The 2007 London HI-FI show...Photos and Show report.

[Spectral Morn]

LONDON HEATHROW CHESTER GROUP HI-FI SHOW SEPT 2007




Hi Guys

With the recent problems with the Forum, this state of affairs prompted me to post these photos I took back in Sept 2007. They haven't seen the light of day since I took them and I feel that it would be a pity not to share them (you may disagree of course). Originally they where to form part of a show report elsewhere which didn't happen. To that end I spent hours last night and this morning picking and re-sizing and adding the final ones tonight.

I also have photos from the 2006 show as well, which I will post in a day or so (lot less in quantity).

So if you where not there you can be now........Hope you enjoy the show.


The London HI-FI Show 2007

THE MBL ROOM

Nice sound, but the room (one of the sound pods) was a wee bit to small; so ultimately restricted what this German kit could do. This set up sounded much better at the previous show in 2006.





The AUDIO CRAFT ROOM

Wow....What a nice sound. Kevin worked really hard to achieve this....well done sir.





VPI TT in Kevin Walkers room...He had just taken on the agency.



THE EMILLE ROOM

Very nice sound, delicate, understated, very coherent. Mostly light Jazz playing with Classical, so I don't know if it would rock or not.



Emille dual mono integrated amplifier





THE ABSOLUTE ANALOGUE ROOM

Simon Bennett in full flow. Talk about passion and knowledge. He was talking about using DD TT's long before many. Great guy too....I know him quite well. REF 3A Grand Venna Speakers getting their UK premier at this show. Nice sound but room was better on the second day.



The Nordic Concept TT and arm...amazing.



Bel Canto CDP getting its UK premier at this show...Nice sound but fiddly to use IMHO.



THE RPM AUDIO ROOM

Jolida and Sota using Neat speakers...very nice sound



Close up of Sota TT



Audio Valve RkV mk2 Headphone amplifier.




THE REDLINE (now RENAISSANCE) ROOM


Excellent sound in this room. I am a big fan of the Moon Sound (not valves but very good none the less)

Moon Andromeda stack, with Spectral rack.





Moon phono satage, Clear Audio Solution



Inside of a Moon Pre-amplifier. Note the dual differential layout, a true balanced design.



New budget priced Moon cdp and integrated amplifiers



Redline room with JM Lab Speakers.



THE MCINTOSH ROOM

Valve integrated.



Top view...note the quality output and mains transformers and fantastic build quality.



Rear view of above amplifier



The sound in the room was poor (using Solid State). I suggested wiring up the valve amp. The sound was transformed from crap to quite good (room was to big to fill.)The nice man from Sumiko wires it up.



“ Are you sure this wire goes here ?”



THE UKD DISTRIBUTION ROOm

Nick always gets a good sound and this year was no exception but on the following day things were much better as speakers ran in. New Opera and Triangle models

New Unison Research integrated amplifier, Unison CDP, Pathos Classic One mk3 plus Pathos Digit CDP.







Nick Green MD of UKD reads a copy of the HI-Fi Choice Collection.....” How did we do ?”



THE AMR ROOM

AMR cd 77 with Am 77 integrated amplifier and a late version prototype of AMR speakers. Sound much better than previous year. Vincent Luke tells me that AMR speaker design now nearly finished.



THE REAL HI-FI ROOM

Shanling cd players, Duvel Speakers. Horning Sati amplification . Nice sound though Duvel speaker presentation takes a while to get used to.







Shanling CD player....just love the blue lighting.



Shanling MC 30. All in one cd player, triode SE amplifier, I pod dock and Radio....WOW




THE ANGEL SOUND AUDIO ROOM





Almaro power amplifier



Thats a big Turntable you have...Teres





THE VIVA and LECKTOR ROOM



Viva integrated SE amplifier.



THE MICHELL and TRICORD ROOM


A trio of Michells





THE TOTEM and EINSTEIN ROOM

Totem speakers with sound beaks on the top....erhm not sure about that tweak.



Einstein cd player, pre-amplifier and integrated amplifier.





THE T + A ROOM

D 10 cdp, V10 integrated valve amplifier, T10 TT and T+A speakers. Nice warm sound with plenty of detail but ultimately a bit veiled.





THE HENLEY DESIGNS ROOM

Audia amplification and Cdp and a Pro-Ject RPM 10 TT. Ralph was playing The Floyd DSOTM very nice in deed.



Close up of RPM 10 TT.



A collection of Pro-ject turntables.



THE ROKSAN ROOM

The new Roksan high end pre and power amplifier, Caspian electronics and FR 5 speakers. Very nice sound.





THE DCS, VTL and VIVID ROOM







THE SIGNATURE AUDIO SYSTEMS ROOM

Podium speakers, TLA amplification and Ensemble transport and dac. I couldn't warm to these speakers at all. Pity as I would rely liked to have heard the other kit...maybe another time.



TLA amplifier





THE ELCTROCOMPANIET ROOM

Best Home Cinema sound as HI-Fi I have ever heard...very impressive indeed.



THE ICON AUDIO ROOM







New- Tube buffer, Head phone amplifier and MB 25 mono amplifiers



THE AUDION ROOM



THE PURE SOUND ROOM

Guy Sargeant enjoys some music. Very nice sound in this room.





THE CLEARAUDIO ROOM

Master ref amg TT with Souther Tri Q arm.





THE HI-AUDIO ROOM

Usher speakers and Nu-Force amplification.



Acoustic Solid with Cartridgeman linear air bearing arm and Hadcock arm. Nice sound in this room.



THE TOWNSEND AUDIO ROOM

Max at work, picking music to play.





THE AROUSAL ROOM

Tried these speakers and no matter what I did with them in terms of setup and amps I could not get them to sound as good as they did at the show....go figure !



THE ORIGIN LIVE ROOM

Very nice sound in this room. However I can't remember what speakers or electronics Mark Baker was using....sorry but its two years ago.



A Fan of Origin Live arms...



THE ALON (Formerly NOLA) , WEISS and EDGE ELECTRONICS ROOM

This room should not have worked. The speakers were to big and the room way to small, but the sound was very good. I am sure though in a bigger room it would have been much better.





THE CHORD ROOM

John Franks the previous year had an amazing sound in his room. However at this show things were not as good. The sound was just wrong...it had bad room written all over it. Pity as I would have liked to hear this kit at its best....not to be at this show, day two was not much better.

New Red Reference cdp and matching integrated amplifier with WB speakers.



Red standard



As above



NB Can I remind everyone that I hold the copyright on these pictures. So if you would like to use a photo please ask.



Regards D S D L----Neil

PS HI MODS,I HOPE THIS IS THE RIGHT PLACE FOR THIS....IF NOT MOVE IT

[Steve Toy]

Pictures 10 and 11 down show the CD player I use, the Bel Canto CD2. It comes with an offboard cheapy switch-mode power supply. Mine is now fed by the AOS/Tube Distinctions Linear PSU. A decent linear 12v super-regulated PSU is an obvious upgrade to this player as is the addition of an offboard DAC (the Bel Canto DAC 3 is an obvious choice but there are alternatives...) - this player is designed to be used as a top-notch transport but still punches above its weight when used as an integrated player, especially with the PSU upgrade.

It is fiddly to use without the remote but there was a software update made available early last year that I had flashed to my unit. It does improve the reliability of operation somewhat.

[Steve Toy]

The first pic (MBL) uses an interesting application of acrylic supports. It's a pity dCS weren't using such supports under their Scarlatti/VTL setup as it clearly underperforms on that 'nice' repro furniture. Marco and I both heard an identical setup at the following Manchester Show in January of last year and it was underwhelming when the programme material wasn't so sickly-sweet. A one-trick pony if ever there was one and an expensive one at that. Whilst Joni Mitchel made you weep, other musical genres made me cringe.

Setup with performance over aesthetics is the key here, not to mention the poor synergy between upsampling and valve amplifiers that reveal all kind of textural nuances -i.e. the artificial sheen that upsampling unfortunately seems to bring to the playback party.

The Scarlatti is a fine CD player indeed but only through a well setup solid state amplifier system on Quadraspire Reference or Music Works Revo acrylic racks. Certainly the Scarlatti/Spectral/Peak Consult Princesses system I heard at Audio Works was far more engaging and versatile; it could actually rock...

[Marco]

Great pictures, Neil - thanks for sharing

Marco.

[DSJR]

Bling Bling.....

I used to love going to shows, meeting people and looking at all this stuff. You used to be able to tell from the corridor which room was playing LP's by the distorted bass grunge coming out of the door, but I suspect this has changed rather nowadays.

It's pics like this which make me wish we hadn't moved (run away?) so far from the action.

[Spectral Morn]

Thanks guys

It took ages to re-size all theses photos. Glad you like them. I just felt it was a shame that no one ever got to see them but me.

I have some more from the 2006 show but not as many, so the thread will not be as large as this one.

Hi Dave yep a bit of bling, but the sound was good to very good in many rooms. However I felt that the 2006 show had more better sounding rooms than 2007. To be honest you can't really know how anything sounds at a show. A flavour of it yes, but know it fully NO....at least I can't. There has been the odd exception to the above, when something sounds amazing on show demo and just as good in your home system or shop demo room. For me shows are about meeting people and catching up and spotting possibilities for future exploration.

regards D S D L



Regards D S D L