It’s time for North West Audio Show 2018

[Marco]

Nice pics, Mark. Since you've posted some similar to mine of Guy's room (Puresound), I'll add more:







I really like those Hecos (and their bigger brothers), and they sounded rather good whether being fed from the partnering T/T or reel-to-reel player

Marco.

[Marco]

I forget which room this was, but took these pics anyway:





Brian and Trevor's room, which was sounding much better than last year:







Better, but still not really my thing, especially considering the price being asked!

Marco.

[Crackles]

Nice pics, Mark. Since you've posted some similar to mine of Guy's room (Puresound), I'll add more:







I really like those Hecos (and their bigger brothers), and they sounded rather good whether being fed from the partnering T/T or reel-to-reel player

Marco.

Agree they sound brilliant and they are good value at less than two grand. The bloke in that room told me their sensitivity is 94db which would be ideal for my amp.

Only thing is I'm not keen on the gimmicky appearance. I can imagine it becoming very dated.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

[Marco]

Major tube-action and Lampi love, along with some rather good speakers, going on in the G-Point Audio room:





PHOOWAARRR... Serious tubeage. I bet yer missus would LOVE to have a 'go' on one of those babies, preferably unlit!!








Macca's favourite sound of the show, and I was also impressed (even if I sniggered a little at the 'cable lifters'), but my award for such goes somewhere else, which will be revealed later!

Marco.

[Frazeur1]

Maybe she would prefer the heat!

[Liberdade]

I was at Cranage again this morning, and enjoyed revisiting some of the rooms I had been to yesterday, and visiting some new ones.

The audiocounsel room, with Audio Note (TT2 turntable, OTO Phone SE and AN-J loudspeakers in a lovely olive veneer) was very good - there seemed to be a lot of coherence to the sound and I could easily imagine living with this kind of system.

The Kralk Audio room was also good and well attended - the £1300 TDB-12 speakers were playing and I was impressed - those speakers look to be very good value for money! Equally impressive were the Longdog Audio P6 monoblocks, and the Music First Audio Senlac SJE 100W monoblocks - I’d definitely want to hear both of these on home audition if I was in the market for this kind of amplifier.

I revisited the Leema Acoustics room (with the Brigadiers speakers), and the Dutch & Dutch room, and was just as impressed as yesterday. Perhaps even more so today by the Dutch & Dutch 8Cs - again, I could imagine these kind of speakers working very well in many different rooms and spaces.

I spent a bit of time in the Puresound room listening to Julius Katchen play Beethoven’s third piano concerto, on a reel tape through Heco’s 2-way Direkt speakers;



I’d like to listen to this set-up again, with some other recordings - I think it has a lot of potential in the right room.

The Lampizator room was excellent - they kindly played some of Coltrane’s Village Vanguard recordings at my request, and there was a genuine sense of scale and presence which was astonishing at times, with the Diapaison speakers really impressing. I’m not sure if I could live with something as full-on as this, but it is good to know it exists;




I listened with interest to a room with the Universum horns, and felt this was balanced more towards hifi than music - but I’d certainly listen again. Who has the room and space for a system like this though?



The best room, by some distance, in my view, partly because the volume was sensible and not straining against the constraints of the room, was with the soundkaos speakers. I only heard the smaller VOX3 prototypes, and not the larger Wave and Libération speakers (I had a football match to watch!), which is probably a good thing as the VOX3’s gave one of the most convincing musical representations I heard on either day, and are almost affordable at £4500. They would (will?) be first on my list for a home audition, particularly if an active version is developed;



I have a slight difference of opinion on the room with the active ATC 150s. The treble and midrange were excellent, but I thought that bass had a pronounced boom - my impression was that smaller speakers would have worked better. However, there were only a few other people in the room at the time, and it could be that the sound would be different if the room had been full.

[Marco]

Great pics and write-up, David!

I concur with your view of the Sound Kaos room, and those speakers in particular. I've still to get to that and will comment later

Marco.

[Marco]

Some Klipsch and Luxman (hard to photograph because it was right next to a sunny window):





And I was rather impressed with these modular open-baffles, from Pure Audio Project (especially when they moved to a different room, not shown):









The design is great, because not only can you chop and change the drive unit boxes (aside from the tweeter and mid section), you can clip the crossover components in and out, and substitute them with something else suitable, to alter the sound and 'tune' it to your requirements accordingly!

For me, that's really useful and quite clever. Plus, the sound 'as is' was very good. Rarely have I heard open-baffle speakers, despite their undoubted talents elsewhere, produce realistic and believable bass, rather than simply a tuneless 'thud' - well these did! And they sounded excellent in the mid too, in true OB fashion.

If I were to criticise them, it would be to say that they were a little muted at the top end, lacking the extension and 'sparkle' to make their overall presentation more musically convincing, but of course that could well be easily sorted with a crossover component change!

Anyway, defo recommended for anyone considering a pair of high-end OBs, and who'd like the ability to tweak the sound without needing to use a soldering iron

Marco.

[Marco]

Can't remember who's room this was, but here's a pic anyway. I do remember that the sound was ok, but nothing spectacular:



Ok, but not especially impressive sound in this room:




And now, as previously mentioned, the Sound Kaos room:





Unfortunately, I didn't get to hear the larger of the two speaker models, but the tiny little ones were amazing for their size, oh so musical, sweet sounding, but natural, not lacking in bass weight for their size, and were very well-made. The whole system produced a most captivating sound, which I enjoyed listening to very much. Definitely a brand to look out for!

Marco.

[Bksabath]

For me the Pure audio project would be my top of the list they do all I get from the Maggies + the bits that the Maggies do not do ,shift air and hit you in the tummy.

One can start whit the basic set up and add bit and pieces and upgrade when possible.

No chance to ear those at home as again to keep prices down there are no distributors involved but from what I was told they are very accommodating.