A Statement in the afternoon at The Audio Room, Hull
Posted by: FangfossFlyer on 23 September 2018
The Audio Room held a series of Statement listening sessions at their shop in Hull over the weekend (22/23 Sep 2018). Hosted by Darren and Spencer at their fine shop and demo rooms. The system was presented by Naim's Mark Raggett who also played a range of music for our pleasure. So thankyou Mark and a very big thankyou to Darren and Spencer of The Audio Room.
This was the first time I had head a Statement which in this case was driven by an ND555 and into a pair of Focal Utopias.
My first impression was that The Statement really does look impressive in the flesh and no photos I have seen to date do it justice. It really is a great looking bit of kit to me!
More importantly the sound.... what can I say other than I really, really enjoyed it. It definitely was in that Naim groove that I love and I can hear its pedigree. Music and especially vocals just appeared to float in the air with a 3D quality. It had that certain silence and darkness people talk about and it could groove!
We listened for a good 90 minutes when I asked to play one of the tracks I had been listening to earlier in the day on my system, John Martyn's version of Glory Box from The Church With One Bell. I was not sure what to expect but after opening my eyes I commented that I liked it and was somewhat relived that my system was not a million miles away from what I had just heard. I also felt, but did not comment, that it would probably sound even better on vinyl!
At the end of the session I said to Mark, and separately to Darren, that I loved what I had heard and that sometimes when I leave such demos I think that it all sounded very nice in a Hi-Fi sort of way, but not for me and that I cannot wait to get back to my system. In this case I was really impressed and would have asked for a home dem if I thought I had the spare cash to buy one in the near future.
Anyway, getting home and playing John Martyn I was still really delighted with my system and have been playing LPs into the evening. So, I don't have any terrible feeling that my system is broken or needs changing right now.
Once again thanks Darren, Spencer and Mark for an insightful afternoon,
Richard