Heathrow Sound and Vision

Just got back from this. Only managed the Park Inn, might go back tomorrow for the Renaissance

First thoughts

Loads of indifferent sounds, often played too loud

Quite a few really interesting rooms though

Best of show for me
Metropolis with Lumley Stratosphere; Boulder monoblocks, and Ascendo speakers - seriously expensive though, but what a sound

Living Voice with latest OBX-RW, silly money Kondo, and Kuzma Reference turntable. And of course the ridiculous wall full of batteries.

Coherent, though I found the JMLabs a bit strident

Audiocraft, with rather excellent Amphion speakers

Pinsh, with big Ribbons

Great to see Apogee back, still looking fabulous

Most disappointing, Audio Acoustics really expensive £60k speakers sounding really aggressive

I went looking for a CD player to replace my Wadia 6, and was taken with the Esoterice X-01, the Moon Andromeda, and, surprisingly, the Resolution Audio, which at a third of the price of the others still seemed to give great music.
Of course this might have been because it was on the front of the Kondo/Living Voice system. However, it didn't seem embarassed in comparison to the Kuzma turntable. Kevin is of the frm view that it is up there with the others mentioned, and I'm not going to argue

Worth the trip then

 

you must have visited the mackintosh room awesome , wish i was a milionare, see you tomorrow. nando.

 

Audiocraft, with rather excellent Amphion speakers

What model were they using ??

 

When I was in the room they were playing Tom Waits : way better than Diana K, Katie M, Norah J ,The Eagles and the usual hi fi show well produced , audiophile approved garbage.

 

In Munich I thought the Ascendo speakers were one of the best I liked. They had them in two rooms, one with german electronics including a room equalizer and the other with tube amps. Great o hear how speakers react to the different electronics behind them.

How did you like the Apogees?

 

Apogee were pretty good, but didn't really grab me as much as I can remember. Still look absolutely gorgeous. Apparently far less power hungry than before, so perhaps useable with 'normal' amps

Amphions were the Ions. They were playing jazz and Tom Waits at below show levels of volume and sounded really sweet. Playing through the Esoteric (which was in several rooms)

The Mc Intosh room was seriously impressive, but absolutely impractical. It would fill a reasonably large room all on its own!!

 

Apogee were for me the best sound I heard (but then I am biased) You can use them with 20W of valves or 5W of SS, apparently.

Most of the sounds were pretty naff actually, the usual audiophile noise. There was only one room, the Audiopax/Ecosse room, that was playing proper music for me (The Doors and Pink Floyd) It was a refreshing listen, for me anyway...

I thought the Renaissance show wasn't very good at all: the Park Inn was much, much better. I did pick up a couple of LP's and I am glad I went, but I probably won't go to any more. Ho hum (and I have had a headache all day

 

I thought the metropolis rooms were pretty average at both shows, all of those systems were thrashed by other systems there at 10% of the price - like the real hifi system and AMR, and the coherent room.

The kondo room sounded ok - nice tonality and very smooth but no way worth the hype. The MBL was exceptional on some types of music, didnt suit rock though.

Funk firm was pretty good, as were some of the planar speakers like the audiostatic.

The mac room had a big bold sound but not to my taste and a bit vulgar looking.

In general the cheaper better balanced systems sounded best. Most of the 100K+ systems were pretty undistinguished.

 

Just come back .......So to say Hi to all those Zerogainers I missed !

Macintosh were the pick for me ..... coherent room sound was ok but that was it, wm was very disappointed.

low lights .....
meridan I expected much more
resolution ..truely awful build quality sound was great [as they weren't playing ]
Naim.... all three rooms rather lack luster
townsend ..good sound but the most hidious bling anywhere


Highlights

phonosophie ...very impressive demonstration of the little blue, light and the cd flux [I bought a bottle so I'll report back]

quadraspire "wobbly is the new stiff" equipment stack stunning demo of repeatable effect both adding and taking away ....food for thought hear[pun]

Audionote ....just great sound from real world priced kit.


It was a pleasure to get back to Mr sukebe's and Ting's place listen to some good gear.... thanks again for a great weekend.

 

For me my favourite sounds where Townshend and Listen Carefully and MBL with the alien like speakers.

The new speaker Listen Carefully had impressed me (Podium 1) it wasn't an electrostatic or a ribbon but was just 10kg and only a few centimetres thick and needed no mains power.
Vocals sounded amazing on it.

As for Townshend, i liked everything chromed, it sort of disappeared as it reflected the rest of the room. I am also a huge fan of the stands as i use one for my hifi and have just ordered the speaker stands, so i will report back when i have them.

Also managed to pick up some LP's so that was good.

Comparing one hotel to the other i thought the Hifi-News Renaissance hotel was poor compared to the Park Inn.

 

Just back from Part 2 The Renaissance
Far fewer highlights
I was particularly disappointed with the Totem room as these speakers normally sound pretty good
Art speakers sounded pretty fine to me, played through Border Patrol and another Resolution Audio Opus 21
Audiofreaks high end room, with Zanden CD, Karan Amps and Avalon Eidolons sounded superb, as it bloody well should at the price.
Ensemble was nice, but clearly suited to small classical music
The Ypsilon room also impressed, far more so than last time i heard it, but I still didn't have the urge to enquire about the cost, undoubtedly sky high

 

THe LC room was less successful with other genres - which could be said of most of the setups sadly. The mbl was very interesting though.

 

Great to see Zanash down here, especially as we did some good work with my Behringer 2496, though I think I'll talk about that on another thread.

Overall, really enjoyed the show, despite being generally quite underwhelmed by a lot of the demonstrations there.
Always great to see WM at the shows, I WILL get over to listen to your X-03 sometime.
I don't remember there being any AV kit there, though I did have a quick SACD multichannel dem. I'll stick to 2 channel thanks.
LOTS of up market kit, interesting to not have to wade through another room populated with cheaper Japanese kit.

My highlights of the day were:
(note that all comments are just my personal opinion)

Creek system - Probably one of the cheapest systems there, making very respectable noises which were a LOT of fun

SME/Kondo/LV room - HOW expensive? I think he was using a good £50k worth of amp and had a £10k cartridge running. Lovely midrange but soggy wallowy bass. What didn't occur until today is that his Opus CD21 sounded virtually as good as his record deck. Maybe it was just the recordings I heard, but it was one of the first times that CD has sounded on par to LP.

Audionote - Their 8w integrated valve amp was making wonderful sounds into a pair of their floorstanders. Massive bass problems because of the room, but excluding that, was one of the best sounds of the show.

McIntosh rooms - They had two running. The smaller was somewhat underwhelming. The other was pretty awesome, doing a great job of genuinely sticking a classical quartet infront of me. I still thought the bass was a bit soggy and the dynamics slightly lacking, but otherwise wonderful. Not sure how you'd get 205kg of speakers (each) in a normal home though.

Bel Canto room - Had a good look at their DAC3 which was making nice sounds. Will have to try to get a good comparison with it at some point. Has some interesting updates when compared to the older DAC2 including new internal DACs and clocks, balanced output and a built in digital volume, meaning it could be run directly into a power amp.

Auraacoustics - Some very odd looking speakers being played at ear splitting levels. Not sure what they were made of, Zanash was speculating wood, looked like polymers to me. IMO the best overal sound of the show. Great dynamics, coherent across the full range, all despite being driven by relatively cheap valve amp (£1800) and some prosaic Arcam CD player.

Musicology room - Running an Esoteric X-01 via a pair of HUGE valve amps (wouldn't like the bill for changing the tubes in another couple of years) into a pair of Audiostatic ribons. Lovely midrange, total inconsistency across the frequency range though. Might aswell have been 2 or 3 different systems in use. Not pleasant.

Phonosophie room - Have to say that the dem system quite grew on me on going back. Heard the whale pee dem again and again couldn't believe that spraying some gunk on a CD makes THAT much difference. Go listen next time, just don't take your chequebook.

Meridian room - What were they thinking? The front end was an 808 (according to the blurb) running into a pair of DSP5000s. Probably the least natural setup I heard. Truly unpleasant and nothing at all like my previous experiences of their dems.

Naim room - Had the new SuperNait on show. Couldn't be bothered to listen to the kit. As an ex Naim owner, I know exactly what I'll get and tastes change. The Supernait is an interesting idea. Basically a MUCH up specced Nait with a built in DAC. Can't say I though that including the DAC is a great idea, but hey, that's just me. For those wanting to something to connect an Ipod/Media PC to a pair of speakers, intriguing idea.

Quadraspire - Their floppy stand really did it's stuff during their dem. Not sure about how kid friendly it'll be once a 2 year old realises that if you push it lightly, it'll wave around nicely. Shame that the chap giving the dem was so damn positive in a "70s Linn demonstrator" kind of way that I nearly walked out part way through.



In summary, great day and I look forward to going again. There were a LOT of systems sounding pretty ropey because of room acoustics (e.g. WMs, which I know has some awesome kit, and was definitely not on form).
From that I think I'll be going out to try to get more dems on an X-03, Bel Canto DAC3, Sugden SE and a McIntosh 275 valve integrated.

 

Just a quick correction. It was the Marten Miles III speakers in the Audiocraft room, and not the Amphions at all. Sounded a little less good on my Sunday revisit.
Also on Sunday, the Coherent room sounded better than my first visit, but failed to blow me away.
I enjoyed the musicology room, and particularly the very sweet Audiostatics, which also look gorgeous to my eyes, especially when they pulsate to the music!! I agree that the bass was a bit of a mess, but the midrange was exceptional , and the whole thing sounded musical, not Hi-fi
Sorry to correct you Mr Sukebe, but whilst Kevin's note of system said it was an SME deck, it was definitely the Kuzma reference. I do agree that the Opus 21 was very close on sound quality however, something of an achievement.
Laugh of the show has to be the Audio Acoustics price list
£12k for a 1m mains cable!!
£329k for a pair of monoblocks (oh yes, it does include power supplies)
£24k for a 2m bi-wire pair of speaker leads!!
And the net result was to my ears distinctly average.

 

I really liked the amphion room, the marten spkrs and the amphions were very good in very differant ways.

 

I thought the gershman speakers driven by that shiny 20w valve amp sounded the best to me in the brighton hifi room

I was disapointed with the wavac/audio acoustics room. I have heard them sound fantastic, but I think he over deadend the room.

The lumley/boulder room sounded good along with Audiocrft.

I don'y know if I could live with the sound of the big mac room.

My first post and second show

 

As Mr S and I went round together I'll just echo his comments ....I'm in agreement with about 95% ......just because I forgot my cheque book in april !

Did no one else listen to the phonosophie room demonstrations ....whale sperm[pee ?], little blue light, tin of sand.....utterly mind numbing but clearly affected the percieved sound in the room.

I have a hypothesis that these are psychoacoustic effects and effect the person as much as the gear......

 

I heard the phon demos - a bit underwhelming.

 

did anybody see a yellow submarine in one of the naim rooms, ?

 

For me the best sound of the show was the big Audiofreaks room with Avalon Eidolons driven by Karan/Zanden electronics.

Utterly superb sound.

A bit of surprise too, since their last year setup with lil Avalon Opus Ceramique speakers driven by CJ/Reimyo combo sounded avarage at best.

The biggest surprise was a Krell LAT-2000 demo in AS room. They sounded quite competent (although nowhere near as good as Eidolons) and much better than their LAT-1000 bigger brothers in the other hotel.

The biggest disapointment for me was the new Wilson System 8.