Bristol Show 2009: A Photographic Tour

**Steven** · 21-02-2009, 1:26 AM

My photographic journal of the Bristol Show Sound and Vision 2009 at the Marriott Hotel, Bristol

Before I begin I must talk about the journey there. Friday morning 02:30 went to bed. Bright and early 07:11 departure time for the train. When I transferred and the train progressed from Whitchurch train station to Salisbury train station it was all beautiful scenery with rolling fields covered in early morning mist though I was worse for wear

Stopped at Salisbury train station for my second change. Dear God those 20 minutes was pure unadulterated torture. I was soon very much awake. Hell had indeed frozen over. Very misty and teeth rattlingly and bone-shakingly cold and freezing. Did pick up a souvenir of the Wiltshire View Feb 09, "The County's Free Independent Magazine"

Shook out of my slumber I could take in the scenery for the final leg of the journey. Bradford-on-Avon station: cobbled bridges and roads. Streams and overhanging branches. Avoncliff station introduced stone building and rolling sweeping hills. Freshford station introduced a treeline, farmhouses and barges. Took in a glimpse of the architecture stopping at Bath Spa Station. And reaching my final stop at Bristol Temple Meads even that itself was in keeping with the region. Fell in love with the place

Google Maps be damned as I took a wrong turn and took the scenic route to the hotel

Love how nice Bristol is

Made it!

Each photograph is presented as a clickable thumbnail. Clicking the thumbnail will take you to a 1024x768 resolution version of the image. Flickr members can view the original 4000x3000 via the set page: Bristol Show 2009 - a set on Flickr. If there are special requests and I find time I will create a link to the 4000x3000 resolution for a particular image(s) as well

I have split the photos up by category and then manufacturer as appropriate. Click the Manufacturer name to jump to the set of photos

Headphones
Sennheiser
Sennheiser HD800 - New flagship headphone
Audio-Technica, Denon and Grado - Finally got to try GS1000!

Vinyl cleaning, cables and a rack
Keith Monks, The Chord Company, Nordost, Atacama and Ortofon - getting misc photographs out of the way early

Portable Audio
Roth and TLAudio - Docks and amplifiers

Wireless Music Streamers and Music Servers
Logitech, RipNas and Sonos
Meridian - Sooloos Music Server

AVForums
Two Pioneer LX5090 Plasmas, SD vs Blu-ray challenge

Home Cinema - Speakers, Displays and components
Tannoy, Carat Electronics and Dali - Presently surprised by the sound produced by the Dali's and their £249 price point breaking the mould at the show
Kef, Waterfall Audio and Parasound, Epson - Good presence from Kef, clean lines from the Waterfall range and Epson had a projector room setup

Marantz, Roskan, Electrocompaniet and Focal - Roskan wins the prize for most "funky" room...
Spendor, Naim and PMC - Naim had a strong showing at the show employing a "green room", as did PMC with their new PB1i
Arcam, Cyrus, Bose and Loewe - home cinema components, one dock and a projector screen

Dynaudio, Chord Electronics, Quad - Speakers and a digital to analogue converter
Pioneer - One of the stars of the show
Onkyo, Denon and JVC - Bluetooth headphone, rest of the Denon room and displays

Nad - Final stop

And that concludes the photographic tour. If anyone sees any mistakes with thumbnail links or a manufacturer title then please bring it up

**Steven** · 21-02-2009, 1:45 AM

Sennheiser

**Steven** · 21-02-2009, 1:45 AM

Sennheiser HD800: New flagship headphone

A mention for John Willett, capacity in marketing but we had a nice conversation and he allowed me to make a comparison with my own pair of HD600 which I took along

Listening impressions: Sennheiser HD800 - new flagship headphone

**Steven** · 21-02-2009, 2:04 AM

Audio-Technica

Denon

Grado

**Steven** · 21-02-2009, 5:05 PM

Keith Monks

The Chord Company

Nordost

Atacama

Ortofon

**Steven** · 21-02-2009, 5:18 PM

Roth

TLAudio

Pro-Ject

**Steven** · 21-02-2009, 5:29 PM

Logitech

RipNas

Sonos

**Steven** · 21-02-2009, 5:36 PM

Meridian

**Steven** · 21-02-2009, 5:48 PM

AVForums

The forum was at the show and this year running two calibrated Pioneer LX5090 Plasmas side by side and running a guess "SD vs Blu-ray" mini-challenge. I realise I do not have a photograph, but you see it turns out that Phil's easy-to-listen-to Podcast voice has just the same effect in real life and before I knew it I was outside the room again and the next batch of people had walked in

Quite a difficult challenge and it just goes to show what you can do with some proper calibration. The SD DVD picture was pretty damn good but I managed to guess correctly. My first viewing of a HDTV and blu-ray as well

Edit: See http://www.avforums.com/forums/forum...sion-show.html

**Steven** · 21-02-2009, 6:00 PM

Tannoy

Carat Electronics

Dali

**Steven** · 21-02-2009, 6:17 PM

Kef

Waterfall Audio and Parasound

Epson

**Steven** · 21-02-2009, 6:39 PM

Marantz

Roskan

Electrocompaniet

Focal

**Steven** · 21-02-2009, 6:59 PM

Spendor

Naim

PMC

**Steven** · 21-02-2009, 11:06 PM

Arcam

Cyrus

Bose

Loewe

**Steven** · 21-02-2009, 11:14 PM

Dynaudio

Chord Electronics

Quad

**Steven** · 21-02-2009, 11:23 PM

Pioneer

Pictures do not do justice to the quality of the panels but I did the best I could in low light with my Canon G9

**Steven** · 21-02-2009, 11:32 PM

Onkyo

Denon

JVC

**Steven** · 21-02-2009, 11:41 PM

Nad

Apologies for the blurry cam but people were jostling in heading to the other side of the room...

And I end with pictures of the Pioneer screen that Nad employed. Pioneer indeed the choice of screen at the show. Once again my pictures do not do it justice. The Dark Knight looked stunning

**Steven** · 22-02-2009, 12:06 AM

Placeholder

n0chex · 22-02-2009, 12:30 AM

Thanks for the Pictures and they are great quality

**Steven** · 22-02-2009, 12:35 AM

I actually had a 'mare with some of the low-light rooms. Playing around with flash on or off and setting adjusted. The "green room" Naim employed presented a new challenge. As a non-DSLR always going to be harder in low light and then there is the noise factor with ISO 200 upwards. And incredibly hard to capture displays. I repeat - calibrated Pioneer screens have to be seen in person to be believed. Stunning

Dankeech · 22-02-2009, 10:24 AM

Thanks LFC, really appreciate the effort there getting some good photos. Sadly had to miss the show at short notice, but at least get a taster of what it was like this year.

recruit · 22-02-2009, 1:15 PM

Thanks LFC

I miss going to these shows due to other priorities now and a thread like this is great with superb photos, so atleast I can see some of it

namuk · 23-02-2009, 1:32 AM

Top job on this

Thanks for this

pics are very HI-res best way

Class

kingfats · 23-02-2009, 7:39 AM

Great pics LFC

thanks for the effort job well done.

StealthHD · 01-03-2009, 1:18 PM

Good Journal

How would you say the HD800 compared to the Grado,Denon & Audio Technica?

I've just started looking into headphones, and if the HD800 sound as good as there build quality looks I shall be going for them. Not to bothered about there industrial design as I think they look quite cool.

**Steven** · 02-03-2009, 1:33 PM

Audio-Technica unfortunately had all their headphones locked away

But I already own the ESW9 and consensus is the only step up in the portable range is the limited edition ESW10 so I doubt I was missing out much. Did not see any of the home range like AD2000 and upwards which would have been good

Denon - limited listen in a bustling room. But enough to detect the bass slam presence from the D2000 that people say of the Denon headphone signature. Interesting presentation, different from my Sennheiser HD600. Highs seem a little more sparkly. But requires a more thorough listen

Grado GS1000 - I go on about the HD800 but these were also exceptional. As well as they should be for the price. No issues with fit that some cite Grado for. Lovely fluid presentation of classical music. Not fatiguing in the highs at all. Nice separation. Not sure about the sound stage as the Grado stand was out in the open. Texture and tone of the bass notes were there

If you are serious about headphones then you should start a thread in the headphone section. You will not get speaker sound, but you can spend a lot of money achieving good headphone sound for when you want the intimacy and you are told by others to turn the speakers off. You will need to think about your source and amp as headphones only give as good as they put out

And of course people can only tell you what a headphone is like. No way of knowing if you will like that quality. And as we are in the UK it is extremely hard to demo outside of going to AV shows or knowing a friend with a collection

01-03-2009, 1:18 PM	#26
StealthHD Ex Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Hants Thanks: Gave 103, Got 51 Posts: 1,077	Re: Bristol Show 2009: A Photographic Tour Good Journal How would you say the HD800 compared to the Grado,Denon & Audio Technica? I've just started looking into headphones, and if the HD800 sound as good as there build quality looks I shall be going for them. Not to bothered about there industrial design as I think they look quite cool.
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