North West Audio Show 29-30 June 2019

[Paul Mc]

I'd like to hear string quartets a bit more.

 

[Stunsworth]

I'd like to hear string quartets a bit more.

I can't remember hearing any classical this time outside of the Chasing The Dragon room.

 

[mik bhavnani]

With the amount amount of drinking vouchers your were carrying on Saturday Mik you could have purchased two of them

Was quite a heavy load to lug around

 

[oldius]

The best rooms for me were the rooms with the large ATC active speakers. The Heco room was excellent too and I enjoyed the Kerr Acoustics speakers, the Avid room and both the Klipsch rooms, especially the one featuring the Forte model. Long Dog gear always sounds good to my ears and not many will offer Ornette Coleman!

The disappointing rooms were the Kondo/Maxsonic and AN. I thought both rooms were heavily biased towards the midrange and struggled with extension at both ends. I guess that is why the jazz-light sounds of the day dominated and this has to be put right if this hobby is to feature beyond our generation. I found the Kralk rooms to be far too aggressive in the top end, which is a shame for me as they are a new brand who clearly offer excellent VFM. I would be interested in hearing them with a different treble unit.

Boenicke always sound excellent at shows. You cannot defy the laws of physics though and I note that their choice of listening material is very limited so I would urge anyone blown away to get themselves a home demonstration to try different volumes and a range of material.

 

[Paul Mc]

Some coverage from Hifi Pig.https://hifipig.com/north-west-audio-show-2019-ian-ringstead/

 

[Tony L]

Looks like the Klipsch room got to mount a proper turntable wall-shelf! Never seen that done at a show before!

 

[SCIDB]

Ginga trasulates to Galaxy and I.O is one of the moons that orbit saturn. I wish I had kept the Ginga MK1 as it would be almost impossible to find.

Hi Mik,

IO is one of Jupiter's moons. It is the fourth largest of Jupiter's moons. It has volcanos and mountains.

 

[Space is the Place]

I remember you coming over to listen to the Kii Three. That was back in 2016, I think. I shook quite a few hands this weekend. Many were new, some were very familiar and others were in that awkward grey area of "I know you but I'm not sure where from". That and perhaps also the general sense of overload you get from working at one of these events means that I didn't recognise you at the time Jon, sorry. Anyway, I am glad that you enjoyed the speakers. I am sorry if the EQ wasn't quite to your taste. We were using the 10dB curve for most of the weekend since that seems to have the broadest appeal. These speakers can of course be tuned to suit individual tastes.

Got me wrong Lee, thought your choice was spot on and nicely balanced making everything sound 'right' imo, the timbre of sound was as good as the established (probably more expensive) rivals. Heard the D&D's the previous year on some big classical pieces and thought they had great dynamics and scale too, more natural than the Kii's to my ears, shame i could stay for a bit longer.

 

[Fourlegs]

I'd like shows to have a playlist of maybe 5 to 10 tracks. 50% of the music played (every other track) would be from the playlist - if 50% is too repetitive then 30%. This way comparisons between rooms can be made even if it means hanging around until the specific track is played or the track could be requested. A process could be sorted out.

I made it simple in my room. I just played the same track for the whole of both days. In fact I only played the first minute of the track maximum, some times only the first 40 seconds. It made life easy. But then I was doing an A - B comparison between cables. Maybe some people liked the track because lots of people came back several times during the show to hear it again.

 

[Strictly Stereo]

I made it simple in my room. I just played the same track for the whole of both days. In fact I only played the first minute of the track maximum, some times only the first 40 seconds. It made life easy. But then I was doing an A - B comparison between cables. Maybe some people liked the track because lots of people came back several times during the show to hear it again.

You played the same track over and over for two whole days? What was it like when you finally stopped? Did you taper off gradually or did you go cold turkey?

 

[sunbeamgls]

The issue is the dealer or whoever wants to keep people in the room and so many genres (classical, proper jazz, prog, drum ‘n’ bass, metal, techno, rap, soul etc) will have large numbers heading for the door despite really pleasing some. It is fascinating to sit in a room that allows people to play music they have brought and see how many others head for the door with a given choice. Some girl with an acoustic guitar and well recorded band behind her tends to keep people on seats the longest IMO.

These days I’ll actually ask for proper jazz (Miles, Coltrane etc) or chamber music as to my mind it is just so much better as test material than over-produced studio pop or rock, but again it tends to empty rooms.

I’d be interested to hear our exhibitors views on this one as the subject often comes up for criticism, but to my mind it can’t be anything other than a compromise as so much interesting music will empty a room in seconds! If I was ever to do something like the WigWam show (which to be honest I wouldn’t as I just don’t enjoy exhibiting) I’d be very tempted to limit the music choice to late period ‘free’ Coltrane, electric Miles, and 2nd Viennese School (Schoenberg, Berg, Webern) classical just to see what effect “difficult” music actually had on room numbers! I bet there would be a few free seats in that room regardless how good the sound! The same would apply to say metal, rap or whatever.

At the Wam show I usually put together about 200 to 250 tracks or so into a playlist. All kinds of genres (although my collection is not big on classical nor dixieland jazz) and let them play on shuffle. So whatever comes up next comes up next, but I also have a printed list of tracks so visitors can choose something from the list - quite a few do choose tracks - then it goes back to shuffling. Visitors can enjoy (or not) whatever comes up or they can have something of their choice. This seems to work OK for both passive and more interactive visitors.
Point being, if you don't like what's being played, you can change it. But don't moan about what's being played if you don't ask for something else off the list!

 

[joe9407]

Ey it's an awesome song - Hoist That Rag.

i love that one!

 

[Fourlegs]

You played the same track over and over for two whole days? What was it like when you finally stopped? Did you taper off gradually or did you go cold turkey?

To be fair it was only the first 40 seconds or so of the track!! I used the same CD in the Blu MkII all through the show (Marcus Miller - Laid Black album, 1st track Trip Trap. Awesome music). It must have been done the job because no one asked for anything different.

But I didn't play it in the car on the way home. That might have been one time too many (straws and camel's backs and all that) . . . . . . it was R4 all the way.

 

[Rockhopper]

You could have tried another Marcus Miller track, Jean Pierre from the Free album
Enjoy

 

[Chris Marshall]

One of my fav rooms at the show was the Neat room, simply because it was real a world set up, no fancy racks, everything just placed in close in proximity and all sounding very good. And accessible financially. Not the best of show, for me that probably went to the CAD / Boenicke room as those little speakers defy logic in terms of the scale of sound they were capable of producing, but I was fearful of their positioning on such dainty stands as visitors were keen to look around them (myself included)!

Kondo room was very impressive, but it would simply be a lottery win system for me i'm afraid - nice to experience though. Hegel 590 sounded very good too. Also liked the Kudos room. First time i've ever heard Kralk speakers sound accessible and not overly strident, in this case TDB speakers.

Neat, Nait, Pi, Chord and Well Tempered ...

Neat and Quadraspire/CAD/Boenicke were my 2 favorites as well, the Neat room was just so simple yet great and the little Boenecki speakers just defied their size, I suspect they may struggle with Motorhead but on acoustic music they were just amazing!

 

[Peter Qvortrup]

It was the Audio Emotion room, not Audio Note.

Don't know the context Brian, I walked in just as he was starting his recital, which was just him, albeit fighting the noise from the room next door.

He did say at the end something along the lines of "there you go, the best sounding system is a cello..."

It did seem to me that there are very few (or none) speakers that could approach the depth of absolutely everything that the cello emitted, maybe a single Quad ESL or a big horn, if you were sat directly in front of it, but I doubt it.

One recital was in the Audio Emotions room, the rest were in our room, where you could have heard Vincent play live against an Audio Note system.

Peter Qvortrup

 

[pocketkitchen]

The issue is the dealer or whoever wants to keep people in the room and so many genres (classical, proper jazz, prog, drum ‘n’ bass, metal, techno, rap, soul etc) will have large numbers heading for the door despite really pleasing some. It is fascinating to sit in a room that allows people to play music they have brought and see how many others head for the door with a given choice. Some girl with an acoustic guitar and well recorded band behind her tends to keep people on seats the longest IMO.

These days I’ll actually ask for proper jazz (Miles, Coltrane etc) or chamber music as to my mind it is just so much better as test material than over-produced studio pop or rock, but again it tends to empty rooms.

I’d be interested to hear our exhibitors views on this one as the subject often comes up for criticism, but to my mind it can’t be anything other than a compromise as so much interesting music will empty a room in seconds! If I was ever to do something like the WigWam show (which to be honest I wouldn’t as I just don’t enjoy exhibiting) I’d be very tempted to limit the music choice to late period ‘free’ Coltrane, electric Miles, and 2nd Viennese School (Schoenberg, Berg, Webern) classical just to see what effect “difficult” music actually had on room numbers! I bet there would be a few free seats in that room regardless how good the sound! The same would apply to say metal, rap or whatever.

This! Having done 30 or 40 shows down the years, it's a nightmare to pick music. You can't get it right, so tend to try and offend as few as possible. I hated doing that as it tends to make everything a bit vanilla, but people very obviously vote with their feet and you end up with an emptier room if you don't. I did like the thing Rega did at Bristol a few years ago with classic albums and advertised what they'd be playing and when - they weren's esoteric and when there's a sign outside the room telling you what's on, it's nice and clear from the off.

 

[AndyU]

Dick Shahinian used to sit in his room at a show with a huge case of classical cds, all superb, and play whatever he wanted and talk about the performance. If you didn’t like it, you didn’t have to stay. It was a great pleasure to listen to his speakers, and to him.

 

[Fretbuzz]

This! Having done 30 or 40 shows down the years, it's a nightmare to pick music. You can't get it right, so tend to try and offend as few as possible. I hated doing that as it tends to make everything a bit vanilla, but people very obviously vote with their feet and you end up with an emptier room if you don't. I did like the thing Rega did at Bristol a few years ago with classic albums and advertised what they'd be playing and when - they weren's esoteric and when there's a sign outside the room telling you what's on, it's nice and clear from the off.

It is a good idea. I'd be all for just classic albums (including jazz) being played. Stuff that people are likely to have in their collection.

Thinking about it I'd say some of the music used at these things seems have been picked to make the system sound its best, when really what you want is a system to make your music sound its best. IME not the always the same thing.

 

[Peter Qvortrup]

No doubt the kondo boys dislike AN uk because Qvortrup basically stole their name and designs from them with the help of the uk courts.

Obviously Kondo have moved on in design and circuits a great deal since then.

Dear SQ,

Your words display a certain bias and a profound lack of actual knowledge of the facts behind the break up between AN-J/Kondo-san and ANUK/myself, not surprising given the amount of hearsay and deliberate misinformation peddled widely about this, so perhaps a couple of facts might be helpful,

1.) We won the UK case against AN Japan because we had proof that Kondo-san had signed over the name to ANUK in early 1996, to allow us to oppose a number of registrations of the Audio Note in various countries around the world, we paid for the costs of registering the name and trademark, including the costs associated with removing the "fake" opportunistic attempts to register the name at considerable cost.

Now, at the time of the break up in early 1998, I offered Kondo-san to hand back the name and transfer the trade mark registrations, if he covered the original costs plus the costs of transfer, this he refused and instead signed the name to PM Components here in the UK in April 1998, in spite of the fact he did not own the trademarks at the time, so we sued to stop this and won, had we not been able to show a signed transfer document do you seriously tell us you think a UK judge would have given a verdict in our favour?

2.) We have stolen no designs from AN-J, in fact one of the key elements in the dispute between Kondo-san and myself was based around the fact that I wanted to phase out the cathode followers and signal capacitors in certain places and replace them with transformers, something we had already started to do in the M3 pre-amplifier in early/mid 1995, Kondo-san did not want to do this, he also wanted to revert to push pull amplifiers and I refused to market these.

I could go on, but I think the above is probably enough, although the following may be relevant and pertinent, during the nearly 20 tumultuous years I worked with Kondo-san I learned a great deal from him, his understanding of materials and their sound was extraordinary, many of his designs will live on and be revered as they rightly should to stand amongst the greatest achievements in audio, this is his legacy and it is well deserved, Kondo-san was a complex human being, as many of us are and had his commercial understanding matched his technical insights, he would have been easier to work with.

Peter Qvortrup