scalford hall hifi show 2011

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Richard Dunn said:
The enthusiasts *are* the industry, and the sooner we recognise this the better.
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The enthusiasts don't want to have any dealings with the audio industry anymore. The reaction to your presence at their show demonstrates that.
 
Fnuckle said:
I expect my opinions to be picked apart. That's the point. And they are generalisations; not everyone who attends a hi-fi show smells like a badger, only has two albums (and both of them are Brothers In Arms) and last bought an audio component when Harold Wilson was in power. But the same faces do turn up to the same shows, ask the same question to the same person every year, pick up a carrier bag full of brochures and walk out. They never change, just grow older... as does their equipment.

A show has the same effect on sound quality, whether that show is amateur or professional. One person pitches up, spend 30 seconds plonking their equipment down in the corner of a room and it sounds magical. The guy in the next room spends two days tweaking, adjusting, running in and bedding down and it still sounds like two donkeys gargling bits of broken glass under a duvet. It's hard to find rules to determine why one works and one fails (although I guess room acoustics might be a factor).

The only difference between the likes of the Whittlebury Hall show and Salford is the magic pixie dust that makes everything sound good gets sprinkled in different places. In pro shows, the magazines and commercial websites praise almost everything for sounding wonderful, whether they do or not. Meanwhile, make any criticism of the sound of the amateur rooms in a forum and may God have mercy on your soul.

We all need to grow a pair. Everyone is too precious about their own sound to allow anyone to dare say that it might be mediocre. Well, in most shows the sound is just that. Last time I went to a show, I asked the same question throughout - "did you expect it to sound like this?" I wasn't the most popular man in the room in most cases, and I got a lot of PR-fluffy answers, but a surprising number of people were quite honest and shocked that no one ever asks that kind of question.

And I completely reject the "not my cup of tea" argument. It doesn't work - you don't walk out of a bad concert saying "well they were off key, out of tune and under-rehearsed, but that just makes them differently good." This is the sort of apology-led mind-set that made everyone think England's Word Cup team was made up of the Golden Generation of players, instead of a mob of moody millionaires who kick a ball with their egos. A system in a room should have the dynamic range, loudness headroom and lack of tonal anomalies to be able to replay a range of music well. I concede that someone who's musical tastes skew the system toward one aspect of performance over another will mean a system that favours a particular end of the equipment spectrum, but we need to forget this cracked notion of the 'classical' loudspeaker or the 'rock' amp, or even the 'British', 'German', 'American' or even 'Romulan' voicing.


In other words, if it sounds wrong, it probably is.
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Excellent post & spot-on.
 
its true then, it all sound the same, and a valve amp set up driving Quad 57's is going to appeal to the same ears as a Krell driving Yamaha Soavo's. They may either both sound good, or wrong, but I doubt if they would appeal to the same customers wallet.


the enthusiasts are not the industry, just customers of it. Granted the industry needs to meet the customers requirements but that is a different thing.

The forum users may (in some cases) be a fair way away from being typical customers however.

To suggest that the enthusiasts don't want to have any dealings with the industry may be true, but if so why do they go to the industry shows.It could be that the way the customer has been treated by the industry, especially the retail part of it over the years has a little bit to do with customer attitude and reaction.

When I go to show to listen to, and see, my next possible purchase, I neither need, or want some pillock salesman tapping his feet, or smiling blissfully to show me what I should be enjoying, or playing with the remote volume control just to make sure that little point is made.

We, the great unwashed are your customers, and until the trade, especially the retail part of it, remembers that they are a shop selling goods to the public, and goods that are competing with a great many other products for the customers spare cash, and not some much needed consultancy, they will continue to struggle. (I find a lot of Hi-Fi dealers could double up as estate agents very easily)

As for the the value of scalford, from my point of view, I have been as a ''exhibitor'' and as a punter, and enjoyed both, in addition I have heard the speakers that I would like next, they will be bought from a dealer, and I would very much doubt if I would have even considered them had I not seen and heard them at the Scallford show.
 
I remember when I bought a pair of speakers for £2,100. I enjoyed them for about a year and then sold them for £900.

I didn't have much money at the time, and there's few people out there can swallow that kind of loss regularly.

I DIY and buy second hand (mostly) out of having no option.

I would definately be a badger-smelling-two-record owning person if I bought new hifi regularly. I wouldnt have money for anything else!

I'd rather have a life :)
 
dudywoxer said:
its true then, it all sound the same, and a valve amp set up driving Quad 57's is going to appeal to the same ears as a Krell driving Yamaha Soavo's. They may either both sound good, or wrong, but I doubt if they would appeal to the same customers wallet.
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The key question is "did you expect it to sound like this?" People don't always go for accuracy, or go for the same balance of accuracies. You can't really criticise a sepia-toned photograph for being sepia toned, if sepia tones were the original intention. But if the intent was for a full-colour image and you got sepia tones, something's badly wrong.

The problem we get with audio is too many people present a sepia-toned print and praise the clarity of the colours.


the enthusiasts are not the industry, just customers of it. Granted the industry needs to meet the customers requirements but that is a different thing.

The forum users may (in some cases) be a fair way away from being typical customers however.

To suggest that the enthusiasts don't want to have any dealings with the industry may be true, but if so why do they go to the industry shows.It could be that the way the customer has been treated by the industry, especially the retail part of it over the years has a little bit to do with customer attitude and reaction.
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Not all enthusiasts are disenfranchised or dissatisfied with the audio world. It's also a mark of just how enthusiastic that hardcore remains, because they still go to hi-fi shows even though they are unhappy with the current state of audio. That's the eternal optimism of the true fan.

When I go to show to listen to, and see, my next possible purchase, I neither need, or want some pillock salesman tapping his feet, or smiling blissfully to show me what I should be enjoying, or playing with the remote volume control just to make sure that little point is made.
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I completely agree, which is why I think many of these hucksters will move on to more lucrative fields. Unfortunately, the bar is set so low in audio, we also get a lot of hucksters who have already fallen as far as they can.

We, the great unwashed are your customers, and until the trade, especially the retail part of it, remembers that they are a shop selling goods to the public, and goods that are competing with a great many other products for the customers spare cash, and not some much needed consultancy, they will continue to struggle. (I find a lot of Hi-Fi dealers could double up as estate agents very easily)
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I see this slightly differently. The current generation of retailers are largely failing in the prosecution of their duties. They should be providing a legitimate consultancy and offering services that the average end user either could not perform or would not take the time and trouble to learn how to perform. Merely stocking some products and driving them to the customer's house is not enough.

If there is hope for the next generation it is to remember how to provide a genuine service that is valuable and unavailable elsewhere. Many dealers lack the skills to provide anything more than a 'disco' installation ("disco here, disco there, disco into the mains... and we're done") and I'd say those dealers should simply step down.

As for the the value of scalford, from my point of view, I have been as a ''exhibitor'' and as a punter, and enjoyed both, in addition I have heard the speakers that I would like next, they will be bought from a dealer, and I would very much doubt if I would have even considered them had I not seen and heard them at the Scallford show.
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And there's nothing at all wrong with that. But it's governed from a position of the pure amateur (in the old sense). Had you received a slick demonstration from someone, you might well have passed them by.
 
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bottleneck said:
I remember when I bought a pair of speakers for £2,100. I enjoyed them for about a year and then sold them for £900.

I didn't have much money at the time, and there's few people out there can swallow that kind of loss regularly.

I DIY and buy second hand (mostly) out of having no option.

I would definately be a badger-smelling-two-record owning person if I bought new hifi regularly. I wouldnt have money for anything else!

I'd rather have a life :)
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As I have said at least twice on this forum recently, the new industry will be led by second hand sales. As the market receeds so the quantity of product available will be SH by a large majority, and it will be practically *all* bought on-line. The trend is there to see for everyone even now as this post shows. New equipment manufacturers will only live in this market if they can build and sell to these new circumstances, and that means reduced price and on-line.

This is what will create the momentum of the new market and will create companies to service this market, tweakers / bodgers and after market add-ons will become an important part of the market as will up-graders and repairers.
 
Richard Dunn said:
This is what will create the momentum of the new market and will create companies to service this market, tweakers / bodgers and after market add-ons will become an important part of the market as will up-graders and repairers.
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That seems a bit unlikely. The next round of Euro legislations are going to cut pretty deep, especially for anyone in third-party repair or modification. It seems the French have found they way out of the economic troubles, by exporting prime quality bureaucracy around Europe.
 
Fnuckle said:
That seems a bit unlikely. The next round of Euro legislations are going to cut pretty deep, especially for anyone in third-party repair or modification. It seems the French have found they way out of the economic troubles, by exporting prime quality bureaucracy around Europe.
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Sorry it wont happen. The doom mongers have been on about it for years, since the intro of CE regs people have been saying real hi-fi is doomed. Well it just makes you take different angles to look at things, and the regs are so full of holes you just have to know what you are doing.

Safety regs are very simple to comply with.
 
Just think of what we could achieve with Scalford. Instead of some bearded numpty from Nordost trying to separate you from your hard earned we could set up real sequential demo's that were of benefit. Say a room measurement and treatment demo, or a sensible turntable isolation demo, something of value that will help improve peoples hifi at home.
 
Isn't it a 2011 show?

Still plenty of time.

No reason why a number of small companies and a forum or three cannot get together and do something.

<edit>

What Simon said +1
 
Before anyone even discusses this Wigwam should be given the opportunity to finance it and do it themselves, only if they drop out can others contact the Hotel IMO. This is why I was trying to irritate them into getting their finger out.

Anyway if you can disconnect it from me you can do and promote these things at the London Show all you have to do is join t'committee. We have a cable room where you blind test fanatics can set one up, etc.
 
I wasn't suggesting we contact that particular hotel, simply that if it looks like going tits-up there would be a gap for others to organise a different even for 2011.

Rob

PS: Excellent new signature Richard, but you might want to consider swapping Muppet Labs for NVA, cos at the moment google takes you here :yikes:

http://www.muppetlabs.com/
 
I am quite happy to be linked there, at least it is not NVA :D

I am here as an individual yet you insist on me declaring as trade, so it is for you and your daft rules not for me.

My alter ego is Dr Bunsen Honeydew so Muppet Labs it is.
 
Mention of your company beneath the username isn't in the rules, so you don't have to declare it, simply 'Trade'.

Its a pretty modest request when balanced against the benefits.
 
What benefits, I offered you a pretty simple model but you chose the PF / Wigwam one, but without the blood money. I thought the whole point of the discussion was that that model was not working, and was causing aggravation.
 
It isn't blood money.
Those sites are a business. In the case of PFM it is large enough to offer many benefits for what is a very low fee. Access to a 13000+ member busy forum for £50 is not blood money by any stretch - I'd call it exceptionally good value!

But thats's beside the point.
We have't adopted your model lock stock and barrel because, firstly there was no support for it in the discussion (other than in part by me), and secondly having gone away and considered things we felt that it was still necessary to guard against potential abuse by underhand product pushing.

The new rules give trade posters an easier ride in the main audio rooms without risking premature cries of 'foul' while giving them the opportunity to advertise free of charge in the 'Market' section.

You are cutting off your nose to spite your face by objecting to what is a good deal.

Hint: It's 12.45am on a Sunday morning and 22 people are currently viewing our 'Market Place' section ......
 
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