[Stuart Wright]

This year the show is presented in conjunction with Home Cinema Choice, Hi Fi Choice and the BAJ.
It's at the Park Inn, Heathrow from 21st to 23rd September.
More details are on the website - click here.
AVForums will be reporting from the show.

[thompma]

We'll be there on the Sunday, hopefully it'll be a quality event like the January Manchester show that Chester group put on. Roll on Sunday

Never know, you might pick up a bargain.

[boksbox]

Originally Posted by thompma

We'll be there on the Sunday, hopefully it'll be a quality event like the January Manchester show that Chester group put on. Roll on Sunday

Never know, you might pick up a bargain.

The avreview site says the split will be approx 80-20% Hi-Fi to AV, hasn't this got disappointment written all over it from an avforums point of view?

[Neil Davidson]

Hi Guys,

As Stuart pointed out above - Phil and I will be reporting from the show on Saturday.

If you spot us then say hello!

[thompma]

The avreview site says the split will be approx 80-20% Hi-Fi to AV, hasn't this got disappointment written all over it from an avforums point of view?

Going by the other show that takes place in Manchester, then i shouldn't worry about the split as the quality will be good, personally if the quality of the displays/exhibitors is good then its an enjoyable time looking and dreaming. IMHO.

[Phil Hinton]

Podcast from the event is now live on the forum front page, some interesting interviews.
Would say the split this year is 80% HiFi and 20% AV

[TheBoingoBandit]

Decent show and even spending three hours there, I had to rush through the show close to the end.


The Audiofreaks 'show' across the road was pointless. Upon arriving at one of the listening room (there were only two), I spotted no members of the public in there and decided I didn't want to sit embarassingly alone so went straight to the real show instead.

[thompma]

Just got home from the show

Very good, most enjoyable time, not overcrowded and unrushed, only real disappointment was the Sim2 room, not on quality, but quantity, seemed geared up to get as many people as possible through as fast as possible therefore the clips were too short, picture was superb though.

Only noticed the Pana 103" plasma, what a beast! makes my 50" look small

Some nice sounding setups though.

Good show, roll on the next one.

[Neil Davidson]

Originally Posted by thompma

Only noticed the Pana 103" plasma, what a beast! makes my 50" look small

Would be interesting to have the comments of an enthusiast on the picture quality of the 103". I don't want to make any comments until others have the chance to post.

[TheBoingoBandit]

Originally Posted by Neil Davidson

Would be interesting to have the comments of an enthusiast on the picture quality of the 103". I don't want to make any comments until others have the chance to post.

Not an expert, but the picture quality while very good (showing HD), did seem to me to have a weird purply blue tinge rather than being pure black.



The guy from Sim2 told a customer they only had it there so they could show a projector in the next room and demonstrate what it could achieve despite being less a tenth of the plasma's £50,000 price tag. (The projector picture looked better IMO. Certainly the black level did. Sadly though I suffer from the rainbow effect and the projector didn't fare so well on that level.)

If I had £50k to spend on picture alone, then I would choose a projector and use a much smaller LCD TV for general day to day viewing.




For anybody who would like to see the 103", they had it on display in John Lewis Oxford Street (don't know if it's still there though) or it will be at the What Hi-Fi Show in Hammersmith in November.

Or you could simply buy one.





Interesting to note at the show that Pioneer (of who Sharp have just bought a share of the company) has scrapped thier direct LCD vs plasma comparison as seen at previous shows.

[AD Roser]

Originally Posted by thompma

Just got home from the show

Very good, most enjoyable time, not overcrowded and unrushed, only real disappointment was the Sim2 room, not on quality, but quantity, seemed geared up to get as many people as possible through as fast as possible therefore the clips were too short, picture was superb though.

Only noticed the Pana 103" plasma, what a beast! makes my 50" look small

Some nice sounding setups though.

Good show, roll on the next one.

Sorry you were disappointed with the quantity of our show, however I'm a little confused when you say about the lack of quantity as the demo was half an hour on average and 4 clips were being played which were Planet Earth, Cream Concert, Casino Royale or POTC and finally Happy Feet. Unless you visited us towards the end of the show when we were not running the presentation. I recall we ran one shorter session where we omitted Casino Royale to bring us back onto schedule.

Originally Posted by TheBoingoBandit

Not an expert, but the picture quality while very good (showing HD), did seem to me to have a weird purply blue tinge rather than being pure black.



The guy from Sim2 told a customer they only had it there so they could show a projector in the next room and demonstrate what it could achieve despite being less a tenth of the plasma's £50,000 price tag. (The projector picture looked better IMO. Certainly the black level did. Sadly though I suffer from the rainbow effect and the projector didn't fare so well on that level.)



If I had £50k to spend on picture alone, then I would choose a projector and use a much smaller LCD TV for general day to day viewing.




For anybody who would like to see the 103", they had it on display in John Lewis Oxford Street (don't know if it's still there though) or it will be at the What Hi-Fi Show in Hammersmith in November.

Or you could simply buy one.





Interesting to note at the show that Pioneer (of who Sharp have just bought a share of the company) has scrapped thier direct LCD vs plasma comparison as seen at previous shows.

The Plasma screen was nothing to do with SIM2 - the room was provided by Home Cinema Choice and the screen was installed by another company. The system on dem would have set you back around £40k.

I am interest to know at what point did you visit our dem, was it during the normal set piece or right at the end when we were running the 'Wild Hogs' clip?

[TheBoingoBandit]

Originally Posted by AD Roser

The Plasma screen was nothing to do with SIM2 - the room was provided by Home Cinema Choice and the screen was installed by another company. The system on dem would have set you back around £40k.

I am interest to know at what point did you visit our dem, was it during the normal set piece or right at the end when we were running the 'Wild Hogs' clip?

It was right at the end when Wild Hogs were playing on the cheaper unit. I certainly heard one of the demonstration guys make the comment to a customer (although I don't want to get that person in trouble). One of the Domino units was on demo and it I presume it was a one-chip model as I could see the rainbow effect. As I say, apart from that, the picture was impressive.

[thompma]

Thanks Alan for the response, we were in first thing Sunday, planet earth, cream and wild hogs.

I think there was too much talking, IMO, and explaining the technology of the projector and anamorphic lens, but can't fault really as that was your equipment.

Can't fault the quality of the images though, superb.

[recruit]

Originally Posted by Neil Davidson

Would be interesting to have the comments of an enthusiast on the picture quality of the 103". I don't want to make any comments until others have the chance to post.

IMO i thought the PQ was pretty bad and would take a PJ over that any day of the week !

[Neil Davidson]

Originally Posted by recruit

IMO i thought the PQ was pretty bad and would take a PJ over that any day of the week !

LOL - Now that everyone seems to have chipped in with their opinions I can give mine without being accused of bias.

The 103 is frankly dismal. Anyone who thinks that is a good picture is in for a treat from pretty much any other half decent plasma I can think of and will be amazed by what a projector can do.

The main issue seems to be that the thing flicks from frame to frame. It is like watching a flicker book at times.

This would be forgiveable if the price of the thing wasn't so high - £50k. For comparison the C3X1080 in the next room will be £20k. Even with the anamorphic lens and screen you are looking at less than £35k.

[AD Roser]

Originally Posted by Neil Davidson

LOL - Now that everyone seems to have chipped in with their opinions I can give mine without being accused of bias.

The 103 is frankly dismal. Anyone who thinks that is a good picture is in for a treat from pretty much any other half decent plasma I can think of and will be amazed by what a projector can do.

The main issue seems to be that the thing flicks from frame to frame. It is like watching a flicker book at times.

This would be forgiveable if the price of the thing wasn't so high - £50k. For comparison the C3X1080 in the next room will be £20k. Even with the anamorphic lens and screen you are looking at less than £35k.

Well this may seem strange because I must come to the defence of the 103. All was not what it seemed.

I want to stress that we did not have anything to do with this display, it was organised by HCC and installed and set up by another company. We all agreed that the image shown was underwhelming but as we had our own display we left it be.

On the Sunday as the show was winding down I had a bit more time so decided to take a look at the settings because I have seen this plasma in the USA and it has looked a lot better. Well the culprit was the DVD player, the installers had not checked the output as it was set to 480i/576i via component output. Simply changing the output to 1080i the image came alive so the interesting thing of all this is that for two and a half days the plasma was not showing in HD but many people thought that the picture was great (until they saw what we were doing in the theatre next door ).

Now, I could have kept quiet about this but I believe it is right to say that the unit should not be judged by what you saw. Saying that of course I still say that projection is better

[recruit]

Well that would explain why it looked so bad but the Sim2 demo was very nice indeed and i would still take a projector over that beast any day of the week...for one the TV was just too damn big and who would have enough room to keep one of them in there living room, even my Pearl with 102" screen looks far far better and that only cost me less than £4k !

Still i suppose there will always be people who will buy it just because they can.

[TheBoingoBandit]

Originally Posted by AD Roser

Well the culprit was the DVD player, the installers had not checked the output as it was set to 480i/576i via component output.

Bearing that in mind, I would say that the picture was rather impressive for the resolution being inputted.


IIRC the company that is handling installations of this model are a distributor or reseller and don't usually sell to consumers for home cinema use. So they might not have the knowledge about different resolutions that can be outputted from DVD players. Not really an acceptable excuse, but there you go.

Hopefully it will be set up properly at the What Hi-Fi show in November.

[truemanoid]

Originally Posted by thompma

Going by the other show that takes place in Manchester, then i shouldn't worry about the split as the quality will be good, personally if the quality of the displays/exhibitors is good then its an enjoyable time looking and dreaming. IMHO.

Hi all....Did anyone attend the "What HiFi" show in Hammersmith at the start of November? If its got a thread on here Ive missed it somehow. I heard a rumour (on another forum) that it was on the wrong side of the volume control......anyone know how it went?

[TheBoingoBandit]

Originally Posted by truemanoid

Hi all....Did anyone attend the "What HiFi" show in Hammersmith at the start of November? If its got a thread on here Ive missed it somehow. I heard a rumour (on another forum) that it was on the wrong side of the volume control......anyone know how it went?

Here's your answer...


What HiFi/Stuff Show - Nov 2007