| I should have mentioned that the base note was written by me! "Mark
Jeffery", I am on a course at the moment, learning all about the
wonders of DECnet.
Anyway, here are some more details:
Major exhibitors at the show include :
Absolute Sound.
A&R Cambridge.
Ariston Acoustics.
B&W Loudspeakers.
Cambridge Audio Systems.
Castle Acoustics.
Celestion International.
Creek Audio Systems.
Goodmans Loudspeakers.
Heybrook Hi Fi.
Hi Fi Review.
Inca Tech.
JPW Loudspeakers.
KEF Electronics.
Michell Engineering.
Mission Electronics.
Mordaunt Short.
Musical Fidelity.
NAD.
Naim Audio Ltd.
QED Audio products.
Rogers Loudspeakers.
Roksan Engineering.
Rotel Hi Fi.
Ruark Acoustics.
Sansui UK.
Tannoy Ltd.
Trio Kenwood.
Wharfedale Ltd.
Yamaha.
I couldn't type a full list because I didn't have the time. However,
the above represents a flavour of what you can expect. It is heartening
to see how many European manufacturers are represented. Linn are
noticeable by their absence, but I expect the Sondek shall be
represented at the Naim stand!
If more people show an interest, then perhaps we can arrange a common
time/date!
See you there.
Mark.
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Here's some impressions of my visit to the show on Sunday afternoon, in
no particular order. I'm not sure how valid the comparisons are between
the various systems, since they were all (obviously) in different
rooms:
First stand we visited was Roksan. They had set up an enclosed room in
the middle of a hall, decorated in a sort of industrial-decay Greek
temple style (if that sounds odd, it was rather). They were
demonstrating the Xerxes turntable with their new arm and cartridge,
plus their Darius speakers. The amp was a pre/power setup I'd never
heard of. The Darius speakers were set up at a very strange angle,
pointing inwards at more than 45�. I'm not sure why they do this, but
we saw several Darius systems in other rooms which were set up the same
way. This system sounded pretty good, although we only heard a couple
of pop tracks (one was Tracy Chapman), but it really generated a lot of
involvement with the music. The speakers sounded very "even" - there
was no obvious frequency range that was being over-emphasised.
We then went across the hall to Naim. They had a mega-setup, and it was
quite hard to see exactly what was being used for amplification at the
time, but there was an LP12, a pair of SBLs that seemed at the time to
be running bi-amped through a stack of four power amps. We heard some
Spanish guitar, which sounded very natural and realistic. We returned
later to hear some more, but they'd blown something up, and were trying
to work out why the right hand speaker wasn't working, so we didn't get
the chance
The most expensive setup we listened to was an Oracle/Jeff Rowland/
Infinity system. Again, I coudn't see the preamp, but the power amps
and speakers were quite something. There were four Jeff Rowland power
amps (at 4,900 each) plus a pair of Infinity IRS Beta speakers (9,995),
each pair comprising two separate arrays. One array is made up of about
5 panel units of various sizes, and then there's an array of four bass
drivers in a separate box. Each array is about 5 - 5� feet tall. Not
surprisingly, this system could sound quite amazing. To start with,
they were playing an LP of Japanese drumming, which demonstrated the
transparency of the system. It really did sound like the drummers were
all there in the room in front of you. We then heard a classical piece
(from a CD) that I didn't know, which didn't really sound as good. The
sound was more enclosed, somehow, and the system didn't sound as
transparent.
Some things that I heard and wasn't impressed with:
- Mission. Mission CD player, Cyrus 2 + PSX, Freedom speakers
This sounded very "lean". It may have been that I was standing
in the wrong place, or even that the speakers weren't set
up well (right against the wall), but this system did not
grab one's attention. A shame, as I've got two Mission,
components in my system, and wanted to hear what their
more expensive stuff was like.
- Kef. They were demonstrating their new concentric-driver
speakers. We heard a pair with two drivers per speaker, and
in the same way as with Mission, the music was just happening
in the room - it didn't make you actually turn round and listen
like the three I described above. I could have been that the
system just wasn't turned up loud enough, because it was in
a large room.
Other notable things we saw:
- The Philips CDV player (CDV475). This is the one that plays
all the sizes of CD Video discs (5, 8 and 12 inch). The video
and sound quality seemed pretty good. Personally, I think
this whole format is fairly pointless, and wouldn't buy a
player unless the video facility became standard on all
CD players, so you couldn't buy a player without it. I can't
imagine myself ever buying a CDV disc.
- I was very impressed with the Arcam Delta system we heard.
It was playing through Arcam 2 speakers, and sounded streets
ahead of the Mission system, which it must approximately
compete with on price.
- Lots of enormous cables. Most demonstration setups were using
fairly esoteric cables, both for interconnects and speakers.
All in all, it was an enjoyable afternoon. It would have been nicer
if there were less people around (it may be better to turn up at
opening time in the morning), but I found it very interesting to
listen to lots of things that I couldn't possibly afford.
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