Bristol Hi-Fi Show 2019 Preview & Comments

[Andy Bassett]

The newly renamed Bristol Hi-Fi Show reflects a popular upswing in interest in audio and Hi-Fi. We take a look at what’s on offer.
Read the news.

 

[Toon Army]

Think I will give it a miss this year in the ' revised ' format due to the lack of AV equipment. Wish there was a show that encompassed all aspects.

 

[danny daniell]

Shame it’s stuck in the arse end of the country it’s too far for most people to travel

 

[skelph]

I agree that it's disappointing that the AV aspect of the show is not particularly significant, the only thing I can think is that it's difficult to establish a good demo setup in a hotel room, especially for the likes of Dolby Atmos.

A shame really as I'm following the developments of projector technology with interest and it would have been great to see some of the new projectors from the likes of JVC at the show.

I'll be heading down on Sunday and will make sure I take lots of pictures.

 

[matthewricha]

Been the last two years, but won't be going this time.

 

[joner7777]

I can't wait to see,hear all the latest exp

Shame it’s stuck in the arse end of the country it’s too far for most people to travel

Just up the road for me
Sometimes pays to live down yer in Zummerset

 

[joner7777]

Go to listen to the outrageous priced gear just to see if it really is much better than my modest set up

Trouble is.62 old earols can't detect much now.
Saves me a fortune and leaves me smug though

 

[kristoffer]

Any Rega news?

 

[Cathode]

New amp

 

[Toon Army]

Has anyone gone or is there a separate thread?

 

[Cathode]

I went and enjoyed it. The stand out rooms for me were the Chord Electronics m scaler demonstration and the Falcon LS3/5a rooms (which were packed). It made you wonder whether there have been any meaningful developments in speaker design since 1976.

As usual there were too many rooms playing “ music for hi fi shows”. Lots of percussion and not a lot else. Not sure how you can judge equipment from this?

The visual equivalent was the 8k demonstration. Interesting but the colours were lurid in the extreme. The outdoor scenes had grass and plants in a shade of green which never existed anywhere in nature. I imagine that this was tv demonstration mode and that there are more natural settings?

 

[awsm]

Does anyone know the freebie what hifi are offering with subscriptions? The last show they offered chord clearways which made the cost of entry worth it just for that .

 

[IWC Dopplel]

Very disappointing show form an AV perspective. The PMC room was okay, but I didn't have system envy. I was in the wrong position to comment on the atmosphere set up. But nothing struck me as particularly impressive. Voices sounded a bit lean, 'pinched' and a little small to me as well. It wasn't rubbish and it was generally good, but I wasn't pushed to rethink my Car/House and other plans....

I wanted to hear the naim streamer with PS updgrade but wasn't able unless I hung around until 4.15 pm, smiled like a lucky schoolboy and hoped they might find room to squeeze me in. I did meet another member with racks of Arcam equipment and might demo the 860 at some point

JVC where were you ?!?

PS I did quite like the classic JBL's, wanted to dust off some LP's light a real fire and smoke a cigar, with no one there to moan about the smell and carcinogens. I guess I'm getting old n grumpy(er)

 

[audimushroom]

No jvc so won’t be going

 

[Julian Stevens]

Went today with, in the wake of the last couple of years, not particularly high expectations but, to my pleasant surprise, found it to be a great event and, for me, the low AV content was very welcome. I really don't care for deafening crash, bang wallop AV dem's but, to cater for those whose primary interest is AV, a dedicated AV show might be a good idea.

Fine sounds were on offer in the Neat, Russell K, Spendor, Von Gaylord Audio, Malvern Audio Research and Dali rooms, the speakers in the latter room being just £699/pr and, to my ears, a whole lot better than the £6,500/pr two ways in the Wilson Benesch room. I expect there were a few other good rooms as well that I missed. Plenty of valve gear and vinyl but very few CD players which was a shame as, when I find a room with good sound, I like to get a track or two from my stock compilation CD-R played.

As for the comment about Bristol being at the arse end of the country, it's consistently voted as being amongst if not the best place in the UK to live. I've lived here for 40 years and there's nowhere else I'd rather be.

 

[Cribbster]

I went on the Friday and had an enjoyable day. It was largely about having a look around, seeing a significantly greater collection of hi fi equipment under one roof than you would find in any single store and a chance to hear a lot of different systems. Funny thing is, like the poster above, I found myself rather underwhelmed by a lot of the higher end stuff. It did seem to be a graphic demonstration of the law of diminishing returns. Having said that, I did like the PMC Twenty5 24s - they did sound very nice. However, the star of the show, for me, was the Audiolab 6000 demo room. While I didn't care much for the look of the Wharfdale Heritage speakers they did sound very nice. But the overall sound from the 6000 series of components (amp, CD transport and streamer) I thought was fabulous and demonstrated that you can buy a really decent sounding setup for a pretty reasonable outlay. I think it may have surpassed the Cyrus One in my head. I almost caved in there and then to buy one.

 

[Julian Stevens]

Though I'm generally a fan of PMC speakers, I thought the sound of their set-up was unpalatably bright and tishy, a problem with my own PMC speakers that's taken me a long and frustrating time to cure. I now use a pair of fixed value resistors on the tweeter connections to damp it down. No other fix has worked.

 

[arjaydubya]

Have always enjoyed the Bristol show, but it seems to be losing its attraction for me now. The reason ?
It's far too crowded.
I went on the Friday, and I'd guess that the Sat and Sun were even busier.
Although hotel rooms might be a good place to demonstrate equipment, especially speakers, to have to fight one's way along the jammed corridors on floors 1 to 4 persuaded me to leave earlier than I would have liked.
Just hoping that a solution can be found before the 2020 show.

 

[Julian Stevens]

We went on Saturday and it wasn't overly crowded at all. Nicely attended, yes, but not so choc-a-bloc with people that it was difficult to get in to any of the rooms, at least none that we went into. Having to queue for a few dem's was a bit of a pain, but that's the same at any show. At least it wasn't necessary to get a ticket to be admitted to a particular dem, then queue for 20 minutes only then to be told by some snotty madam that our ticket wasn't for that particular dem (Absolute Sounds), as happened to us at one of the London shows.