Scottish hifi show...
Posted by: Top Cat on 21 October 2002
Hi folks.
Just wanted to start a topic about the Scottish hifi show which I attended (briefly) on Saturday. It was a pleasure to meet some of the faces behind the names, and I enjoyed seeing a lot of new kit - the SL2s were a considerable improvement over SBLs, and could be the speaker to knock the Neats from my affections... or maybe not, who knows - hotel suites, bad mains, background noise, it's difficult to be objective.
Linn were making rather hifi sounding sound - not much music going on there. Audio Note were a surprise - I don't know much about them, but a vinyl front-end playing some Louis Armstrong was for me one of the best moments of the show. Many manufacturers were playing bloated, heavy bass (a mains or room issue, perhaps) but the Naim room was sounding good. It was great to meet Doug and get the lowdown on the Fraim, CDX2 and 252. Together, the sound was pretty decent, even if the 552 was sadly absent from the proceedings.
The Nordost room was taking the biscuit - a £3K hifi connected with £12K (yes, that's TWELVE BIG ONES) of Valhalla. This stuff sure works, but I think the price is taking the piss a bit. I'd love to try some in my own system but I'd be a bit wary of anything which costs that much in case I liked it too much.
A lot of the show was taken over by AV-heads, with big projectors and LCD screens and the like. This was interesting, but I'm not in the market for an LCD screen - too expensive - and a lot of the kit didn't sound that much better than the Arcam AV setup I currently have. I didn't hear the Naim AV setup, incidentally - it was mid session and I was in a hurry.
Had a listen to a Krell system then got bored. Very impressive, totally uninvolving. Likewise the Martin Logans driven by the Musical Fidelity chrome and gold tackygraph or whatever it was. That sounded dire. Didn't bother with the ProAc room, nor the Kef room (I could hear enough from outside).
I probably missed tons of stuff out, but all in all, it was, ah, a hifi show. And therefore a bit willy-waving likes. I didn't hear anything to convince me that my own path is wrong, though I did hear some decent sounds. The best bit for me is meeting some of the people that you only know from the net. Not that many of them, but a few. I also nearly bought a ton of vinyl but for the fact that, faced with such a choice of new (and not inexpensive) vinyl, I couldn't choose. My budget was, after all, only a paltry £50 and the Hendrix box-set was, after all, £80 (though at another stand it was £150 IIRC - strange!)...
So I bought a couple of cds instead. Bad, bad, bad... still, they were cheap...
So, an interesting time... it would have been cool to have the Mana crowd up here, though - that would have livened things up a bit...
Mr McP: didn't see you, did Doug recognise you from the description I gave?
TC '..'
"Girl, you thought he was a man, but he was a Muffin..."
[This message was edited by Top Cat on MONDAY 21 October 2002 at 12:17.]
Just wanted to start a topic about the Scottish hifi show which I attended (briefly) on Saturday. It was a pleasure to meet some of the faces behind the names, and I enjoyed seeing a lot of new kit - the SL2s were a considerable improvement over SBLs, and could be the speaker to knock the Neats from my affections... or maybe not, who knows - hotel suites, bad mains, background noise, it's difficult to be objective.
Linn were making rather hifi sounding sound - not much music going on there. Audio Note were a surprise - I don't know much about them, but a vinyl front-end playing some Louis Armstrong was for me one of the best moments of the show. Many manufacturers were playing bloated, heavy bass (a mains or room issue, perhaps) but the Naim room was sounding good. It was great to meet Doug and get the lowdown on the Fraim, CDX2 and 252. Together, the sound was pretty decent, even if the 552 was sadly absent from the proceedings.
The Nordost room was taking the biscuit - a £3K hifi connected with £12K (yes, that's TWELVE BIG ONES) of Valhalla. This stuff sure works, but I think the price is taking the piss a bit. I'd love to try some in my own system but I'd be a bit wary of anything which costs that much in case I liked it too much.
A lot of the show was taken over by AV-heads, with big projectors and LCD screens and the like. This was interesting, but I'm not in the market for an LCD screen - too expensive - and a lot of the kit didn't sound that much better than the Arcam AV setup I currently have. I didn't hear the Naim AV setup, incidentally - it was mid session and I was in a hurry.
Had a listen to a Krell system then got bored. Very impressive, totally uninvolving. Likewise the Martin Logans driven by the Musical Fidelity chrome and gold tackygraph or whatever it was. That sounded dire. Didn't bother with the ProAc room, nor the Kef room (I could hear enough from outside).
I probably missed tons of stuff out, but all in all, it was, ah, a hifi show. And therefore a bit willy-waving likes. I didn't hear anything to convince me that my own path is wrong, though I did hear some decent sounds. The best bit for me is meeting some of the people that you only know from the net. Not that many of them, but a few. I also nearly bought a ton of vinyl but for the fact that, faced with such a choice of new (and not inexpensive) vinyl, I couldn't choose. My budget was, after all, only a paltry £50 and the Hendrix box-set was, after all, £80 (though at another stand it was £150 IIRC - strange!)...
So I bought a couple of cds instead. Bad, bad, bad... still, they were cheap...
So, an interesting time... it would have been cool to have the Mana crowd up here, though - that would have livened things up a bit...
Mr McP: didn't see you, did Doug recognise you from the description I gave?
TC '..'
"Girl, you thought he was a man, but he was a Muffin..."
[This message was edited by Top Cat on MONDAY 21 October 2002 at 12:17.]
This is strange: you can't post here and I can't (won't 
) post there... 
Anyway, no, I felt the Naim system that I heard sounded fine - then again, I wasn't really listening - I was chatting to Doug - but there were no obvious anomalies in the sound and it wasn't over-bright unlike many others. Sure, the Nordost room had a more detailed sound, but at a silly price, and the CD12 system - the Bonnex I think you called it - was full of detail, but playing David Gray (if we're thinking about the same system) it wasn't really any more musical than any other system - although maybe we do look for different things.
FWIW, sure, your system has clarity, but then apart from that I don't think it's significantly more musical than the Naim system - maybe a bit, but we're talking different rather than more musical. Chalk and cheese, my friend. Sure, your CDS2/52/ATC100s piss all over the CDX/XPS/52/300/SL2s/dodgy hotel room in terms of clarity=- if they didn't you'd be doing something wrong, with your dedicated spur and slightly more near-field listening setup.
I just don't think it's fair to criticise Naim or any other manufacturer in the show for not having an optimal sound when there's so much noise, electrical crud and the like floating around the place.
Unfair. I'm just putting things in context - the Naim setup I heard at the show sounded quite musical despite the odds. The Linn systems sucked, but I did like the Audio Note system, which I felt was the most musical of the show (playing some vinyl).
TC '..'
"Girl, you thought he was a man, but he was a Muffin..."
) post there... Anyway, no, I felt the Naim system that I heard sounded fine - then again, I wasn't really listening - I was chatting to Doug - but there were no obvious anomalies in the sound and it wasn't over-bright unlike many others. Sure, the Nordost room had a more detailed sound, but at a silly price, and the CD12 system - the Bonnex I think you called it - was full of detail, but playing David Gray (if we're thinking about the same system) it wasn't really any more musical than any other system - although maybe we do look for different things.
FWIW, sure, your system has clarity, but then apart from that I don't think it's significantly more musical than the Naim system - maybe a bit, but we're talking different rather than more musical. Chalk and cheese, my friend. Sure, your CDS2/52/ATC100s piss all over the CDX/XPS/52/300/SL2s/dodgy hotel room in terms of clarity=- if they didn't you'd be doing something wrong, with your dedicated spur and slightly more near-field listening setup.
I just don't think it's fair to criticise Naim or any other manufacturer in the show for not having an optimal sound when there's so much noise, electrical crud and the like floating around the place.
quote:
Well, if you thought the Naim system sounded good, we are definitely looking for different things in our systems.
Unfair. I'm just putting things in context - the Naim setup I heard at the show sounded quite musical despite the odds. The Linn systems sucked, but I did like the Audio Note system, which I felt was the most musical of the show (playing some vinyl).
TC '..'
"Girl, you thought he was a man, but he was a Muffin..."