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North West Audio Show 2018

graystoke4

graystoke4

pfm Member
i will be there , tomorrow not been before looking forward to it , in my defence looking at some isoacoustics giais 1s with a bit of a discount you don't ask you don't get
 
The show seemed better attended this year, which is promising. I had the usual credit card meltdown with Diverse Vinyl. The RSD18 Allman Bros is currently cranked up far enough to probably annoy the neighbours....

I was disappointed with most of the exhibitors. In one room the sound was so bad that I had to double check that the speakers were the same as the ones I enjoy immensely at home. Possibly the perennial problem of hotel room acoustics, but surely exhibitors are professional dealers able to handle this? There were more good sounding rooms at the Wam show at Kegworth, and those were put together by enthusiasts rather than dealers. Oh, hang on a minute....

For me the sound of the show was Brian and Trevor's modest Linn system: mid-spec LP12, Akurate Exakt through Majik amps and 109 speakers with subs. Just musical, rather like sunbeamgls' similar system at Kegworth. And to me, much more enjoyable than the huge speakers they brought last year.
 
Brian and Trevor's system sounded rather harsh and shrill to me, didn't like it at all.

I enjoyed the Audio Council, AN system with the AJ's, also the Audionote room with Peter Qvortrup in attendance, and it was great having a chat with him.

The Node room was interesting, £27.000 is a bit out of my league though.

I really liked the Puresound room and it was good to chat with Guy, loved the Teac reel to reel.
 
went to the show today, really enjoyed it all, some great gear on show,rooms were of a good size, a lot of dealers said the sound today was a lot better than yesterday as they have had time to iron out some of the room problems, will go again,Also bought a pair of townshend speaker podiums, sue from townshend gave me a fantastic deal on a pair of size three's to put under my Wilson audio sasha's will let you know the result when they arrive later in the week,i didn't realise they were so heavy,as i said when i started this thread if you don't ask you don't get, and i got,
 
A mixed bag of sounds. Those big Italian horns were there again sounding just as bad as I remembered them. The best sound for me was in the Chasing The Dragon room and a pair of (I think) active ATC 100s. They were playing their recordings on LP, memory card and reel to reel. I bought a copy of their tribute to Ella LP and very fine it sounds too.

I didn’t make it to all the rooms as I expected to return today. Alas that didn’t happen.
 
yes i went to the chasing the dragon room they were playing pink floyd dark side of the moon loudly got my phone out and it was recording 98 dbl, on it , not to much finesse i thought, more like a live event,
 
graystoke4 said:
yes i went to the chasing the dragon room they were playing pink floyd dark side of the moon loudly got my phone out and it was recording 98 dbl, on it , not to much finesse i thought, more like a live event,
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They were only playing their own recordings when I was in the room. I was surprised how “into the red” the meters on the reel to reel were going. I guess you can get away with that on an high speed analog tape. Their reel to reel masters are expensive though, £350+ - though if I won the lottery I’d be tempted, there’s a rightness to reel to reel sound.
 
Popped in late Saturday, great venue and seemed very busy. Rooms that I enjoyed were the Neat Acoustics, Nait 2 driving their new floorstanders, Audio Note room was playing a nicely balanced entry system. Seemed better to me than the Audio Counsel bigger system in their room. But what do I know, all the nodding heads/tapping feet that were surrounding me thought differently. With certain music, the big Klipsch speakers were surprisingly okay as well.
 
Generally an excellent atmosphere at the show today. Dunno if the weather helped or what.. but nice.
I too thought the Chasing the Dragon room was excellent. But then if you can't make a half decent fist of it with big ATCs, a Clearaudio Megabucks record player, a top of the range Studer Reel to Reel and assorted interconnects of the 'gold plated hosepipe' variety then you really aren't trying very hard.. ;) Sat through the chap's 'talk/sales pitch' which was interesting and informative but not over technical.
The small rooms on the ground floor had some nice sounds and some that were frankly dire. I'd have been ashamed to show some of them. Was impressed with The NVA stuff for the money but those little cubic speakers were shouting a bit too much Would be interested in that kit if I was a bit cash strapped.. but with different speakers.
Audionote room was good fun. First time I've met Peter Q and he was very different to what I'd imagined. Quite the joker.
Nice sounds in Henley Audio/Project room too.
Said a quick hello to Orangeart in the Mark Audio/Sota room.
Much of my time spent hanging around while my mate continued his efforts to own a copy of everything put on vinyl.. ever..

Was properly tired all day though having been very busy yesterday then stayed up too late. Silly me..

Edit: I meant to also say that I deplore the fact that not a single exhibitor was offering free pens!! This is unforgiveable..!! I had no way of scribbling 'Excellent' 'OK..ish' or 'Utter shite'.. next to the names of the various exhibitors. I sincerely hope the organisers will address this issue next year. My rather beautiful Harbeth freebie pen from the last 'Bressol' show is bound to fail soon..

They all do..
 
Mull, my thoughts exactly regarding the NVA kit. I have to say though that no one could complain for the money, ten out of ten for that. If Richard offered a better speaker for a bit more as an upgrade he'd have a real winner.
I called in on the Orangeart room and I was very impressed with those tiny two inch drivers!
 
Mullardman said:
The small rooms on the ground floor had some nice sounds and some that were frankly dire. I'd have been ashamed to show some of them. Was impressed with The NVA stuff for the money but those little cubic speakers were shouting a bit too much Would be interested in that kit if I was a bit cash strapped.. but with different speakers.
Audionote room was good fun. First time I've met Peter Q and he was very different to what I'd imagined. Quite the joker.
Nice sounds in Henley Audio/Project room too.
They all do..
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Agree with all of that Mull, I lost count of the number of rooms I was in just long enough to pivot and immediatly leave. Glad it wasnt just me left feeling slightly puzzled over most of what I heard. The AN room was excellent, not much else really comes to mind as being memorable. Spent a little time in the Chasing the Dragon room, good to hear what he had to say but the sound wasnt very engaging.

Best part was catching up with a mate and enjoying a pleasant lunch in the sunshine.

Fantastic venue!
 
I enjoyed the show, surprised at how bad some of the ££££'s rooms sounded, some of the more modest setups sounded better in those rooms. I was impressed with the Lyndorf amps, the small Buchardtspeakers, a pair of kef bookshelfs and Vox3 prototypes which is strange as I like class A amps and floorstanders.

Was very tempted by the Velvet Vortex RCM and still am but my funds are leaning towards a new TT first.
 
Stunsworth said:
A mixed bag of sounds. Those big Italian horns were there again sounding just as bad as I remembered them. The best sound for me was in the Chasing The Dragon room and a pair of (I think) active ATC 100s. They were playing their recordings on LP, memory card and reel to reel. I bought a copy of their tribute to Ella LP and very fine it sounds too.

I didn’t make it to all the rooms as I expected to return today. Alas that didn’t happen.
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I believe those were SCM150s.
 
First time visitor and was there primarily to do a dodgy deal in the car park. Had a 45 minute window before I had to head home to watch England with son so did a quick run around. Thought the Neat and Buchardt speakers sounded promising, both looked lovely too. Sadly the Neat room was being blasted by hotel sodding california coming from the Arcaydis room at the time. Linn room sounded pretty good to me but was playing dance music which maybe played to the setup's strengths. The Arts in I think the nu nu room sounded pretty good but too low volume to really tell. MCRU with massive speakers sounded good, but would need a new house/mortgage/wife to get those through the door. Kralk sounded amazingly similar to the DTLPS speakers I tried a few years back, so that was a no no. Ophidian, NVA, Arcaydis and the room with the ridiculously pimped 1210 and Lyngdorf amp disappointing. First time hearing big ATCs and was left unmoved. Overall impression was that if I'd spent the amount of money on display in most of the systems and it sounded like that I'd have to have a serious word with myself!
 
Stunsworth said:
Those big Italian horns were there again sounding just as bad as I remembered them.
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Do you mean these?

1ARnJHNl.jpg


They aren't Italian.
 
Wasn't able to make down yesterday in the end - shame. Would have been great to meet Peter Q. Good to hear some feedback though.

Last year was the first time I'd attended any audio event, and, yep, great as some kit was, even more notable was just how bad some megabuck set-ups sounded. Actually quite liberating.
 
I went for the first time yesterday. I enloyed it and all credit to the organisers and exhibitors, but I agree with some other contributors, that much of the sound wasn't earth shattering.

Enjoyed The Chasing the Dragon lecture, Mike Valentine not quite so into himself as before, fewer "This is a picture of me with Angelina Jolie". To be fair, most of the recordings were pretty astonishing.

Some excellent half price records in the MCRU room, by Sunday afternoon. In general, at most shows, Sunday seems to be the time to go, as the thought of humping back loads of gear, seems to encourage healthy price drops.

For show groupies in the South, the Indulgence Show last year, rebranded as the Festival of Sound this year, was the best show I have been to in years, great live music. 28th till the 30th of September this year, in the Novotel, Hammersmith
 
First room with the KR amps/Valves and big ass 3 ways was about the best of the show for me. I had ten minutes of bliss in there with Nils Frahm, Cinematic Orchestra and Keith Jarrett.
I thought the big (country of origin unknown) horns sounded better than I've heard them previously.
Those ATC 150's managed to do small remarkably well.
Guy's tape stuff was nice, but lacking a little top end sparkle.
I liked the diamond tweeter ARTs.
TADs disappointed, worst I've ever heard them.
The NEATs were good.
Those 5 way DIY looking arrays with the orange mid-surround panel were good
Everything else was as expected.
 
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