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Thread: Hammersmith Festival of Sound

  1. #1
    Join Date: Apr 2012

    Location: London

    Posts: 685
    I'm James.

    Smile Hammersmith Festival of Sound

    Hi all,
    I spent a couple of very pleasant hours down the road in the Hammersmith Novotel nosing around the kit and listening to music (and plinky plunk audiophile crap). It wasn't that extensive but there was a good range of manufacturers products to enjoy at various price points.

    Highlight of the show, and almost certainly the most expensive kit there was the new PMC Fact Fenestria speakers sporting the new 'made in house' 75mm soft dome tweeter, £45k odd, 6ft high transmission lines so not for the impoverished or married amongst us, and driven by AVM Ovation monoblocks (£22k maybe). I went straight to their room at the start of the second floor simply because I wanted to start at the top and work my way downstairs. This was a mistake. There was some bland electronic junk playing and I asked for something a bit more challenging so the chap duly tee'd up Stravinsky's Firebird Suite. Yup, tonally spot on, all the instruments sounded right, dynamic fireworks aplenty and something akin to the muscular bass and lower midrange heft that we actually get at concerts and that is usually (and sadly) all but absent from home reproduction. It was a very physical experience. The sound was fringe phenomenal, nothing else at the show came close to the scale, extension, dynamic ease, and sheer bass heft. Add to that clean, solid, correctly sized images, decent depth, height, and soundstage, great ambience and hall cues, it was simply impossible not to dive straight into the music. All the usual jazz/synth/vocal material sounded good, and not just played loud. If nitpicking then I would say that there was a mild hardness towards the top of the midrange but nothing untoward or remotely (dare I say) ATC-like. Of course the room added a bit of fun to the proceedings so bass was not perfect, but the ceiling was hung with acoustic tiles and as a room it was decent by hifi show standards so they were lucky.



    Problem is, what can come next? I popped into the real world PMC room next door and the twenty5 23 model (£3.5kish) was punching above its weight and size, but bass was extended rather than punchy and physical, and either the tweeter or the electronics weren't doing it for me, it sounded split into two drive units rather than coherent music. I needed a bit of reconfiguration and mooched about until coming upon the Wharfedale room where their new small speakers were being exercised. These are the D300 range and the D320 was the model used driven by an Audiolab amp (IIRC). Now they were a far cry from the Fact Fenestrias let's not pretend.. but they were making happy sounds and the music flowed nicely within their capabilities, not hifi, just music, and people seemed to stay in there a bit. Priced at £200 they are fab value, construction is more than decent at the price. Just the odd two hundred pairs for the price of PMCs flagships..

    Last up for what I feel able to recommend for sheer musical enjoyment was the Audio Note room. In typically downplayed style they were advertising the hotel table as a support for their kit and had a fan blowing to disperse the heat generated in the closed room by the humans, valves, and all the hotel's internet gubbins by the look of it. There was a cello dumped in the corner which I assume was there to make a statement about resonance and musicality, but it just added the store room feel, and the door slammed shut when anyone entered or left... AN-J speakers driven by P2 bi-amped, and a TT2 with what I took to be an Io1 but I could be wrong. It was Audio Note sound to a tee though, midrange to die for and foot tappingly tuneful. Good music as usual as well. For full disclosure I am an acknowledged AN fanboy.

    Other highlights for me were the Dave DAC in the Chord room, running with their newish Hugo 'upscaler'. Having asked what the speakers were I have since forgotten but they had ribbon tweeters. I didn't like the sound overall but the space and ambient information were very impressive, I'm not sure I've ever heard more of that from 44.1kHz so maybe the upscaler was doing summat good, but in context the music was awful synth stuff and that can easily enough be crafted to enhance whatever characteristics you are trying to impress with. In another room was a clever 'lifestyle' turntable from Yamaha which integrated analogue out from the AT95 cartridge and an internal wireless streamer/converter sending music to the various satellites. Looked good, sounded a bit crap, but an easy consumer desirable. Deck complete with cart was about £500 IIRC. The Accuphase room had a couple of bits of their usual slick kit with some (to my ears) rather underwhelming speakers so one ended up comparing the speakers rather than listening to music.

    Low points for me included the Cabasse speakers which sounded like a loud bass heavy internet radio, Audeze headphones which I have not heard before, have now heard twice in different systems, and am in no rush to hear again, a Kef multi-media room that was to my fogey ear just an assault on sensibilities, and Denon's room which was next door, very similar, and no better.

    Sympathies to the chap from Stax who shared his room with two other dealers one of whom was pumping music out without any apparent interest from anyone. It was imposible to hear the earspeakers in any sensible manner but I can at least say I've listened to the 009S and for what I managed to hear they are definitely worth some serious listening.

    All in all a fun couple of hours. Anyone else go, and if so what were your thoughts?

  2. #2
    Join Date: May 2018

    Location: London

    Posts: 27
    I'm Peter.

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    There were three highlights for me. The CAD, Wilson Benesch, Trilogy room was the most outstanding. The CAD (Computer Audio Design) Audio Transport feeding the CAD DAC through Trilogy amps (plus a few CAD grounding components) into the Wilson Benesch Resolution speaker was simply incredible. The Wilson Benesch Geometry series always have the most incredible detail - Magico always take the accolades for detail and speed but I've heard a few speakers from the Geometry series by Wilson Benesch and to me they do it even better. The only downside is that they can expose the edges of poor recordings and, partnered with the wrong equipment, can sound too much. But with the CAD DAC, one of the most analogue-sounding DACS I have ever heard, and the Trilogy, which I am not so familiar with, the sound was just incredible. The sound was so detailed, fast and clean yet the balance of the whole system just made it flow so naturally and so beautifully. I find detailed speakers can tire sometimes but there was none of that here. An incredible room, and one it was difficult to tear myself away from. My wife also loved this room best of all.

    Second for me was the B&W room where the 800D were awesome. Powered by a couple of chunky monoblocs (can't remember the make) and a Chord Dave DAC they were sounding terrific. The sound of the 800D3 is always so effortless and so natural and grand sounding. I just sat in this room and let it flow over me. Whereas the CAD/Trilogy/Wilson Benesch room made me sit up and listen, made me want to hear different sorts of music to hear the remarkable sound that was achieved, instead the B&W room was a more laid back affair, but everything sounded just 'right'.

    Third for me was the PMC Fenestria room, same as you Jazid. In Munich I rated the PMC room one of the best too, here I felt the room acoustics were not quite as good, but the speakers still shone. I can't add to what you said above as you hit the nail on the head. There was, for me, a little bit too much in the upper mid as you mentioned. This would occasionally make me wince, like you'd been thumped - a bit aggressive, perhaps deriving too from the highly dynamic sound. So for example on 'Beat It' Jacko's voice made me think 'ouch, turn it down!'. But there was no denying these speakers are special, if a little house-unfriendly!

    Other than that I wasn't impressed by much - the Mark Levinson room had their costly amps and record deck installed but sounded terrible. I wasn't as impressed with Audio Note as you were Jazid. Naim/Focal sounded poor but I didn't hear the big Focal speaker set up, just the standard floorstanders (which were still sizeable). I do find Naim/Focal rooms at audio shows generally sound poor. I have a Naim system at home so it's not from any anti-Naim standpoint. There was a KEF speaker with an Innuous network player and a Hegel integrated amp playing in the open area (not sure where the DAC sat in this system - in the amp?), and playing loudly and it was sounding so bad, I really could not believe they left it on. It was loud and ear-bleedingly harsh sounding, and certainly no advert for the speaker nor the amp. I know little about Vertere but the Vetere room sounded dreadful yet looked like it was really expensive kit. ProAc were showing off the new K4 which sounded weak and dead, which is a shame as I rate the K6 highly, but maybe it was poor room acoustics or poor accompanying equipment, I didn't notice the amp or source as I left fairly swiftly. The Node room with these groovey looking speakers that look a little like an eyeball were interesting to look at, though they sounded poor.

    My wife and I really enjoyed the afternoon there, though I worry about the attendance as it was fairly empty. That was good as you could get a good seat in every room, but I'm not sure how sucessful the event is, hopefully Saturday and Sunday were better attended.

  3. #3
    Join Date: Apr 2012

    Location: London

    Posts: 685
    I'm James.

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    Just goes to show two things: horses for courses, and I'm getting a little unobservant*sigh*

    I lasted about 29 seconds in the Wilson Benesch room, that style of presentation just makes me feel fidgety. It's a marmite thing.

    As for B&W 800s, damn, I missed the room completely! And I like the way the big B&Ws sound, so a little annoyed.

    I also missed the Levinson room but...like it matters...

    Avoided mentioning the Kefs in the big room, but completely agree with you, at least they were turned down when I was there. That from a man who spent 4 hours happily listening to Beethoven through his own pair of 105s this evening :-)

    The exhibitors I spoke to all seemed resigned to the lack of attendance, they said it was because it was Friday..?

    The chap frantically trying to get somebody, anybody, now, to sit and listen to Ken Ishiwata talk was a bit stressed. I felt a tad sorry for the big man because there were about ten people with a lot of empty chairs surrounding them, and some lame sounds from a Marantz amp and a pair of Q acoustics speakers (I believe) to keep the hoi polloi amused whilst waiting for the event.

    Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

  4. #4
    Join Date: May 2018

    Location: London

    Posts: 27
    I'm Peter.

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    I missed the Marantz demo as I timed my arrival as the last one of the day ended. Yes a shame for Mr.Ishiwata, a legend of the industry giving a presentation to a poorly attended room. B&W and Levinson were on the lowest floor of the exhibitors' floors, which I think was the first floor as the ground floor just had the live venue.

  5. #5
    Join Date: Mar 2017

    Location: West Sūþsēaxe

    Posts: 2,015
    I'm Edward.

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    James, that is the second time this week I just missed you.

    I went along yesterday (Friday) and there were nice sounds and stuff. But maybe I'm getting long in the tooth; even though the show was enjoyable I did not come away thinking "wow". Highlights, for me, were the PMC big room (Peter Thomas was there and being quite chatty), Trilogy (Nic Poulson was there - also chatty), Accuphase, Audeze (£3,600 headphones! yikes!), Chris Difford (Squeeze) did a chat and performance and a few others. Very interesting chat with a guy that does room treatments - GIK Acoustics.

    I missed a few rooms - I blame the fact there was no room layout map (that I could find).

    Attended two 'seminars' - one about Led Zep of a new Concert book being released next week and Russ Andrews chatting away.

    Bought a Supra block.
    Current: [P20] Roon/Tidal > Custom PC> Chevron Paradox NDF16 > Phast Pre > Neuro. 686 > Tannoy Berkley (RFC tweaks)


  6. #6
    Join Date: Mar 2016

    Location: Barnet, london UK

    Posts: 2,146
    I'm Adam.

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    Mrs westlower and I went this afternoon, it was, at least in the afternoon, alarmingly empty, but as said good seats to be had. A lot of bling and very expensive SS gear and multi driver speakers with silly money tags.
    You are right Edward, na floor plan.

    We enjoyed the Big Naim Reference room with the Focal beasts from hell. Sound scale off the charts, layers of detail... but no much involvement or feeling ... £380,000 for the rig. The bored chap asked if I was the oligarch he’d been dreaming of.
    The big PCMs impressed, the chord Dave was incredible but I didn’t like the harsh sound of the room
    And thought it could do with tubes somewhere in the chain..

    Audio Note was enjoyable and engaging, as was the Accuphase amplifier, very valve like from SS.

    No interesting Analogue stuff really, just the odd space looking deck with lights in the end of the tone arm!

    Several of The rooms were just plagued by dicks who were chatting so loudly it made no sense to stay In them.

    Enjoyed the show but felt like I’d walked into a hotel where the fire alarm had gone off...it was so sparse on attendance

    Russ Andrews didn’t want to get into a cable debate with me. Shame.
    "lack of passion is fatal"


    Vinyl: Thorens TD-124mk2 / SME-312 Aluminium 'special' / SME M2-9R / STEREO: Etsuro Urushi Cobalt / Shure M3D / Ortofon SPU A95 / Cartridge Man Music Master / Shure - SC35C (US) / SAEC C3 MC MONO: Miyajima Zero B 0.7mil mono / Miyajima Premium 1.0 / Amps & SUTs: Radford STA25 mk3 / AD Audio 'Satchmo2' pre & LCR phono / Hashimoto HM-7 SUT / ETR-MONO SUT Digital: Audio Note 4.1 (with DAC5 upgrades) DAC / Roon / Tidal Speakers: Tannoy 12" MGs' in RFC custom 'Rutland' Cabinets with RFC crossovers / Tannoy ST-100 Super Tweeters Cables: LFD Grainless phono / RFC Mercury / Duelund DCA16GA tinned copper / Kimber 12TC / SW1X Audio Design USB-SPdif / Duelund DCA20GA interconnects / SW1X Audio SPDIF Aero 6 / Mains Power Conditioner / Box Furniture rack / Audiodesk Systeme Vinyl Cleaner / a very beautiful & understanding Wife!

  7. #7
    Join Date: Aug 2008

    Location: Suffolk, UK

    Posts: 1,473
    I'm Paul.

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    Quote Originally Posted by WESTLOWER View Post
    We enjoyed the Big Naim Reference room with the Focal beasts from hell. Sound scale off the charts, layers of detail... but no much involvement or feeling ... £380,000 for the rig.
    I was there yesterday. It was good to met my mate, who I haven’t seen for a while but otherwise a little dissapointing. Took 3 hous each way by time I had driven to the train station, got the train in to London and then negotiated the line shutdowns due to maintenance.

    I think you hit a nail on the head about Focal. Sort of liked the demo with the huge speakers. They were crammed into a low-ceilinged room however. I’ve never really liked any Focal speakers I have heard, must be just a personal taste thing.

    I was impressed with the two PMC rooms. I thought they were particularly good. I thought that you could hear the professional monitor heritage in the speakers. Although many of the UK hifi brands started of this way they have seemed to have lost this. What was strange to me was that there was a French company using a huge set of PMC professional active monitors and I though these were a bit course. They were playing some early rock pressings and it may have just been a fairly honest rendition of the music. Also the Audio Note room was very good. My issue with AN is that the music demo’ed just is not my cup of tea and as wonderful as it sounds I don’t know if it will sound good with the music I listen too - more blues, rock, 80s and a bit of modern stuff that tends to use synthasised beats and notes.

    A surprise was the Airpulse and Edifier room; this was the one with the STAX headphones in. I am a fan of active monitors in general and these sounded really, really good. We listened to some £400 Edifier speakers for a while and TBH there wasn’t really anything wrong with them at all.

    The BW room had some mid-range floorstanders going and these wern’t bad at all either. Wasn’t sure about the KEF’s but I only listened to the ones in the main hall in front of the sofa. They sounded good in isolation but not great when compared to AN.

    The Node room was interesting with their Eclipse-esque speakers that looked a bit like giant eyes on stalks. Wasn’t sure about the speakers at first when sitting in the chairs but crouching down on the floor and listening to then near-field they were very good. Node are actually just down the road from me and the guy invited me to go and have a look around. Starting at £27 a pair I won’t be buying any soon, but if he is OK with this I might pop in one day.

    There was a room selling small hybrid valve,SS amps called Blue Aura. They were at the budget end but actually quite good. The small 2.1 speakers were excellent if lacking a bit of scale- as you would expect for small speakers, but good all the same. I would guess the hybrid amp through a larger efficient speaker would be really nice. I bet they would make the AN speakers really sing.
    ~Paul~

  8. #8
    Join Date: Apr 2018

    Location: Brighton

    Posts: 47
    I'm Jason.

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    I went along yesterday and had a good day out.

    The Naim/Focal room was a waste of time as the music choices were run-of-the-mill safe choices that would sound decent in any system. I was surprised by the number of people who got up and left way before I did, obviously they were as impressed as I was.

    I didn’t get a decent listen to the PMC Fenestria, but the brief glimpse I got sounded pretty decent.

    Quote Originally Posted by Duckworp View Post
    There were three highlights for me. The CAD, Wilson Benesch, Trilogy room was the most outstanding. The CAD (Computer Audio Design) Audio Transport feeding the CAD DAC through Trilogy amps (plus a few CAD grounding components) into the Wilson Benesch Resolution speaker was simply incredible. The Wilson Benesch Geometry series always have the most incredible detail - Magico always take the accolades for detail and speed but I've heard a few speakers from the Geometry series by Wilson Benesch and to me they do it even better. The only downside is that they can expose the edges of poor recordings and, partnered with the wrong equipment, can sound too much. But with the CAD DAC, one of the most analogue-sounding DACS I have ever heard, and the Trilogy, which I am not so familiar with, the sound was just incredible. The sound was so detailed, fast and clean yet the balance of the whole system just made it flow so naturally and so beautifully. I find detailed speakers can tire sometimes but there was none of that here. An incredible room, and one it was difficult to tear myself away from. My wife also loved this room best of all.
    Quote Originally Posted by Jazid View Post
    I lasted about 29 seconds in the Wilson Benesch room, that style of presentation just makes me feel fidgety. It's a marmite thing.
    I have to agree with Jazid, I popped into the room twice yesterday and stayed for 2-3 songs each time, for me it was one of the worst sounding rooms. Disjointed, flabby bass lagging behind the music. Last year the CAD room was producing one of my favourite sounds of the show.

    Quote Originally Posted by Duckworp View Post
    Second for me was the B&W room where the 800D were awesome. Powered by a couple of chunky monoblocs (can't remember the make) and a Chord Dave DAC they were sounding terrific. The sound of the 800D3 is always so effortless and so natural and grand sounding. I just sat in this room and let it flow over me. Whereas the CAD/Trilogy/Wilson Benesch room made me sit up and listen, made me want to hear different sorts of music to hear the remarkable sound that was achieved, instead the B&W room was a more laid back affair, but everything sounded just 'right'.
    Quote Originally Posted by Jazid View Post
    As for B&W 800s, damn, I missed the room completely! And I like the way the big B&Ws sound, so a little annoyed.
    The B&W 802 D3’s and Chord Electronics system (Blu MKII, Dave DAC, CPA 5000 pre and 1400MKII monoblocs) was my personal favourite. I had a similar experience as Duckworp, whatever they played sounded right.

  9. #9
    Join Date: Nov 2008

    Location: North Down /Northern Ireland/ UK

    Posts: 19,484
    I'm Neil.

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    Regards Neil

  10. #10
    Join Date: Mar 2017

    Location: West Sūþsēaxe

    Posts: 2,015
    I'm Edward.

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    Did not take any pictures but here is a short video of Chris Difford (Squeeze fame) playing through (apparently) a million quids worth of B&W system.

    No need to sign up to onedrive to view video.
    Current: [P20] Roon/Tidal > Custom PC> Chevron Paradox NDF16 > Phast Pre > Neuro. 686 > Tannoy Berkley (RFC tweaks)


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