Shows and Workshops

First the music during the demo of Naim was also nicely showing how also old recordings still might show great.

Benjamin Clementine with Churchill’s Boy

Ben Harper with Gold to me

Alexander Gibson & New Symphony Orchester of London with Danse Macabre

Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong with It don’t mean a thing

Sohn with Veto

and as always with these guys......, they should also select something else going forward Rage against the Machine with Fistful of Steel

The usual guy was doing the demo

It’s always good to hear that they never scare away of letting you hear a great band with of music and also not only high res. Some others always give you the typical audiophile things like Malia and Boris Blank and Kari Bremse.....

While most of them also avoid piano music.....

The system was consisting of ND555, 252 and 300 and Focal Speakers, löst what type but you can see on the picture. The setup was nicely balanced and even the Focal sounded ok in that setup, while I a, not a Focal fan due to the dryness....

I heard all the good qualities of the ND555 floating through. While of course the scale of it is less i,pressive as you own 552/500 system. And of course it was also even less than the Munich show with statement. But I definitely would recommend such a setup for people for who full 500 is a bridge too far. The step up in comparison with the NDS is significant. I would describe it as the system at once get’s the balls, which normally is not so associated with the 252, but the ND555 also positively changes that. And as detail retrieval was already a good quality of the 252 this setup in my eyes makes a lot of sense for people with that kind of budget. 

The difference with the 552/500 lies for me mainly in emotional connect and easy/depth extension. With that not meaning the set I heard is close to the 552/500 but it definitely fits in the roadmap to the top.

So people with a 252/300 highly recommended to get yourself a ND555.

At the Naim I also had a listen to the Focal Eligia headphones. To short and not the right environment for a verdict. But first impressions where good. Nice warm headphone, with good detail,retrieval ...

Bert Schurink posted:

The system was consisting of ND555, 252 and 300 and Focal Speakers, löst what type but you can see on the picture. The setup was nicely balanced and even the Focal sounded ok in that setup, while I a, not a Focal fan due to the dryness....

I heard all the good qualities of the ND555 floating through. While of course the scale of it is less i,pressive as you own 552/500 system. And of course it was also even less than the Munich show with statement. But I definitely would recommend such a setup for people for who full 500 is a bridge too far. The step up in comparison with the NDS is significant. I would describe it as the system at once get’s the balls, which normally is not so associated with the 252, but the ND555 also positively changes that. And as detail retrieval was already a good quality of the 252 this setup in my eyes makes a lot of sense for people with that kind of budget. 

The difference with the 552/500 lies for me mainly in emotional connect and easy/depth extension. With that not meaning the set I heard is close to the 552/500 but it definitely fits in the roadmap to the top.

So people with a 252/300 highly recommended to get yourself a ND555.

 

Very interesting analysis Bert, and food for thought.

Thank you for the time to feed back on this specific system and thanks for the photos.

At the end of the demo I had a short talk with Mark from Naim about the sense of investing in an even better Ethernet cable. In his opinion it would definitely make sense for me to test out the Chord Music against my AudioQuest Vodka. He talked about the positive effects of the isolation of the signal from any outside factors..... so something I might consider testing out in a home demo. The last time I heard the difference between Ethernet cables on a Linn Streamer I was blown away by the impact of the Chord Music. While I shy away of the massive asking price..., and also saw the comments from forum members who believed that the new designed streamers are less influenced by the quality of the Ethernet cable....

nigelb posted:

Bert Schurink posted:

The system was consisting of ND555, 252 and 300 and Focal Speakers, löst what type but you can see on the picture. The setup was nicely balanced and even the Focal sounded ok in that setup, while I a, not a Focal fan due to the dryness....

I heard all the good qualities of the ND555 floating through. While of course the scale of it is less i,pressive as you own 552/500 system. And of course it was also even less than the Munich show with statement. But I definitely would recommend such a setup for people for who full 500 is a bridge too far. The step up in comparison with the NDS is significant. I would describe it as the system at once get’s the balls, which normally is not so associated with the 252, but the ND555 also positively changes that. And as detail retrieval was already a good quality of the 252 this setup in my eyes makes a lot of sense for people with that kind of budget. 

The difference with the 552/500 lies for me mainly in emotional connect and easy/depth extension. With that not meaning the set I heard is close to the 552/500 but it definitely fits in the roadmap to the top.

So people with a 252/300 highly recommended to get yourself a ND555.

 

Very interesting analysis Bert, and food for thought.

Thank you for the time to feed back on this specific system and thanks for the photos.

By reading this back some typos which might make it difficult to read. As to the difference with the 552/500 it’s for me the more prominent emotional connection to the music, the depth of the bass extension and the ease of control.....apologies for the typos...

My second stop at the show was the guys from Geithain. I arrived in the middle of the demo in which they tried to bring across the benefits of a properly done surround setup. They demoed mainly with the newly released remastered of John Lennon’s imagine. Was an interesting experience. As also the writer from the magazine Hörerlebnis was on stage explaining something about the music. The demo itself became a bit messy as the guys tried to please the writer guy and couldn’t find the right songs as they where not properly tagged. My takeaway ok sound, while not impressed. The surround effect can add something, but without sufficient good content something which i will not actively follow up a d just use my rather good setup of Nad comb8ned with my Naim system....

The next station in the show journey was the Canton demo. And I heard these guys a couple of times now and have to say quite good value for money. The started the demo with new speakers which can be completely steered just with streaming, phone or whatever and the rest is all wireless. A kind of nice start into hifi land. They also showed a speaker in the middle and then moved to a reference speaker which will be released soon. At 15k quite good sounding, while one would need to compare with similar offers.... the speaker is by the way shown on the picture...

The. I landed in the already earlier mentioned video setup with the usual bald heads. Amazing setup overall of something like 100k - but then definitely giving you the full cinema experience. With the right villa - a nice idea to offer up a room for real cinema experience. While it of course means that you need to have the funds...

Bert, what a guy you are so organised at these shows, with great feedback....puts us to shame ????

Gazza posted:

Bert, what a guy you are so organised at these shows, with great feedback....puts us to shame ????

It’s relatively simple. I make pictures, easy. Shazam all music, even the songs I know to remember, make a couple of notes 5/6 words on my listening experience et Voila....

Bert Schurink posted:

The next station in the show journey was the Canton demo. And I heard these guys a couple of times now and have to say quite good value for money. The started the demo with new speakers which can be completely steered just with streaming, phone or whatever and the rest is all wireless. A kind of nice start into hifi land. They also showed a speaker in the middle and then moved to a reference speaker which will be released soon. At 15k quite good sounding, while one would need to compare with similar offers.... the speaker is by the way shown on the picture...

 

These guys also played the Vienna Teng song, which triggers me to do some more research into her.....also remarkable what I forget to tell. A part of the demo was done based on a one box AVM solution which is pretty nice. But also they had a Pioneer adapted by Fink value only 600 euros driving the speakers, showing that’s not always about big money in hifi.

Avant-garde had again also a nice setup to present with orange horn speakers. Quite impressive sound, while I have the feeling that the solution is not as fast as the fastest speakers around, but perhaps also the wrong impression. This time around they had tuned the settings of the speakers better to my taste (the bass part and of the speakers is active and therefore adaptable to mask certain things). They started with JJ Cale which sounded great to me. Song by the way after midnight live. Then they again exposed me to something unknown to me. Tommy Schneider and others with the album Plan B3, need to check that out as well. The demo man also explained also a bit of technical background about the effect of horns on distortion etc... informative....

Strange looking electronics at avant-garde acoustic...

The next station was an unorthodox visit at Klipsch, a guy doing the demo who looked like the brother of Keith Richard..., but very knowledgeable, toys and other things on top of the speakers, old speakers, positioning in the room odd......, but it did sound quite well. So quite funny.... he also played quite everything on the system, including some odd Blue Man group music. An interesting experience....

Also by the way with an odd looking CD player at Klipsch...

Will try to finish this tomorrow. This was a general impression of one of the general rooms...

Completing the story tonight. So my next stay was at Backes & Müller. They demoed three different speakers and constantly gave us three songs and then moved on to the next speaker. They as many recently started with Kari Bremes, sounding very audiophile...., but lyrics in Norwegian so difficult for most of us..... I think the company has high quality speakers, active very controlled. But for me as well very clinical. Almost the feeling of sitting in a lab to listen to music. So never a brand I would consider. They luckily didn’t scare away from classical piano with Krystian Zimmerman, which was good...

The last listening stop was at B&W. They had of course the 800 series. For me speakers which have made a significant step forward as compared to the earlier versions. While they are also not display8ng the music in a way like my Verity Audios do. They are sometimes also a bit too clinical for me. The usual demo guy who is a senior PM at the company, did a nice job in talking around the demoed music. Nice story around Canned Heat and John Lee Hooker in the song send me a pillow. Also the song Let go from Deadmau5 was interesting a new for me..., so nice variety of music....

More close view of the speakers...