North West Audio Show 2023

[Ali Tait]

[hifinutt]

Be helping out in the Longdog room as usual.

fab .. often wondered about their monoblocks

[sanchezxxx]

I'm going just to try one of the burgers everyone is talking about.

[Ali Tait]

fab .. often wondered about their monoblocks

I’d happily live with a pair, if I could afford them lol.

[Bourney]

Saturday for me I think.

[Macca]

Just back from the show. Didn't take my phone so don't have any pictures

Ran into a few people, Alan (Firebottle) and his wife, Paul from NVA and Colin Topps and Ali Tait in the Longdog room.

Highlights - Coherent Audio - with the TAD floorstanders, once again one of the best sounds. Everything there but never hard or in your face, pleasant to listen to with all music.

Kii - Had another go on the Kii3 - he'd managed to clear the room with his music selection so as there was only me and Steve left we asked for some Steely Dan and got to listen to 'Babylon Sisters'.

I spent six months last year talking myself out of buying some. I'm still impressed by the bass on these speakers, the depth and control are immaculate and they can be configured for any room so what you hear in one room will be the same in any.

But I just don't think that bit of upgrade over what I have is worth the substantial cost. https://www.kiiaudio.com/

NVA - had a pleasant sound going on from their monoblocs and some prototype 'Cube' speakers, didn't have the awesomeness of some of the mega systems but it was much more listenable. Paul put on some AC-DC for me and they made a good fist of it, the upward firing main driver adds a sort of 'live' feel without it being distracting. or weird.
https://nvahifi.co.uk/collections/all

Longdog Audio - with Colin Topps new speaker - Big floor standers with two ten inch active bass drivers, two arrays of multiple midrange drivers and a beryllium tweeter. Sound was reminiscent of an electrostatic but with proper bass. https://www.longdogaudio.com/

Phonia loudspeakers - Never heard of them before but they were impressive. Monumental solid and controlled bass but they were only playing electronica when we were in there so not much clue about how delicate the mid band will be. But it was one that interested me. https://www.hifipig.com/north-west-a...-loudspeakers/

Falcon Acoustics - were demming their LS3/5a. They have no bass and not that much top but I do totally get why people love them. https://www.stereophile.com/content/...5a-loudspeaker


PMC - the Prodigy 1 mini monitors were quite impressive, although when I was in there at least I thought they might be playing music that showed them in their best light i.e all bass and top. But worth checking out if you're looking for a miniature that has bass. Was never much for PMC domestic stuff like the FACT range but they seem to have upped their game in last few years. https://www.whathifi.com/news/pmc-pr...ers-mainstream

Chasing the Dragon - had their giant active ATC again, I like those, problem is they only dem with classical, at least on my visits.

Indeed as usual some truly terrible banal 'music' in a lot of rooms. A bloke in the corridor said 'I'm not going in any more rooms where they're playing pretentious shite.'

I think we got to that point too, passed one room playing some Hendrix, dived right in there even though probably would have passed it by as the kit they had wasn't really of much interest to me.

Maybe we should start boycotting rooms en masse and sort that problem out?

I know it's what we all want to hear - but it was true - the mega-money set ups generally didn't sound so good. Most expensive system in show was Doug Brady with full DCS stack into D'Augustino pre and monoblocs, and Magico S3 speakers. I think with all the cables and that you're getting on for a million quid and it really wasn't a pleasant listen. although obviously in terms of scale it was monumental. https://www.hifipig.com/magico-s3-2023-loudspeaker/

Some of the other serious money set ups were impressive in hi-fi terms, but they all had something about the sound that wasn't quite right. In some cases I couldn't quite identify what it was exactly, other times it was pretty obvious - mushy mids and bass, or too much bass, or too hard and strident. or a combination of those issues.

Had a tasty burger and glass of lager at half-time. We forgot to attend the free raffle at 1500 so don't know if we could have won something. There were some quite tasty prizes like various sets of loudspeakers. Booby prize was some magic fuses.

Weather was beautiful until about 1630 as we were leaving, when the heavens opened, so we were able to eat outside and nip out for an occasional smoke without getting soaked or frozen.

Anyway, another good NW show, always worth the trip to this one.

[Jimbo]

Thanks for the review of the show Martin. Sounds like you had a good day out and some decent systems there. I expect there was a fair amount of real world priced gear unlike the TAD speakers

[Macca]

Thanks for the review of the show Martin. Sounds like you had a good day out and some decent systems there. I expect there was a fair amount of real world priced gear unlike the TAD speakers

depends what you call real world. I still think a grand for a component is pushing the limit of what I'm okay to pay, but the world (and inflation) have moved on.

I'm sort of idly looking at getting a new CD player or transport, but it's got to satisfy in terms of cosmetics and build quality. One of the dealer rooms was demming an Exposure CD player that had the sort of look I'm after. It's not on the market yet but I asked what the price will be - two and a half grand!

[Jimbo]

Yep that unfortunately is almost the bottom end price of new gear and with the economic storm coming not sure how many they will shift at that price.

I referred to real world price as I presumed the NWA show would have some reasonably priced gear unlike many of the bigger audio shows round the world where so much gear is eye wateringly priced.

Maybe not!

[Barry]

Great write up Martin and an interesting summary of your impressions of the show.

I agree - the mega-buck systems sound 'impressive', and can do things that cheaper systems cannot, but they never justify their cost. The argument is that the knowledge gained in developing the components will 'trickle down' to the benefit of development of future components.

Again, like you, I dispair of some of the music chosen to demonstrate these systems - but I'm quite happy to listen to "classical" music: it drives out most of the visitors so I can hear the system on my own!