[Ikklepip]

Hi All,

Just a quick reminder that the Manchester Home Entertainment show is fast approaching us on 21 - 22 October.

The link for it is as follows:

http://www.home-entertainment-show.co.uk/

It's mainly hi-fi orientated, but some of the big AV names will be demoing there - Denon, Marantz, Pioneer, Panasonic, Sony to name a few.

Last year Sony built a mini home theater and demoed the Qualia 004 - which looked pretty darn good. I'm guessing that they'll demo the Ruby or Pearl this year (the Ruby was on display last year, but not demoed) - it's not been confirmed yet, so don't quote me on that one!

Samsung will also be demonstrating their new Blu-ray machine - so you can see how soft and disappointing the picture is first hand - lol! (just kidding - don't flame me!).

Cheers,

Ikklepip :-)

[tryingtimes]

I'll be there - hopefully seeing a Sony Pearl or failing that a Ruby. I know Practical Hi-Fi sell them.
It'll be nice to see HD-DVD and Blu-Ray around the place though.
It's not really the kind of show for 'announcements' but I'd like to see the new EU HD-DVD players in the flesh.

[Graham_E]

We'll be there in force, showing the new Harman Kardon Digital Lounge in one room, with some really good special offers in the second room - massive discounts on ex display / ex dem kit from the office..

[James Baker]

I will be there sunday!

[hutch]

I'll be there on Saturday, looking forward to seeing the Pana 9 series and Fuji 58 panels finally

[Ikklepip]

If I remember rightly, the Fujitsu stand was very good last year (even discounting the booth babes - lol). They were one of the few FPD manufacturer showing a mixture of SD and HD - which was quite brave and to be applauded. There's quite a few FPD's out at the moment that look good in HD, but when you put a DVD on, the picture turns to mush. There's still not much HD available in the UK at the moment, so SD performance is VERY important.

I'm also looking forward to the Panasonic stuff too, their Plasma's are on my short list.

[hutch]

Sounds like you are in the same boat as me, im torn between the 58 and the PH9 and will make this weekend a chance to finally make a decision and put a purchase in.

Even the missus wants to come, probably to stop me spending too much though hahaha

I'll be going.

Hope it's better than last years effort as some manufacturers were a bit lame in not demoing much kit, if any.

Better be a plentiful supply of Haribo's again from audiolab

.....and great deals allround.

[Garrett]

What time does the show open and close on both days?

[Miniholic]

Here you go mate.

SATURDAY 21 October – 9.30 am to 5.30 pm

SUNDAY 22 October – 10 am to 5 pm

Not decided which day we're going yet though.

[pixelpixel]

Is it free ?

[GrahamC]

Normaly £3.50 entrance fee.

[pixelpixel]

Originally Posted by GrahamC

Normaly £3.50 entrance fee.

Thats ok will call in on Sunday after the football!

[Ikklepip]

Sorry I wasn't able to reply to your questions - I work 2pm until 10pm.

If you look at the link below (same link as in first post) it should tell you everything you need to know. :-)

http://www.home-entertainment-show.co.uk/

Cheers,

Phil :-)

It's £6 entrance that what it says on my half price tickets. I'm sure it was the same last year aswell.

If practical hifi on bridge street are open saturday you can get half price tickets they're literally a few minutes away from the venue. Turn right at the red bricked sainsbury's local off deansgate which is just past Kendals if you're coming from the venue. Not sure if they'll sell you any while the show is on or even if they're open best to ring : 0161 839 8869

It all adds up

[Woodywizz]

I might pop down tomorrow morning, would like to see HD-DVD demo, and would also be interested to see if there are any European HD-DVD players on display.

[Kevo]

What a waste of time that was.
If you went last yaer, then don't bother this year, there's less to see.

Been going for about 4 years now and today was the worse yet.

No Panasonic stand, no Tosh stand showing their new HD DVD players and the same old unimpressive Sony stand (the same stand as last year that put me off LCD TVs for life!) and same Blu Ray projector 'ticket only' demo

Also, only one hi def DVD player, the new Samsung Blu Ray player which wasn't very impressive either, made Sky HD movie channels look like 'ultra hi def'!

The 'Blu Ray/SD DVD split screen comparison' demo on the samsung player was laughable and insulting. Think of those 70s 'brand X washing powder ads and you're not far off!
The SD DVD half was deilberately blurred and made to look worse than what it was and to make the blu ray half to look better than IT was!
He couldn't even show me any of the new naviagational features as the remote was in Korean!

To me it was just another lacklustre LCD picture that I have seen a thousand times before in the Stepford (High) St. Yours for a cool £850 'show only offer'....No thanks.

Pioneer and Fujitsu plasmas as impressive as ever. Fuj were showing LOTR:ROTK and Pioneer was showing the same old 'manufacturer rolling HD demos' as were Sony.

Wasn't all bad, picked up a 4 port HDMI auto switch box for £100 from the Vivanco stand, which I think is chaeper than the net(?) they have a 'display model' which I was happy to purchase but the rep said they will send me a new one next week.

The 'refeshments area' was abysmyl and was more like (and smelt like) a fast food joint (paper cups, plastic food cartsons etc), which is disgraceful for a hotel like the Renaissance.

VERY dissapointed this year, which'll probably be my last.
If you want to see HD demos then save yourself the trip and £6 and visit your local John Lewis or Currys instead, there's no diifference

[Jules]

Just got back myself. I agree, it was almost exactly the same as last year.

I also only bought from the Vivanco stand... a 10 metre gold plated HDMI cable for £40. I don't have an HDMI source yet, but I thought at that price I might aswell buy one for when I do.

I'm not going to these shows again... the only proper demo was Sony's (featuring the Pearl) and it was the same as last year (Spiderman on BluRay).

In the smaller rooms upstairs, I kept walking in and straight out again as all the exhibitors played stuff too loud. It was not pleasant. In bigger rooms ok, but not small rooms please!

Denon used to put on a good show, but all they do now is leave kit on display (without power) and invite you to take brochure. Arghh, I can do that in a shop!

To top it all.... I didn't see any nice looking girls in hot pants outside the dem room like there was last year.

£6... a bloomin' rip off! Stay at home.

[pixelpixel]

Originally Posted by Jules

To top it all.... I didn't see any nice looking girls in hot pants outside the dem room like there was last year.

£6... a bloomin' rip off! Stay at home.

What no girls! dam Will save my money thanks for the tip! Also does anyone notice how the website is just a converted powerpoint file! Thats loads of money spent on that!

[fluffrick]

I made the trip over from Sheffield and as this was my first hi-fi show, I didn't find it too bad - I'd echo the comments about the hi-fi demo rooms upstairs, though. All a bit like "Jazz Club" from "The Fast Show", with very dull music indeed.

Thought the HC-orientated area downstairs was okay, and did enjoy the Yamaha area, but this could be down to brand loyalty as I've recently bought a RX 2600.

Kef rooms were fun, Sony room was full of Monets (great from a distance, much less impressive up close) and the Samsung Blu-Ray demo told me pretty much everything that I needed to know about that particulary next-gen HD format.

The trailer for "XXX" looked very swish, but it's not exactly the kind of thing that will get you to drop a grand on an untested format. Frankly the standard def dvd of "I Robot" on the Yamaha plasma was more impressive...

[Mac Man]

Have to agree 100% with Kevo. You might as well just go to Currys instead. All the HD stuff on the LCDs and plasma is just rolling demo stuff - not even much in the way of any decent surround sound to back it up.

Not one single projecter anwhere outside the Sony demo room - which was a half baked 5 min trailer of Spiderman 2 and a poxy 'sizzler'. Told you sod all about the quality of the Pearl projector or the blue ray player driving it.

Where were SIM2, Themescene, Panasonic, Toshiba, Screenplay etc.

Complete waste of time. Everything else is just tedious beardy stuff.

Complete nonsense. Walked around all of it in less than an hour. waited another hour for the Sony 5 minute demo and then popped in finally to see the big Quad electrostats, which were mighty impressive.

Fortunately only paid £3 to get in. But I Will not go back next year. The show at Manchester airport earlier in the year was miles better.

I was really looking forward to the show, as I last went about 4 years ago and the place rocked then. I had a fabulous time. So considering how much technology has moved on in the meantime it just seemed like nobody gave a stuff this year.

DO NOT GO!!!!

[tryingtimes]

hmmm - you've got me thinking twice, that's for sure.
I wanted to see the pearl and any other digital pjs - sounds like it's pointless.
I'd quite like to listen to the Quad Electrostatics and maybe there's the odd other hifi room - but I've got to travel for an hour and pay £6 for the privalege - maybe not eh.

[Mwillo]

Have to agree with all the comments above..

The only good thing for me was the fact that i took the wife and got her approval on the kit i was after so on the way out i purchased a denon 1930, onkyo SR-647, a set of kef 2005.2. Plus a couple of extra speakers for the rear.

Just got back from the Manchester Home Entertainment show, and I have to say it was a bit of a let down after last year, last year there was a real energy and buzz about the place, and of course the girls in hot pants! This year there were fewer exhibitors, no girls, and I detected a bit more cynicism amongst the exhibitors.

I was REALLY looking forward to seeing Blu Ray this year, WHAT A DISASTER! The split screen demo was utterly appaling, the SD TV had it's colour calibration so far off it was untrue, the sunset looked green, it was a joke, I don't know who Samsung thought they were fooling with that disaster. The Blu Ray demo was dreadful, just really slow pans over watches and landscapes, told me nothing about how Blu Ray handles fast motion, multi way pans etc. In short it was designed to make the player look good, but told me nothing about how it would perform on real world movies. It would have had value if they'd brought over a handful of US titles which are now available, but this was laughable. In Curry's or Comet I'd expect this, but come on, this show appeals to enthusiasts like us, do they really think we're so stupid as to not realise what they're trying to pull off? There was no Panasonic (I really wanted to see their Blu Ray player and new 1080p projector), I was also very dissappointed there was no HD-DVD on show from anyone, and with no Toshiba to fly the flag it made the demo of Blu Ray even less relevant.

Sony's new SXRD rear projection set did look very impressive, I saw a VPL-VW50 in the flesh and was impressed with it's compact size, in comparison with the Qualia 004. I really couldn't be bothered waiting around for the demo, but as a friend of mine has purchase on of these from Europe I am looking forward to seeing it next week.

The Big Fujitsu panels looked impressive, pity they haven't admitted that the game is up for plasma given their limited service life in comparison with LCD, ditto Pioneer. Probably my vote for the most awful product at the show is Pioneer's new mains networking product, it places modulated crap on the mains and screw up your mains supply for Hi Fi and home theater, and probably that of your 10 closest neighbours. I hope to god this fails hideously, the last thing we need are manufacturers deliberately polluting the mains supply.

Denon had some interesting new equipment on show, but I really wished it would have been working, I think their new format of having a huge range of equipment on static demo really doesn't work as well as their huge 'Grand Slam' demo's of previous years. I would have really liked to have seen their new £1K Realta HQV equipped DVD player, along with their £650 mini HQV player, but their wasn't a single player connected up to a display, sadly a wasted opportunity.

I went in to Quad's room to hear the new panels. I really cannot see what all the fuss is about, the image had mediocre focus, and yes, the bass is better, but it's still lagging far behind the Martin Logan Summit's and Vantage's I've heard previously. If you go to the UKD room on the second floor you can hear the Final 600 panels, and they killed the Quad's in every respect and they cost £3,400, gorgeous design, well made, great imaging, overall truly excellent sound, and they were playing real music when I got there, not plinky plonky Hi Fi stuff. Henlet had some new amps, I think they called them Platinum, they're built like the Audia equipment they distribute, but they sounded great, and they had some of the best sound at the show playing KraftWerk 'Tour De France' on Vinyl!! I've never heard a Roksan turntable sound so musical.

JM Lab had some new 800 series floorstanding speakers, they're going to be £1K but sounded great driven by the new Sugden A21 MK.II amps (yes they've finally updated them after about 15 years). Wish they'd have had the Beryllium Elektra's there, they are meant to be great but I've never managed to hear a pair yet. Talking about Sugden, heard ProAc with the big Sugden Masterclass amp and CD player, they sounded very good, but I felt the speakers they were using (D28 £3,500) seemed very expensive in comparison with the Final panels and the JM Lab's.

Killer demos of the day came from Dali and Townshend Audio. Dali had the BEST image at the show, some Hi Def downloads off the 'net courtesy of a UVEM HTPC. I don't know much about UVEM, but this was superb. The Dali bookshelf speakers sounded really good, but the video was amazing, the guys on the ground floor could learn a lot from this demo. Townshend Audio had some new speakers there, smaller than their previous Glastonbury models and much cheaper (£6K) but the whole system, all using Townshend VSSS stands, had a speed, clarity and transparency which just killed every other demo there.

Overall then, for stereo enthusiasts it wasn't bad, for HT and video though it was something of a disaster, I would give it a miss this year and hope they put some effort in next year, with truly impressive video demo's using commercially available material.

Dave

[z5461313]

Agree the show was quiet this year with not many people walking around

Bose were not there either

I hope it doesn't go down hill as this is the only Home Entertainment Show there is in England every year that was exciting to see

But if the manufacturers start pulling out, or less Movie orientation and more Music listening is emphasised, then there will be 0 shows to see which will be very bad thing

[Ikklepip]

I went today and was very disappointed. For a start it cost £6 just to get in - what a rip-off!!

I've been going for the past 4 or 5 years and this was the worst. I came primarily to see the Sony Pearl demo and it only lasted about 4 minutes. The picture quality looked very good, but like Chris Lamle stated below, all we got to see was a Spiderman 2 clip (too many quick cuts to properly assess PQ) and then a trailer montage showing clips (again really quick cuts) from known below par BR transfers e.g. House of Flying Daggers and The Fifth Element. I didn't notice any convergence / colour uniformity issues at all.

Denon used to put on a really good demo, but it looks like they've given up. Only 3 or 4 years ago they were demoing their top end gear with the big Kef reference speakers and doubled Barco 1209's with a Snell & Wilcox Interpolator. Then they switched to a Digital Projection Murcury HD projector. Now they've just got their gear on stands and a plasma hidden at the back - very poor. A lot of people go to show to see some dream gear actually working, if I wanted to just look at it, I'd visit my local dealer.

Marantz weren't demoing any projectors. Audiolab were absent with their booth babes.

No HD-DVD either - a wasted opportunity!

I think everything else I wanted to say has been covered by dmyers06 in his excellent post (post #24)- I agreed with everything he had to say.

I think this maybe my last show - too much smooth jazz / weird 'experimental' music and not enough HT / projectors!

Phil

p.s. Hutch - NO Panasonic, although Fujitsu stand was good.

[hutch]

Originally Posted by Ikklepip

p.s. Hutch - NO Panasonic, although Fujitsu stand was good.

Yeah I know mate was hugely dissapointed by it to be honest, only stayed for max 60 minutes before heading off home where I promptly ordered the 50PH9 from AV Sales

Fuji's were good but not good enough to warrant an extra grand.

[pixelpixel]

Originally Posted by Mwillo

The only good thing for me was the fact that i took the wife and got her approval on the kit i was after so on the way out i purchased a denon 1930, onkyo SR-647, a set of kef 2005.2. Plus a couple of extra speakers for the rear.

Dam I should have tried that!

[Kevo]

Originally Posted by hutch.

Fuji's were good but not good enough to warrant an extra grand.

The blonde piece has put a bit of weight on since last year, still wouldnt say no though

I was refused entry to the upper floors, had no beard or padded elbows

[hutch]

Originally Posted by Kevo

The blonde piece has put a bit of weight on since last year, still wouldnt say no though

I was refused entry to the upper floors, had no beard or padded elbows