Rob, we are not interested in your mis-use of contact cleaning fluids.
What did you see? What did you hear?
Hi Brian, nice to see you
Truth be told, as a veteran of these shows for over 25 years, the main reason for going is social as unless there on business and exhibiting, you just tend to see people reinventing the wheel.
They even book the same rooms year after year in which to do it.
The plan for our gang is to bomb around the show visiting a few rooms of interest then retire for cocktails and chatter in the excellent Severnshed bar/restaurant nearby.
There were one of two things of interest.
The Naim UniQute looks very impressive especially given the low cost and the usual high quality Naim build.
This to me is the true evolution of Julian's Nait 1 - shoebox amp with built in ability to handle digital sources. If the limited power isn't a problem it should suit many.
Martin and I had a long and interesting chat with Martin Colloms about mains pollution and for me that was worth more than seeing the same electronics as yesteryear in new cases.
He is working on an epic article discussing the deteriorating quality of UK mains and i'm looking forward to reading it in the next edition of Hi-Fi Critic. I'm of course quite sceptical of claims for mains wires and conditioners but Martin is looking at things from many different angles and he's got my interest - much to my surprise!
Nice also to chat with Paul Messenger and talk about ESL57 with some interesting new slate stands that extend the baffle area.
I'll report more when Paul sends me the details.
That was it really, so buy a UniQute and everyone please take a subscription to Critic and support a good quality, genuinely advertisement free audio publication.
Rob.