

Cheers,

Jon

 

Thanks Jon.

It was a successful show for the company, although I wasn't actually selling the product on demo! It's typical that when you say that a product isn't for sale people want to buy it.

Seventh Veil will be at Heathrow in September (Chesterfield rather than Hi-Fi News). I'm hopeful we're have the new Nonsuch 2 there. Definitely say 'Hello', Jon.

Regards
Steve

 

Will do, Steve.

Chesterfield - that's the free one, innit?

Cheers,

Jon