I went with friends, we had an excellent time.
The Music First Audion room was sounding nice with a very limited selection of tunes, the Marten speakers impressed with their top end air. Though the powered subs had a certain quality about them, can't out my finger on it, though they sounded nice, they weren't right.
The guys with the Zu speakers were making nice sounds until he started talking about what a 'shocking' difference the Beldeni Clarifier made. It make f-all difference other than the 30 seconds of silence would have anyway. They were pushing this little unit hard, the word charlatan was mumbled in the audience at one point.
I didn't think the B&W802's sounded all that, nice big sound but not very Coherant.
The Tannoy room was a huge dissapointment, not adecent size DC speaker to be seen, it was all 5.1 style surround speakers, nice looking but nothing to listen to.
The Harman rooms i didn't bother with, likewise the Arcam room was sounding like Arcam cliches of old, a bit grey, warm and fuzzy, not great sound, i've heard £500 sound better.
The Audio Note room was tuned to perfection for the demo material they were using, ie double bass played on the AN-e speakers. it sounded very accurate tonally with the box colourations making it sound even more natural. I'm sure the same box colourations didn't help with other insruments, but they were playing to their strengths. The An2 deck and arm looked nice, £1500 - cart seemed very fair.
The DCS room sounded super, to my tatstes. The speakers could have been a bit bigger for the room maybe and they had them spaced for a wide sweet spot. But once in that sweet spot it sounded very very good, expansive, tonally accurate with great timing and rhthym and about as undigital as i've heard. Thbe speakers were the verity audio parsifals, though they had the next model up there as well. The shiny DCS Scarlatti stuff is a bit too bling for bling sake, not my idea of fun visually.
Then to the Monitor audio room, this new Platinum range are the best looking box speakers i've seen in a long time. Despit being driven by a rack full of top end Chord gear, they still managed to sound utterly convincing, there's something about Chord amps that doesn't sound rigth to me, it's all there, but it's just not right..i can't pin it down. However the speakers still sounded superb, whichever room they were in. They sounded exactly like i'd wanted the B&Ws to sound, big, powerful, detailed, coherant and dynamic, like a big floorstander should. They are jam packed with good technology and frankly a bargain at £5k, if such a thing exists.
The Henley room was nice, lots of shiny vinyl gear, we like vinyl. I wasn't too taken by the look of the Roksan stuff, but i didn't hear it so thats all i can say.
I didn't venture into the Naim room which was by all accounts very Naim. They were closed door demoing with power cables, which seemed to be a theme for a few dealers, if you cxan't sell hifi, flog em cable. More on which later.
Then to the Max/absolute sound room, the Krell idock and ML sounded crap, nice sound but not the moneys worth, and most likely due to the bad positioning. On the other side of the room were Sonus FAber Cremona Elipses, Krell FBI 300 and a selection of prologue amps, cds' Kuzma cheapo deck and the Anatek Phonostage.
Both front ends sounded great, the KREll better on cd than sacd. Truly, pink floyd sounded better on cd than just about anything i've heard, ever, if you forgive the Elipses some mild colouration in the upper bass.
The little Kuzma deck and Anatek P-stage sounded amazing, utterly rich and vivid with no self noise, and a wonderful tone. This was the best phonostage i heard at the show, or at least the most convincing vinyl replay.
I slkipped a few on this floor.
The Densen and Focal room left me utterly underwhelmed, ACDC and RATM sounded good but the gentler stff didn't fare so well. I though it was actually dynamically lacking and a little bland, i was expecting more pzazz from their pre-power studf and 400whatever cd. The focals didn't sound so hot 1027's and chorals. Though i heard them sounding sublime elsewhere, not the Coherant room...
The Coherant room...Ok it was a very small room, but Sp10-sme- phono10 Bel Canto into decent Focals,27 or 37's can't remember which, i'd stop taking notes by now. I was just underwhelmed, it was anything but Coherant and T's selection in vinyl was not helping. I'm sure he can do much much better, though the Bel Cantos are always going to have that 'class D' thing about them. Not my cup of tea.
The Totem room, bejesus, those little floorstanders rock some bass, these have to be the highest WAF speakers on the planet, they even had AMAF (almost musical acceptance factor). I could live with these if my house was designery enough to demnad such things as small speakers. fortunately, it isn't.
The Robson Audio room, using the same tweeter as half of the speaker manufacturers was nice, good sound, prices are a pisstake 2.4k for a 2 way standmount from a new company, sorry mate build some brand credibility first.. nice sound though...
Then the MIT room, cable parlour tricks all around apparently, i skipped this, despit being a pro cable guy.
Quad, my my those electrostatics sound nice, small room but great sound, very impressive, a truly first rate design, looks sound and price. Not for the ass kickers amongst us but for anyone serving up a diet that stops just short of the most complex hard rock, worht a listen.
