My little show report:
I went with my interest in 2 channel and was really impressed with the Wilson benesch set up of £16k stand mount speakers (discovery 2). Can anyone tell me what that this track was playing on it if you heard it. A car advert tune which has a bit in it which sounds like 'da da caaarrrhhhgg' , with a kind of disco tune. maybe a Mazda advert but it is a very dynamic track. I wanted to try on my hi fi but cannot find anywhere online.
I was impressed with the leema set up with atc scm50 speakers and Proac d20 speakers as well as the pmc room with AVM amps, although I only got to hear the pmc twenty5 21s and 22s. I thought the sound of the 21 through the 'basic' £4K AVM system was a bit bright for my liking compared to my amps, but it could have been due to a lot of things e.g. Acoustics etc.
I went to a test with Matt Peddle from chord who were plugging latest developments in using Taylon as dialetric for Sarum cables. They were using naim electronics and really good neats I think, from memory. They tried odyssey cable first, then went to epic twin and epic reference (which I have) and there were clear improvements going from one to the other, but less so from standard Sarum to Sarum tuned array I thought. The difference in quality against difference in Sarum prices was easily something my ears could get used to if I had that system. Clearly the much better value was in going to epic twin or reference from odyssey.
I checked out an isotek demo with various systems. They were using Swedish Larsen 6.2 speakers with an exposure CD player and exposure intergrated. To give an idea of value for the test, I checked out the Larsen speakers afterwards which are £2k a pair (fantastic btw for their size) and the exposure amp and CD player were no more than a few thousand each i think. He first started with an IKEA / b and q power block playing a female vocal track for a minute, then plugged in the basic isotek Polaris, £300 I think, and played the same track. It was immediately obvious there was more spaciousness to the sound and a bigger soundstage and this was the main change. Changing to the £1400 Aquarius it sounded like a better amp with more speed of attack and rhythm, more akin to adding a better power supply. Someone commented naim had recommended not using isotek with their amps (bit just adding their naim power supplies, kaching...) until a group of naim people had got together and the consensus was some isotek kit does improve sq on top of perhaps adding naim power supplies. So I'd definetly say something like a Polaris is good value and probably the Aquarius for what it did,in the right systems of course.
I was impressed too with a musical fidelity all in one combo with kef reference ones and some neat momentum sx5i speakers, as well as some spendor d7s and d9s were sounding very good. The newish cyrus one was holding its own powering some £6k speakers in the cyrus suite, not sure what they were, but they also had 25-23s there with the one amp too.
Embarrassingly (for some I guess) I saw some poor set ups too. A can't remember what whey were but some French white 'ball speakers on a stick' which were distorting under heavy bass and sounding awful. Some monitor audio £3100 stand mount speakers were poor with no detail and whilst I like the sound of harbeth speakers, I thought it very funny they were listening just to a spoken voice. It did sound amazingly natural but it gave me an impression these speakers are mainly for classical music, as I already knew, because they have very good mid range but not much low end whack needed for rock etc. The owners view is if you get the voice right everything else follows but I'm not sure about that with iron maiden! Dali epicon 6's were quite good but I couldn't help thinking there are better speakers at around this price and I'd expect pmc 25-26s to beat them. This also supported my view their are makes better than Dali like atc etc.
The various set ups again showed me how ridiculously difficult it is for any speaker to be natural with lots of bass and mesh good bass with mid range and treble etc, without reverbed bass, with systems a lot more expensive that mine , but the Wilson benesch speakers came up best. I'm glad I've chosen a speaker that has relatively small amounts of bass since these difficulties are somewhat masked, plus huge amounts of bass in a home environment can be burdensome over better qualities like detail, soundstage, mid range, dynamics etc. Is my view anyway.
I was also impressed chatting to a guy on the melco stand and I think some forms of dedicated streamers are the way to go, but again expensive for what they are. I'm hoping mass market producers can make these cheaper. Maybe there are? Plus Townshend audio demoing their speaker supports - the seismic podium. They had two pmc fact 12 not playing anything. One was on the podium and another just on the floor. On top were two tablets with a vibration meter app showing vibration modulation coming as you tapped each speaker or stamped your foot nearby. More modulations came from the speaker not on the podium. I'm sure I buy into the idea that the speaker interacts with the floor on spikes to colour its sound, and less so if suspended in mid air, but how much better than using granite plinths, I don't know as I haven't tried. For what they are ridiculously expensive at £1400. Basically a plate with 4 spring coils. Someone ought to get these made by a manufacturer just above cost as a project and circulate to everyone whose kit could benefit from it, if no current trademarks etc.
Was a bit disappointing that not many projectors and av set ups I agree, but possibly they don't have the space there using hotel demo rooms etc.
I think this show confirmed what Ive thought that good value audiophile speaker makes like pmc, Proac, spendor, neat, atc etc are better than quite a few others.