[Ian J]

I went for the fourth year running with my good friend Nobber22 but this year also arranged to meet up with Angeleyes and russ.will from the subwoofer gang and we did most of the speaker rooms together. We met a few forumites at Stuart's stand too and even bumped into Hornydragon on the way round.

I'm hopeless at exhibitions like this as by the end of the day I've completely forgotten which demo was which so last year I took a notebook and found that by making very brief one lines notes (including what was being played) it brought it all back to me later on. This year I also took a notebook but forgot to write much in it so as usual I have forgotten which ones were which.

My over riding impression was that far too many people were using Diana Krall and other undemanding stuff to demo their speakers with which was a great shame. When I audition speakers I want to hear treble, bass and dynamics as well as mid range but far too often this wasn't on offer. Let's see what I can remember.

PMC / Bryston - The new EB1 large floorstanders at £6,000 per pair were on the end of a pair of £10,000 each Bryston monoblock amps and singing very sweetly even in a hotel room that was obviously much too small to be ideal. It's a shame that unlike previous years PMC only had the one room as they usually have a second where they demo the more affordable stuff and in five channel mode too.

Living Voice - This room always amuses me and this year was no exception. They were demonstrating a pair of prototype horn speakers but it was the partnering kit that amused me. Turntable £11,768, Tonearm, £3,500, Cartridge £10,000 Transformer, £4,400, Phono Stage £12,700, Pre-amp £28,000, Power amp £48,000.

The associated equipment totalled £127,000 which was completely daft for a small hotel room where the door remained open so that the sounds being produced by the system had to compete with the general hubbub from the corridor outside.

Totem Acoustics - We listened to the Arro floorstanders which sounded excellent even though we had to sit bored through an extended drum solo before listening to any music. Excellent mid and top and the dynamics from the drum solo were up to scratch too. This is the third Totem speaker I've listened to and in my opinion the brand is well worth putting on anyone's short list.

REL - A disappointment. Not because they sounded poor but because the display was all static and I would have liked to hear some of them. In the second REL room they had the same Vienna Concert Grand large floorstanders that we heard last year and I still think that if I had a large enough room they would make it to my very very short list.

Leema Acoustics - I have been a fan of Leema ever since I hear the prototype Xen a few years ago. This year they were playing Dire Straits through a pair of the new Xero speakers which at £670 per pair were half the price of the Xens and really good they sounded too.

Canton - We had a listen to the new wireless range but having read so much about Cantons in the forum I really wanted to hear the typical speakers that were being sold via the Powerbuys. Canton duly obliged and we listened to the £600 CD151 based 5.1 setup and it really put some of the more expensive systems that we'd heard to shame. For anyone who wants a system in that price range with high WAF this one is a definate one to audition.

Yamaha - this was the only closed demo that we visited this year and well worth it too. They had one of the very large conference rooms downstairs and had their new Soavo floorstanders taking pride of place. These retail at £2,000 per pair and they had three strung along the front soundstage backed up by a pair of £1,000 each Yamaha subs. It was a 7.2 demo but I didn't see what they were using as rears. The demo took the format of playing clips from a CD, clips from SACD, samples from film DVD and some more from music DVDs including Faithless live which possibly sounded even better than it did last year in the Meridian room on equipment costing many times as much. The highlight of the demo was that old standbye Peter Gabriel cycling round the stage to Solsbury Hill and filmed in HD with DTS-HD sound - brilliant stuff.

I always manage to watch a DVD that I later buy and this year I ordered Faithless Live as soon as I got back. Not really my taste in music but as a multi channel demo disc it's superb. I know how my speakers, subwoofer and amp combination perform compared to others but have never really tested out the channel steering.

I even parted with some cash this year and will have pleased Hornydragon by taking his advice and buying a Harmony remote to replace my Pronto

[Chippo2000]

I'd agree with most of the observations above from my visit yesterday.

I was surprised that REL were using a 2.1 system to demo the sub. Personally I think subs only really come into their own in a multichannel setup. With a good set of stereo floorstanding speakers, I'd prefer to configure without a sub and let the speakers handle the bass and crossover.

I thought the Yamaha demo was mixed. Multichannel performance was superb but stereo sounded cluttered and lacked agility and dynamics. I'd imagine this is a weakness with the reciever rather than the Soavo speakers.

One of the stars of the show for me was Focal. I don't remember the model, but the £999 floorstand speakers on show sounded easily as good as the Monitor Audio GS range. I was also impressed that they had taken the time to kit the room out with soft furnishings and tile effect lino, giving it a very different feel to most of the other rooms.

As always I found a number of exhibitors were choosing very poor material to demo their Kit. KEF, for example, were using music with very poor dynamic range and sparse vocals to "show off" the IQ7s

[Ian J]

Originally Posted by Chippo2000

I was surprised that REL were using a 2.1 system to demo the sub.

I don't think that they were. I think that they were using the sub to demonstrate how the Vienna Acoustics didn't actually need one.

Originally Posted by Chippo2000

One of the stars of the show for me was Focal.

We heard the Chorus 705V small bookself speakers at £289 per pair and very impressive they were too

[Chippo2000]

Originally Posted by Ian J

I don't think that they were. I think that they were using the sub to demonstrate how the Vienna Acoustics didn't actually need one.

Now that would make perfect sense - in my defence it was getting towards the end of the day and time was pressing so I probably missed that detail completely.

[Nobber22]

Another good show under me belt and great to meet up with old friends and chat about AV.

spent much of the time demoing speakers adn the stand-outs for me were the little bookshelf speakers from Focal: Chorus 705V. Lovely speakers with the sweetest treble I've heard in a long time adn tight bass for such a little box - and just £280 a pair. I fully intend to demo them again at Audio-T (they are offering 20% off for the next 3 weeks for show-goers) and the larger 706V's too.

Totem Arros were very good, as were the monster PMC EB1's!!!

There were a number of makers with wireless speakers - rears too - and these seem to do a good job. Expect these to be the big thing in 2007.

Hats off to both Free Loudspeakers (Sonos) and Tannoy (XPC), who let us muck around with their wireless music centres and choose our own tunes of their extensive playlists!! Free didn't even fuss when Russel and I each grabbed a remote control and had a short "battle of the bands!" . Free Loudspeakers are wireless floorstanders look like a sealed PMC GB1 - not surprising since they are made by PMC with Bryston power internals. Didn't sound too bad either.

I fully intend to embrace wireless music servers and am VERY interested in the Sonos kit - such a pleasure to use!

AVI's new ADM9 Actives (£1000) were good too. Using just an Apple Music Server to stream Lossless files to the active AVI's, they had plenty of punch and bass. Amazed to see the "old guys with beards" from AVI so into Digital music!

Yamaha's 7.2 Suavo1 + Suavo900 subs setup sounded very nice in multi-channel. Not so good in stereo (and again the demo music was crap!), but as Chippo says: probably the 2700 amp to blame. Would love to hear them on the end of some serious stereo kit!

Canton 151 5.1 setup was very impressive, Superman DVD blasting around the room, but without the harsh treble so many budget sats are blighted with. Go demo these people!

Leema - classy as always and half the price of the old Xens!

Living Voice - - sorry guys, I laugh & applaud every year at the effort you put into a 4 meter square hotel room.

Some nice images on the Fujitsu plasmas strung around the place, but I didn't really pay much attention to the projectors this time out.

Thanks AV Forums guys for letting me , a properly poor gamer have a go on the "crash a car for cash" game - hell, I was pants!!

Lastly - can't WAIT for smoking to be banned in public places in July this year - that Terrace area by the bar is minging!!!!!

[Ian J]

Originally Posted by Ian J

I always manage to watch a DVD that I later buy and this year I ordered Faithless Live as soon as I got back. Not really my taste in music but as a multi channel demo disc it's superb. I know how my speakers, subwoofer and amp combination perform compared to others but have never really tested out the channel steering.

Whatever DVD I buy after hearing it at the show I'm always happy with the way it sounds on my system afterwards but this time I admit defeat.

I've just played Insomnia from the Faithless Live DVD and whilst it sounded fine on my system and the channel steering was as good as I could expect given the fact that my rears are probably too close I just couldn't get the feeling of sheer scale that comes from hearing a track like that played at lifelike levels in a large room with such apparent lack of effort.

Next upgrade then is a full sized conference room extension

[Nobber22]

Don't forget to invite 97 other people to watch it with you!

[thompma]

Enjoyed the show again, park and ride was good, well organised and worked.

Yamaha - Disappointing, nothing to write home about, but as others have said, might have been what was driving them that could have been the problem.

Denon - Disappointing also, just not as good as previous years.

Meridian - Awesome, very enjoyable going from 2 channel, multi channel to film clip, good.

PMC/Bryson - Superb kit.

HD Material - Not too interested really until they sort themselves out, and like the majority of us with loads of SD DVD's, then i like to see what SD DVD can do. And its pretty good still.

Sim2 - Not too impressed, better dem at Manchester, but they were using the same clips

Cyrus - Very nice.

One thing i'd love to see, is DTS having a stand/demo room giving out the demo discs/freebies.

Arcam - Solo 5.1, very nice, good product.

General music - All very safe, yet again, might take a disc next year with some real music to listen to, IMO,

Roll on next show, Heathrow Sept.

[Geezer]

Originally Posted by thompma

Roll on next show, Heathrow Sept.

Which one is that then?

[thompma]

The Sept show is the one organised by chestergroup who do the one at Manchester Airport.

If like Manchester show, well organised and a good day out.

It'll be first time at the Heathrow show by Chestergroup.

Used to go to the other Heathrow show but that went downhill.

http://www.chestergroup.org/lsav07/

[slyv12]

Have to admit the most impressive kit me and my brother heard were the focal 705v's, Stevie Ray Vaughans guitar never sounded so clear and rich. Tempted to change my b&w 602s3's for them after a proper demo though. The cantons were very good for their size.

[gazzaboy]

I have to agree, the Focals were probably the best sounding (attainable!) speakers I heard on the day.

But have to say hilight of the show was listening to the Naim Supernait. Would strongly consider one if I had a couple of grand sitting about....

[Ian J]

The Focals were indeed excellent speakers in their own right and superb value for money. I was chatting to the Focal bods whilst I was there and mentioned that a friend of mine was one of their dealers. They couldn't speak highly enough of him and it would appear that he sells more Focal stuff than anyone else. According to them he is one of the most knowledgeable hifi blokes around so if anyone is thinking of buying Focal stuff just give Tony from Coherent Systems a ring, mention my name and he'll probably double the price

[Russell.Williams]

Good show overall and nice to see IanJ again, as well as meet Nobber22 for the first time. Angel Eyes filled a seat in my car.

I agree with everything above, but appear to be alone in thinking the Naim rooms produced some nice tunes. Ok, it should for the money involved, but there was plenty of expensive stuff that was just plain embarrasing.

My father has a pair of Focal JMLab floorstanders and I've considered their budget version of the inverted dome to be one of the best tweeters I've heard this side of silly money. It was nice to see their most budget offereing paired with an Arcam CD172 and A90 singing like gooduns well beyond their collective price tags. Unusual looks and first class finish. I can only imagine JMLab don't sell more in Britain because they're French. Our loss.

The PMC room did it's best to dispel the usual hifi myths. £6k speakers, £18k of amps partnered with a £200 Tascam rackmount CD transport (into a good DAC) and all strung together with cheap as chips cabling. Seriously, £2/m was quoted for the speaker cables. Makes you laugh when there were rooms demoing power leads.

The sound? Absolutely awsome. Better, deeper, tighter bass than any of the sub manufacturers could stump up.

The Totem room did well. The Arros in particular impressed with a good tuneful bottom end, convincingly faking that which they couldn't deliver. Add in an open midband and delicate, refined treble and it gelled as a very inpressive, tiny package.

A nice surprise was the small KEF room demoing the KIT 200. If a complete noob walked into a shop wanting a discrete HC system for £1500 with no interest in upgrading, then they'd be doing alright if they walked out with one tucked under their arm.

MJ Acoustics completely missed their chance by only demoing their smallest sub and badly at that, but their new budget 5.0 speaker package. Bearing a passing resemblance to the SVS SBS-01 package, in size and configuration, the lack of trans-atlantic shipping costs has allowed them to squeeze a very nice gloss black finish into the bargain. I look forward to the showdown.

The Gecko room was disappointing and failed to show off either the M&K Xenons or the Audyssey MultEQ Pro, which was a shame. Still, no point in flogging a dead horse.

Don't start me on REL, but would you park a full scale 12" sub in a corner? It was worth it for the Vienna Acoustics Beethoven Concert Grand which ironically provided one of the sounds of the show for me and definitely needed no support from a sub. Not one employed in that fashion anyway.

The biggest disappointment. The absolute rake of rubbish 1080p projector demos.

Sim2 didn't demo any three chippers and whilst the Domino D80 is a cracker, lord only knows why they chose a high gain, glass beaded, grey screen for the demos. I mean, the PJs are bright, have good contrast and the room was fully light controlled. All you could see was screen sparklies. To then compare the 720p v 1080p PJs in two different sized rooms where you were sat even closer in one than the already too close other room, rendered it completely pointless. Querying them on this choice only resulted in my intelligence being insulted. Shame, because my elderly 7205 would knock your socks off in comparrison to that "demo".

Still, being on the 10th floor, I'm sure plenty of people gave it a miss, so little damage done.

Luckily, the Projection Design Action! Model 2 restored projection faith. A diminutive package, shining on a correctly sized matt white screen, gave smooth filmic images. Like so many of the best gear at the show, it was low key and worth the search. Sound volume was low and there were no distractions from the picture. Better still, Sim2 take note, there was no one refering to the "product". Just a nice ameanable bloke who hadn't had a three day sales course, but actually knew, understood and cared about his AV. Top marks. Very cute PJ too.

Russell