Ian J
Banned
I have taken the liberty of reproducing my "Bristol Show" review thread here as it only deals with speakers :-
For the fourth year running I did the rounds with Nobber22 and we seem to have broadly similar tastes in loudspeakers although very different tastes in music.
I have the same complaint again this year as I always do and that is that too many companies demo their products with plinky plinky stuff that has neither range nor dynamics and therefore tells you diddly squat. There is never enough time to hear everything so we didn't bother with those that refused to demo their equipment using decent material.
I took a small notebook with me as I can never remember what's what and I found that making a note of what was being played acted as a good reminder when trying to sort the wheat from the chaff later on.
Arcam is always an unusual demo as they are demonstrating their amp and CD but so much of the sound that you are hearing will be down to the speakers which this year were PMC. In order to show the difference between vanilla stereo and 5.1 he first played a Seal track in stereo then told us how much more spacious the sound would be when switching to 5.1 and playing the track again. Unfortunately I was sitting a couple of feet directly in front of the left hand speaker so the stereo or special surround effects were completely lost on me and I atually thought that the sound was better without the centre speaker in use.
Canton – we wanted to hear the 5.1 system that everyone on the forum is talking about but they had just finished the demo when we arrived and were playing a pair of traditional floorstanders. Not that impressed so moved on.
Focal were demoing their Electra BE 1000 with ribbon tweeter at £2,300 per pair in an interesting setting where they tried to recreate a typical living room complete with fireplace and sofa. I sat down and as I didn't like the music that they were playing which sounded to me like 2,000 cats all screaming (at reference level) I got up to leave but the salesmen was alerter than most and whipped the CD off and asked what I would like to hear. The acoustic guitar track that he played next gave a much better indication of what the speakers could do but unfortunately it was still much too loud and well about the levels that an acoustic guitar would sound like in real life. Still, one to shortlist for a proper demo outside of a hotel room.
Focal also had the room opposite where they were demo'ing a 5.1 system. Nobber and I were the only guests at the time and we watched a rather washed out Pod Race on plasma. When it had finished the salesman flicked to Hotel California from the Hell Freezes over Tour and as soon as I started to smile the salesman decided that he didn't want to play that so flicked it onto Peter Gabriel. Everyone has Hotel California so it's a great reference point but this salesman was as daft as his colleague in the other room was as attentive.
Leema Acoustics is a company that I discovered at Bristol several years ago, nearly buying their little Xen mini monitors at the time. Looking forward to hearing them again I was disappointed to see that they were using Steely Dan's Two Against Nature as demo material which is a terribly recorded DVD that nothing could ever make sound good, so regretfully we quickly moved on.
Living Voice had a very interesting demo of their £7,500 speakers which sounded as good this year as they did last year. The speakers may seem expensive but their prices paled into insignificance when compared to what they were connected to, starting off with interconnects at £1,600 and finishing with an astonishing £48,000 for a monoblock amp.
M&K had the £1,700 per pair flat 150 speakers on demo with Robbie Williams doing the honours. Like him or loathe him there is no denying that it makes for good demo material and the M&K's sounded good, especially as the room was larger than the average living room.
We looked into the N'Bien room and they were demo'ing a pair of very classy looking standmounted speakers at £900. They sounded very good on jazzy material that wasn't particularly demanding until we asked him to play something else. He put on Phil Collins/Genesis and it was so bright that it made my teeth go on edge – yuk.
PMC always take care over their demos and this time was no exception. In one room they had two pairs of floorstanders on two channel duty, the £1,145 GB1 and the £1,695 FB1+ switching between the two. They were playing music that showed off the great dynamics and bass of the two speakers ( Blue Man Group and Kraftwerk) but not enough to indicate what the top end sounded like. Overall they both sounded good and both would be on my shortlist to demo properly.
The second PMC room had their new wafer speakers with three wafers of the £1,650 per pair variety at the front and the smaller wafers at £1,100 on rear duty all coupled up with a £1,600 TLE sub. They were playing Bela Fleck and the Flecktones whom I had never heard of but promptly bought as soon as I got home. The midband and treble sounded great but the overall sound wasn't well integrated as the bass was much too loud but this was a room/setup problem so forgiveable. I liked the sound but when you tot up the total cost of a system it's an awful lot and there is much better value out there in the traditionally shaped speakers.
Proac had on demo a pair of their £1,400 Studio 140 floorstanders playing piano jazz and boy they sounded good. Five stars from What Hifi and for once I wouldn't disagree.
REL/Vienna Acoustics provided both the best and the worst demo in the show. We listened to a pair of £3,000 Vienna Beethoven Concert Grand large floorstanders underpinned by the new REL £1,800 B1 subwoofer and in my opinion this was the best display of the lot. They were playing a Strauss waltz that demonstrated top end, mid range and dynamics with the REL beautifully integrated and coming in just for the low notes. Following up Strauss with Wynton Marsalis really sold this combination to me and if I had the necessary large room to accomodate these speakers I would have ordered a pair on the spot.
The other REL/Vienna Acoustics room was by contrast a disappointment. This was a five channel demo using a pair of £2,195 Beethoven Baby Grand's plus a Maestro Grand centre. I think that the rears were the standmounted Haydn Grand speakers but I didn't take much notice as I was leaning on it. Playing a musical piece I was struck by how good the Baby Grand's were and how much better they would be in real life situations than the large floorstanders that we heard next door. Switching to Mousehunt I was struck by how different the voicing seemed to be between the centre and the main speakers and I didn't like the centre speaker at all. The Baby Grands were open and airy whilst the centre was boxy with all of the voices sounding compressed.
It was the REL subwoofers that were the most disappointing as although the bass was adequate, when I asked the salesman which sub was being used he said that there were three different subs from the new R range in use. One was boosting the centre speaker, one was boosting the rears and the third was used for LFE only. What use is that. We wanted to hear what a REL sub sounded like not three all wired up together.
We started off in the Ruark room listening to a pair of £2,800 Crusader3 floorstanders. They sounded superb but as they were the first speakers that we listened to we said that we would go back for another listen at the end to see if they still sounded as good but unfortunately we ran out of time.
I like Spendor but they were playing plinky plinky stuff that anything could probably reproduce well so as there wasn't enough time to hear everything anyway we didn't stay long.
Tannoy had a pair of £1,200 Autograph Mini speakers. These were tiny yet if you shut your eyes you would have thought that they were large floorstanders, such was the power and scale. Nobber asked the salesman if there was a subwoofer hidden away but it was all their own work. The biggest drawback with these speakers was the look as they appeared to be designed to partner 1960's G Plan furniture
Vivid Loudspeakers was a room that we nearly passed by as we had never heard of them but luckily we went in. The pair that we listened to had a very unusual design to say the least but sounded superb which at £10,750 per pair they should. A pair of woofers fired forward plus another pair firing rearwards and both front & rear ported
in a most unusual conical shape. I don't know how many people would find the shape acceptable ( see here )but they would look a treat in one of these trendy warehouse conversions and when the South African Nobber22 found out that they were made in his home country he started reaching for his chequebook
We had two stabs at Wilson Benesch as the morning visit co-incided with a complete power failure. We returned at about 4:00 pm and had pride of place on the comfy settee in front of the two channel setup featuring a pair of £2,100 Arc standmounted speakers. Initially they were playing some awful drum & bass rubbish (that Nobber liked) but replaced it with some Elgar which may not be to everyone's taste but at least it can demonstrate how good the speakers are. Good they were too although I'm not too sure about the hugely expensive subwoofer that isn't a subwoofer.
As we were still listening at 5:00pm when the show was supposed to shut Nobber and I didn't have the chance to reflect on what we had heard and to rank them in any order but if I had the space the Vienna Beethoven Concert Grand's would be top of my list closely followed by the Wilson Benesch Arc's . If I could have physically accommodated either of them I would have left the show several thousand pounds poorer but with a huge smile on my face.
For the fourth year running I did the rounds with Nobber22 and we seem to have broadly similar tastes in loudspeakers although very different tastes in music.
I have the same complaint again this year as I always do and that is that too many companies demo their products with plinky plinky stuff that has neither range nor dynamics and therefore tells you diddly squat. There is never enough time to hear everything so we didn't bother with those that refused to demo their equipment using decent material.
I took a small notebook with me as I can never remember what's what and I found that making a note of what was being played acted as a good reminder when trying to sort the wheat from the chaff later on.
Arcam is always an unusual demo as they are demonstrating their amp and CD but so much of the sound that you are hearing will be down to the speakers which this year were PMC. In order to show the difference between vanilla stereo and 5.1 he first played a Seal track in stereo then told us how much more spacious the sound would be when switching to 5.1 and playing the track again. Unfortunately I was sitting a couple of feet directly in front of the left hand speaker so the stereo or special surround effects were completely lost on me and I atually thought that the sound was better without the centre speaker in use.
Canton – we wanted to hear the 5.1 system that everyone on the forum is talking about but they had just finished the demo when we arrived and were playing a pair of traditional floorstanders. Not that impressed so moved on.
Focal were demoing their Electra BE 1000 with ribbon tweeter at £2,300 per pair in an interesting setting where they tried to recreate a typical living room complete with fireplace and sofa. I sat down and as I didn't like the music that they were playing which sounded to me like 2,000 cats all screaming (at reference level) I got up to leave but the salesmen was alerter than most and whipped the CD off and asked what I would like to hear. The acoustic guitar track that he played next gave a much better indication of what the speakers could do but unfortunately it was still much too loud and well about the levels that an acoustic guitar would sound like in real life. Still, one to shortlist for a proper demo outside of a hotel room.
Focal also had the room opposite where they were demo'ing a 5.1 system. Nobber and I were the only guests at the time and we watched a rather washed out Pod Race on plasma. When it had finished the salesman flicked to Hotel California from the Hell Freezes over Tour and as soon as I started to smile the salesman decided that he didn't want to play that so flicked it onto Peter Gabriel. Everyone has Hotel California so it's a great reference point but this salesman was as daft as his colleague in the other room was as attentive.
Leema Acoustics is a company that I discovered at Bristol several years ago, nearly buying their little Xen mini monitors at the time. Looking forward to hearing them again I was disappointed to see that they were using Steely Dan's Two Against Nature as demo material which is a terribly recorded DVD that nothing could ever make sound good, so regretfully we quickly moved on.
Living Voice had a very interesting demo of their £7,500 speakers which sounded as good this year as they did last year. The speakers may seem expensive but their prices paled into insignificance when compared to what they were connected to, starting off with interconnects at £1,600 and finishing with an astonishing £48,000 for a monoblock amp.
M&K had the £1,700 per pair flat 150 speakers on demo with Robbie Williams doing the honours. Like him or loathe him there is no denying that it makes for good demo material and the M&K's sounded good, especially as the room was larger than the average living room.
We looked into the N'Bien room and they were demo'ing a pair of very classy looking standmounted speakers at £900. They sounded very good on jazzy material that wasn't particularly demanding until we asked him to play something else. He put on Phil Collins/Genesis and it was so bright that it made my teeth go on edge – yuk.
PMC always take care over their demos and this time was no exception. In one room they had two pairs of floorstanders on two channel duty, the £1,145 GB1 and the £1,695 FB1+ switching between the two. They were playing music that showed off the great dynamics and bass of the two speakers ( Blue Man Group and Kraftwerk) but not enough to indicate what the top end sounded like. Overall they both sounded good and both would be on my shortlist to demo properly.
The second PMC room had their new wafer speakers with three wafers of the £1,650 per pair variety at the front and the smaller wafers at £1,100 on rear duty all coupled up with a £1,600 TLE sub. They were playing Bela Fleck and the Flecktones whom I had never heard of but promptly bought as soon as I got home. The midband and treble sounded great but the overall sound wasn't well integrated as the bass was much too loud but this was a room/setup problem so forgiveable. I liked the sound but when you tot up the total cost of a system it's an awful lot and there is much better value out there in the traditionally shaped speakers.
Proac had on demo a pair of their £1,400 Studio 140 floorstanders playing piano jazz and boy they sounded good. Five stars from What Hifi and for once I wouldn't disagree.
REL/Vienna Acoustics provided both the best and the worst demo in the show. We listened to a pair of £3,000 Vienna Beethoven Concert Grand large floorstanders underpinned by the new REL £1,800 B1 subwoofer and in my opinion this was the best display of the lot. They were playing a Strauss waltz that demonstrated top end, mid range and dynamics with the REL beautifully integrated and coming in just for the low notes. Following up Strauss with Wynton Marsalis really sold this combination to me and if I had the necessary large room to accomodate these speakers I would have ordered a pair on the spot.
The other REL/Vienna Acoustics room was by contrast a disappointment. This was a five channel demo using a pair of £2,195 Beethoven Baby Grand's plus a Maestro Grand centre. I think that the rears were the standmounted Haydn Grand speakers but I didn't take much notice as I was leaning on it. Playing a musical piece I was struck by how good the Baby Grand's were and how much better they would be in real life situations than the large floorstanders that we heard next door. Switching to Mousehunt I was struck by how different the voicing seemed to be between the centre and the main speakers and I didn't like the centre speaker at all. The Baby Grands were open and airy whilst the centre was boxy with all of the voices sounding compressed.
It was the REL subwoofers that were the most disappointing as although the bass was adequate, when I asked the salesman which sub was being used he said that there were three different subs from the new R range in use. One was boosting the centre speaker, one was boosting the rears and the third was used for LFE only. What use is that. We wanted to hear what a REL sub sounded like not three all wired up together.
We started off in the Ruark room listening to a pair of £2,800 Crusader3 floorstanders. They sounded superb but as they were the first speakers that we listened to we said that we would go back for another listen at the end to see if they still sounded as good but unfortunately we ran out of time.
I like Spendor but they were playing plinky plinky stuff that anything could probably reproduce well so as there wasn't enough time to hear everything anyway we didn't stay long.
Tannoy had a pair of £1,200 Autograph Mini speakers. These were tiny yet if you shut your eyes you would have thought that they were large floorstanders, such was the power and scale. Nobber asked the salesman if there was a subwoofer hidden away but it was all their own work. The biggest drawback with these speakers was the look as they appeared to be designed to partner 1960's G Plan furniture
Vivid Loudspeakers was a room that we nearly passed by as we had never heard of them but luckily we went in. The pair that we listened to had a very unusual design to say the least but sounded superb which at £10,750 per pair they should. A pair of woofers fired forward plus another pair firing rearwards and both front & rear ported
in a most unusual conical shape. I don't know how many people would find the shape acceptable ( see here )but they would look a treat in one of these trendy warehouse conversions and when the South African Nobber22 found out that they were made in his home country he started reaching for his chequebook
We had two stabs at Wilson Benesch as the morning visit co-incided with a complete power failure. We returned at about 4:00 pm and had pride of place on the comfy settee in front of the two channel setup featuring a pair of £2,100 Arc standmounted speakers. Initially they were playing some awful drum & bass rubbish (that Nobber liked) but replaced it with some Elgar which may not be to everyone's taste but at least it can demonstrate how good the speakers are. Good they were too although I'm not too sure about the hugely expensive subwoofer that isn't a subwoofer.
As we were still listening at 5:00pm when the show was supposed to shut Nobber and I didn't have the chance to reflect on what we had heard and to rank them in any order but if I had the space the Vienna Beethoven Concert Grand's would be top of my list closely followed by the Wilson Benesch Arc's . If I could have physically accommodated either of them I would have left the show several thousand pounds poorer but with a huge smile on my face.
