National Audio Show 2010 First part of a comprehensive report now published

[adventuresinhifiaudio.com]

The first part of Adventures in High Fidelity Audio's comprehensive show report on the National Audio Show held at Whittlebury Hall is now published.

http://www.adventuresinhifiaudio.com/30/09/2010/the-national-audio-show-whittlebury-hall-sept-25th-to-26th-september-2010-part-one/

Part Two to follow in a few days or sooner.

We will also be publishing a special show report for AOS as well in the near future.


Regards Neil

[Marco]

We will also be publishing a special show report for AOS as well in the near future.


Nice one, Neil - look forward to it :)

Nice review on your site so far.

Marco.

[adventuresinhifiaudio.com]

Nice one, Neil - look forward to it :)

Nice review on your site so far.

Marco.

Thank you

We aim to please when we can :)


Regards Neil

[Barry]

Hi Neil

Do you think it reasonable that once a piece of equipment is burnt in (and if it's not, then the exhibitor has no right to demonstrate it), it needs to take at least an hour to warm up? Whilst I don't doubt what you heard, if the demonstrations sounded better on the Sunday as compared to the Saturday, I regard that to be a somewhat damming indictment of the equipment. Goodness me - I want my gear to work to it's full capability within minutes of switch on!


Apropos the Zouch Audio room. Did you think what you heard justified the £35,650 it would cost to buy (well actually £44,610 if you include vinyl replay)?

Regards

[Clive]

Warm up is tricky. My system really needs 30 mins to an hour to come on song, it's mainly the bass. I believe it's to do with the paper-coned bass drivers. The better the system, the more you notice this type of issue (when it exists). It shouldn't take a day though!

[adventuresinhifiaudio.com]

Hi Neil

Do you think it reasonable that once a piece of equipment is burnt in (and if it's not, then the exhibitor has no right to demonstrate it), it needs to take at least an hour to warm up? Whilst I don't doubt what you heard, if the demonstrations sounded better on the Sunday as compared to the Saturday, I regard that to be a somewhat damming indictment of the equipment. Goodness me - I want my gear to work to it's full capability within minutes of switch on!


Apropos the Zouch Audio room. Did you think what you heard justified the £35,650 it would cost to buy (well actually £44,610 if you include vinyl replay)?

Regards

Barry your comment above imho is too general and narrow in its focus. You have not or appear not to be taking into account numerous factors which can be put forward to explain changes in sound quality over the two days. I should also point out that several rooms did not improve but remained extremely poor.....in one case after asking a very gifted friend to listen to a room with me which I thought sounded terrible, worst sound at the show (no names) he felt the system had been wired out of phase and agreed it was terrible. If that was the case (and I don't know that it was) then that is very bad from a set up point of view and is pretty shoddy imho. Its equally bad that no one in the set up team noticed the problem and tried to put it right assuming it was not the room or mains quality which may also be offered as an explanation. As I have no direct in my listening room experience with these products I can't say what exactly was wrong just that the sound was truly awful in Whittlebury.

My experience over many years has consistently shown that a lot of equipment and systems need time to settle down. Quite a lot of kit at the show was brand new and in the case of speakers these need in many cases 100's of hours to run in. The improvement in several rooms was down to this Coherent's room being a point in case. The Pacific 3 SA speakers Tony was using were brand new and had only about 30 hours on them if that before he brought them to the show. During the course of the show they received more run in and on Sunday his room had improved in its sound (not that it had sounded particularly bad on the first day). I put this down to extra speaker run in and the electronics warming up.


I realise that warm up is a hot issue for many including myself (I wish it did not exist and I knew why it was the case in some gear and not other gear) but it is a factor and as such must be taken into account when writing about the sound at shows and elsewhere. If you are blessed with gear that does not need prolonged warm up then that is great for you. I am afraid that the issue itself should be discussed elsewhere..... so if you feel so motivated please start a separate thread on it. However be prepared for circular arguments and it warming up.....

Whether a system is worth its money is a question that can only really be answered by a prospective purchaser and someone who has bought it. Value is very much in the individuals eye. My show report is not about this topic nor should it be imho as a brief exposure to products in a hostile environment i.e a hotel can tell you very little about how that system or components will sound in a more suitable room. However in saying that it is usually possible to get a good idea about sound if only in a general sense......a snap shot if you like and this impression is what I report. More prolonged listening would be required to expand the impression further.

Re the Zouch room if you asked me would that be what I would spend my own money on.....the answer would be no but that in itself should not be viewed as a negative against that system and components just that my interests and requirements would take me in a different direction.



Regards Neil

[Marco]

As an aside, I thought the Zouch room sounded pants (dull, 'phat', boring, and nothing like how real music sounds) - probably for me the worst sound of the show!

As it was one of the first rooms I went into, I thought: 'God, is this what it's going to be like?' Fortunately things improved significantly after that.

Marco.

[Barry]

Hi Neil,

Apologies if I appeared to be critical of your show report - that was not my intention. My admittedly, 'to the point' post, was really a comment on the policy of demonstrating items of equipment, be they at a show or in a dealer's showroom, that are not allowed to perform at their best.

I believe that it should be incumbent on the manufacturer to 'burn in' any product before it leaves the factory. If it takes 100+ hours to do so for a speaker, then so be it. I assume, of course, the performance of equipment improves with running in - are there any exceptions (apart from wearing out with age)? If so, it would appear that one has to make an assessment with the knowledge that the chosen item can, and will, only get better with time.

Regarding 'warm up', I would agree with you that it is likely to be a circular argument. My system is on all the time I'm at home; whether listening to the radio or to other sources. The majority of my electronics are solid-state, and I have to confess I have not noticed any change of performance with time after switching on. Two items that use valves are the Leak 'Troughline' tuner and a Ferrograph reel-to-reel tape recorder. The former does improve after about half an hour's use: the soundstage becomes deeper, whereas I notice no change with the Ferrograph. The answer is of course to leave one's equipment powered up all the time. I'm extremely reluctant to do this, for reasons of safety, economy and longevity - the only items that are constantly powered up are my electrostatic speakers, otherwise these can take up to half an hour to achieve full-spectrum response and only consume a miniscule amount of power.

Perceived value for money and a good demonstration go hand-in-hand. I would expect the demonstrator of an expensive system to go out of his way to provide the best environment. If a £K40 + system sounds no more than 'average' to me, what is there to encourage me to listen to it again under better conditions?

To repeat, I wasn't criticising your show report, merely raising some questions (and of course expressing my opinion!)

Regards

[DSJR]

Re: Burn-In

Where speakers are concerned, the bass units shouldn't need more than an hour or so of bass on them to sort the suspensions out. Any more than this is incompetent driver design IMO, as the surrounds and spiders should "form" fairly quickly I reckon. Either that or the listener has got used to them.

On personal experience I'd say this... After a hectic car or train journey, one's ears will be shagged for a substantial time and will take a couple of hours to settle back down (this happened regularly when I travelled to ATC from Bedfordshire). if staying over-night, one's ears will be much better after a good night's rest and on Sundays, the mains shouyld be better anyway. The other thing to bear in mind is that exhibition rooms get incredibly hot and stuffy in the afternoons and this will have an effect on sound-transmission as well.....

[Clive]

Re: Burn-In

Where speakers are concerned, the bass units shouldn't need more than an hour or so of bass on them to sort the suspensions out. Any more than this is incompetent driver design IMO, as the surrounds and spiders should "form" fairly quickly I reckon. Either that or the listener has got used to them.

I agree generally, an exception is paper cones with an accordion surround, these can take quite a number of hours and in particular need serious excursion at some point to properly loosen up. With my 18" drivers some serious bass was called for!

[Ali Tait]

Hi Neil,

Apologies if I appeared to be critical of your show report - that was not my intention. My admittedly, 'to the point' post, was really a comment on the policy of demonstrating items of equipment, be they at a show or in a dealer's showroom, that are not allowed to perform at their best.

I believe that it should be incumbent on the manufacturer to 'burn in' any product before it leaves the factory. If it takes 100+ hours to do so for a speaker, then so be it. I assume, of course, the performance of equipment improves with running in - are there any exceptions (apart from wearing out with age)? If so, it would appear that one has to make an assessment with the knowledge that the chosen item can, and will, only get better with time.

Regarding 'warm up', I would agree with you that it is likely to be a circular argument. My system is on all the time I'm at home; whether listening to the radio or to other sources. The majority of my electronics are solid-state, and I have to confess I have not noticed any change of performance with time after switching on. Two items that use valves are the Leak 'Troughline' tuner and a Ferrograph reel-to-reel tape recorder. The former does improve after about half an hour's use: the soundstage becomes deeper, whereas I notice no change with the Ferrograph. The answer is of course to leave one's equipment powered up all the time. I'm extremely reluctant to do this, for reasons of safety, economy and longevity - the only items that are constantly powered up are my electrostatic speakers, otherwise these can take up to half an hour to achieve full-spectrum response and only consume a miniscule amount of power.

Perceived value for money and a good demonstration go hand-in-hand. I would expect the demonstrator of an expensive system to go out of his way to provide the best environment. If a £K40 + system sounds no more than 'average' to me, what is there to encourage me to listen to it again under better conditions?

To repeat, I wasn't criticising your show report, merely raising some questions (and of course expressing my opinion!)

Regards

Interesting Barry.I've read that some folks think 57's can take days to come on song properly.Can't say I noticed that when I had my pair,but they did seem better the second day of being switched on.

[DSJR]

I agree generally, an exception is paper cones with an accordion surround, these can take quite a number of hours and in particular need serious excursion at some point to properly loosen up. With my 18" drivers some serious bass was called for!

ATC used to give their bigger drivers around twenty minutes worth of 16Hz or so at high levels to loosen them up before fitting into their speakers, mainly to show any off-centering or rattles in general. To see those big cones pummeling it out was quite something, I thought at the time.

My old Spendors, despite having bass drivers over half the age of the rest of the speakers, are treated as gently as I reasonably can and fortunately the Quad II's don't plumb the depths either. There's plenty there though for them big moog bass moments and they don't boom like BC1's do domestically........

[Mr. C]

Just a note to say, we always run in our speakers before use in demo's home loand or shows, we give them at least 100 hours of 90db+ level of varied dynamic music and frequency sweeps. Before making any judgement on speakers, so take quite a lot longer, these are treated accordingly.
The Pacific 3As were shipped direct to the show we did not have change to give them a full and proper work out, however they did a respectable job of producing music. Which after all is what it is all about.

I was chatting to Eric Duboysfrom Triangle who has the same thoughts on this too.