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?