The very best of luck to our friends in Signals tomorrow......

Wow, "The Wall" room looks awesome! Great concept and it sets a standard for a dealer's listening space. Based on the pics it does well to attract the 50+ male demographic. Those are the guys with money to spend on hi-fi so I'd say mission accomplished .

Failed  to get along yesterday  .. today it's on the must do list... I do hope HRH Prince Philip is still there serving drinks...

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Failed  to get along yesterday  .. today it's on the must do list... I do hope HRH Prince Philip is still there serving drinks...

Sorry Simon, Prince Philip has now retired from public duty.

Thanks Nick, AKA Edinburgh, for the detailed responses!  I kind of agree re the squished via the internet judgement, although there have been odd exceptions. Thankfully, local network replay of stored full res ripped or downloaded music is a different story. Alan did give a wonderful explanation of the reasons for this yesterday. I think enough of it stuck with me to make the information useful.

Today is day three of our very public trial of the new place. Thanks to Mike and Dan from Naim for their sterling efforts over the last two days. Russell Kauffman did a fine job too yesterday and Katie from Linn will be here for part of today. Other than that, we are pretty much on our own for Saturday, so this'll be interesting!

Have to say that we are chuffed to bits with the new 'gaff' and not a little relieved that it seems to be performing as planned. Curious network issues aside, it has been an utter joy. Chuffed too that others like the look of "the wall' room. A local customer, George, spotted the similarity to the album cover and it simply had to be done. Finally, I feel that we are getting proper access to the specialness of the Statement. It's awfully nice!

My home, the previous location of our business, is still remarkably cluttered with stuff that has yet to move. Is it a Tardis?

Interesting place. Here now

You could go live on on FB Jon 

Ok then...

Ok didn't work. Black sabbath playing the background and facebooks anti piracy ai engine kicked in and won't post it

Just sorry I couldn't get over - looks superb.  Well done guys.    

Not sure how Alastair and Andy feel, but I am shattered. Something over 200 cups of coffee (some even slightly passable) served, using up just over 3kg of beans (all home roasted, with only a single small chaff fire to contend with).

Today got a chance to hear a 'proper' set -up with an LP12 front end into the Statement/808 combination. A little mix of Black Sabbath, Starker playing Bach Cello 1 and that 1812 (on vinyl) got proceedings underway and I was able to enjoy it all before coffee duty intervened.

Is it the best I have heard? A couple of other systems come to mind (mine excluded out of sheer modesty, ahem) but the size of the new Signals' room does appear to add something very special. As always it is a case of I wonder whether X or Y would improve things.

Sorry about mis-using the streaming term, guys. I was trying to refer specifically to the abominations that are Tidal, Spotify. Qobuz etc and not to ripped CDs streamed over the cables. The latter made good sounds (but not as good as an LP12, in my view). TSQ and other of that ilk should all come with health warnings.

Met some new faces and put faces to some people on here, but did miss out on meeting some of you.

Urm - would love to hear the Statement/808 configuration

I heard the black sabbath and the cello. He black sabbath was ruthlessly revealed to be a low/midfi mush of ancient analogue recording techniques and old school mastering. Not my cup of tea really. 

The cello was an interesting recording but I didn't like the mics. A bit nasal. Very quiet pressing tho. And unforch the cellist is no Pierre Fournier.

as I said to the chaps I'd be interested to see the rt30 and Rt60 for the room. I have the calibrated kit if required. And to measure the noisefloor 

Nick from Suffolk posted:

Sorry about mis-using the streaming term, guys. I was trying to refer specifically to the abominations that are Tidal, Spotify. Qobuz etc and not to ripped CDs streamed over the cables. The latter made good sounds (but not as good as an LP12, in my view).

I seem to recall reading some analysis that streamed tracks, i.e. TIDAL, have a type of "watermark" on them which results in compromised quality when compared to CD ripped.

The streaming services, imho, are extremely helpful.  They have allowed me to sample an immense amount of music and be more judicious with spending my dollars on music which might never get listened to.  I do not miss the days when I was buying records and CD's like a drunken sailor and half of them never getting listened to more than once.

I popped in again yesterday, so SWMBO could see why it's so important to spend our money on this wonderful hobby. The Kudos 808s were in place, being driven by the Statement pre & amps, source a lovely LP12/Ekos SE/Kandid/ Urika/Radikal. This sounded quite superb, and the cannons in Nick From Suffolk's excellent 1812 recording (can't remember who by) fair shook the place! Watching the cones on the 808s doing a merry little dance was entertaining - we were worried in case one shot out & hit us in the eye. I also really enjoyed the Janos Starker cello recording, and Joni Mitchell's 45rpm recording of "Famous Blue Raincoat" was likewise superbly rendered. Unfortunately I had to tear myself away so we could go shopping.

Many thanks once again for the lovely Signals hospitality, awesome coffee from Nick, great to catch up with old friends & to say hello to others. You've got a magnificent place there folks, something to be proud of.

jon honeyball posted:

I heard the black sabbath and the cello. He black sabbath was ruthlessly revealed to be a low/midfi mush of ancient analogue recording techniques and old school mastering. Not my cup of tea really. 

The cello was an interesting recording but I didn't like the mics. A bit nasal. Very quiet pressing tho. And unforch the cellist is no Pierre Fournier.

as I said to the chaps I'd be interested to see the rt30 and Rt60 for the room. I have the calibrated kit if required. And to measure the noisefloor 

Yes the main room with the vaulted ceiling did have the feel of a proper music auditorium with the statement filling the space accousticly.

I liked the two British lounge sized rooms off to the side too. I heard Russell Ks for the first time, 100s I think, and I was very impressed with their sense of immediacy.

Customers and staff were all on good form with everybody very friendly. The new place also  makes a visit to the Ferry Boat Inn Felixstowe or Butt and Oyster at Pin Mill a must whilst in that neck of the woods.

Ray

Yes I popped in yesterday, spent some time with Katie and guests and the Linn setups... alas the Uniti stuff from Naim was no longer there..

Agree the two relatively smaller, more typical European living room sized rooms were great... all in all I thought a great listening facility, and what with a new dedicated vinyl shop and lounge coming to Woodbridge it's all adding to a feel of a bit of a quality recorded music resurgence in this part of the world.

I noticed a lot of new house building around Trimley.. so hopefully lots of potential new customers.....

The Signals team have done a fantastic job, and the look of faint smugness from Alastair was deserved.., perhaps premises not quite the size for Suffolk Cathedral of Sound ... but definitely Suffolk Chapel of Sound 

tonym posted:

I popped in again yesterday, so SWMBO could see why it's so important to spend our money on this wonderful hobby. The Kudos 808s were in place, being driven by the Statement pre & amps, source a lovely LP12/Ekos SE/Kandid/ Urika/Radikal. This sounded quite superb, and the cannons in Nick From Suffolk's excellent 1812 recording (can't remember who by) fair shook the place! Watching the cones on the 808s doing a merry little dance was entertaining - we were worried in case one shot out & hit us in the eye. I also really enjoyed the Janos Starker cello recording, and Joni Mitchell's 45rpm recording of "Famous Blue Raincoat" was likewise superbly rendered. Unfortunately I had to tear myself away so we could go shopping.

Many thanks once again for the lovely Signals hospitality, awesome coffee from Nick, great to catch up with old friends & to say hello to others. You've got a magnificent place there folks, something to be proud of.

Tony - was that actually the Jennifer Warnes version of the Raincoat?  I wasn't aware Joni had covered it as well.  

The Strat (Fender) posted:

Tony - was that actually the Jennifer Warnes version of the Raincoat?  I wasn't aware Joni had covered it as well.  

Err... Yes. Sorry, senility creeps ever-closer!

tonym posted:

The Strat (Fender) posted:

Tony - was that actually the Jennifer Warnes version of the Raincoat?  I wasn't aware Joni had covered it as well.  

Err... Yes. Sorry, senility creeps ever-closer!

I've got that recording - it's one of my Desert 8.  

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Yes I popped in yesterday, spent some time with Katie and guests and the Linn setups... alas the Uniti stuff from Naim was no longer there..

Rumour suggests that's cos it stopped working. 

If you are referring to the uniti not working, the naim guys were not scheduled to be present on saturday or when Linn were using the same room. There were 2 Nova,s a star, Atom and core, they did not all fall over.......

tonym posted:

excellent 1812 recording (can't remember who by) fair shook the place! Watching the cones on the 808s doing a merry little dance was entertaining - we were worried in case one shot out & hit us in the eye. I also really enjoyed the Janos Starker cello recording, and Joni Mitchell's 45rpm recording of "Famous Blue Raincoat" was likewise superbly rendered. Unfortunately I had to tear myself away so we could go shopping.

Cincinnati Symphony with Erich Kunzel. The JW on 45rpm is rather splendid as well. Unfortunately I did not have a chance to get round to playing my lo-fi, poorly recorded Low CODY album as too many people seemed to be in need of coffee.

the new shape of hifi retail premises? from at least the following?

sorry a bit of a digression -- not meant as an advert for the subset shown above (no names) -- but just an observation ... hope the owners of the premises don't mind -- if so this posting can just be deleted, i guess...

enjoy...

ken

Similar situation in Ireland!

Nice rural settings!

.sjb

Sloop John B posted:

Similar situation in Ireland!

 

Nice rural settings!

.sjb

...for the hifi nut'

G