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Cranage Show 2022

Good afternoon pinkfishers.
I've attended the show yesterday together with my brother in law as he's also into the audio hobby .
We haven't been to any audio show before and this was our first time ever.

Walked over all the rooms at the show.
The system impressed us the most was in the Brian and Trevors room based on kudos super 20 a with a pair of rel t9x subs.
I have never before heard anything sounding this good to my years.

On the contrary the worst sounding room (to us both) was any using the atc scm40 speakers -either active or non active ,very harsh and not musical or pleasant at all.

Sorry but can't manage to attach photos at all as seems not as easy as elsewhere...
 
As far as I disagree with the fellow member above with regards to the ATCs (I think the active 40s sounded really good) I must admit that Kudos Super 20A were one of the better sounding setups at the show (and reasonably priced for that matter). I went with a friend of mine and both of us really enjoyed it. Photo attached
IMG-20220618-WA0055.jpg
 
Was at my youngest Granddaughter's first birthday party yesterday and recovering today, but my old mate Ian sent me a pic of himself with Doug Brady. He dealt with Doug from the 70s, but I've only been a customer of Brady's since 1991 ish. Doug's turntable cake looks almost as good as the one I got for my 70th.
Ian also sent a pic with our other old mate Dean Brisset.
I'm quite pee'd off to have missed it now.
Maybe next year....:(
 
It was a great show, but your granddaughter will only have one first birthday, there will be other Cranage shows. . My earliest encounter with Doug was when he fitted an Alphason HR100 MCS to my Linn about 35 years ago. I remember him being patient & diligent in trying to overcome the challenges of this installation. Hum caused by (I suspect faulty arm wiring) was a PITA. Ended up with him fitting an Ittok & Troika instead. Good memories of Doug though, sorry I didn’t get to see him yesterday. Brady’s room was fantastic though.
 
I had a couple of hours at the Cranage show this morning, as it is just down the road from me. Kudos to the organisers for putting on an interesting event with such a friendly atmosphere.

The rooms that really worked for me included;

Accuphase, with the Fink Team louspeakers – by some distance, the best sounding room I went into. The speakers stole the show, I think – beautifully transparent and balanced ribbon speakers, and the closest to my Quad ESL63s in sound.
Atoll Electronique, with some small Warrington-made speakers on Solidsteel stands
Longdog, with some superb home made acrylic open baffle speakers – I could imagine enjoying listening to these for an extended period of time
Audionote – always excellent, and I enjoyed meeting Daniel and being introduced to Demon Fuzz!
AudioCounsel (with more Audionote) – a good sound, albeit being played too loudly.
Proac speakers in the Doug Brady room – and I had a good conversation with someone from Proac who took the time to talk me through their range.
I forget the rooms, but both the Sicilian wood speakers, and the Klipsch Cornwall speakers sounded quite convincing to me.
The Auralic / ATCSCM40 room – probably the most convincing of the larger and more powerful systems. The Hegel / Amphion room was also good, although again rather too loud.

The NuPrime shoebox components near the entrance looked interesting, and I’d like to have heard these.

I hesitate to talk about some of the rooms that didn’t work so well, as I do appreciate the effort put in by manufacturers and distributors to present at shows. Some of these systems are undoubtedly very capable, powerful and revealing, but I’d encourage the volume to be reduced, as I don’t listen to music to be overwhelmed – I listen to enjoy for several hours, and tend to have the volume quite low so that I really need to listen. The only one I will name is the ‘Chasing the Dragon’ room that was using ATCSCM150s, which did not sound good to me at all – immensely powerful and capable speakers, being run too loud, in an unforgiving room is not a recipe for success. With a bit more care, I think this room could have been transformed into something very interesting.
 
Paul Mc, I would just like to say that Rega Research were not exhibiting at the show per se but leant equipment to other manufacturers so any observations regarding the Planar 8 should therefore, perhaps, not be taken in isolation.

When I visited the Hegel room to check all was OK prior to show opening I thought all was OK and the Planar 8 was working very well in the system, perhaps the music played was not to your taste or other factors were in play, or indeed you did not like the Planar 8 which is fine but I thought it was just worth clarifying :):)

PD
 
As is usual with hifi shows, the rooms were very hit and miss.

Kudos disappointed me. All of their smaller standmounts sounding too bright and full of tipped up false detail to me, but then they always sound like that when I hear them. The Kudos 707's were very good although the dark and warm sounding monster Accuphase amp wasn't doing them any favours, neither was the room. I stayed in there a while towards the end of the day and on some tracks the bass was rolling around your feet, sometimes it sounded flat and sometimes it sounded epic. I continue to be intrigued by the Titan series though.

I really liked the Neat Orkestra's being driven by a Chord Dave and Chord system. The Neat Petites were sounding great too.

Another speaker that impressed were some Australian stand mounts called Serhan Swift making some big old beats from such tiny boxes. These were very high quality. I would have liked to hear them on music other than banging techno though.

Some things don't change from the veterans though. The Living Voice/SJS and Audio Note rooms were making convincing noises as ever and Funk Firm/Arthur K was as madcap as he always is :)

I thought the Vertere room was sounding quite good with their turntables and those active ATC SCM40's. However, most of the ATC's I heard were on the border of being too bright for me. Very material dependant.

I heard the Auralic Aries digital streamers a few times in different rooms and these systems were always sounding very good.

Probably the best sound I heard was the Auden Distribution room with some large Egglestoneworks beast speakers sounding very natural on a wide variety of material. The sound was very dialled in.

One final thing, I was intrigued by the presence of old refurbished Townshend Rock turntables sporting nice paint jobs sitting on some kind of isolation device in 4 or 5 places throughout the show. They sounded very good indeed. I didn't catch who was refurbishing these though.

Not a bad show overall but it was still full of white, ageing, balding, fat blokes still clinging on to their Dire Straits and Pink Floyd albums. Hifi just attracts a certain type. I felt right at home ;-)

random pics:




































 
Paul Mc, I would just like to say that Rega Research were not exhibiting at the show per se but leant equipment to other manufacturers so any observations regarding the Planar 8 should therefore, perhaps, not be taken in isolation.

When I visited the Hegel room to check all was OK prior to show opening I thought all was OK and the Planar 8 was working very well in the system, perhaps the music played was not to your taste or other factors were in play, or indeed you did not like the Planar 8 which is fine but I thought it was just worth clarifying :):)

PD

That is fair comment: I did say that is is difficult to judge systems playing music that I do not enjoy. The Rega was fronting a system I didn't recognise, but I have heard the Rega in other settings and it wasn't to my taste.
 
The auden room was good, they always choose that space and it's one of the best. The dough Brady room had big martens fronting dual mono gryphon amps when I went in. That was very good. Active 40's with aurender, good too. MrC and the Tads were good, bit too much bleed in from the corridor but impressive none the less.

Biggest surprise, new active kefs. 6k and a server and you're done. Very slick.

Best bit of foo, the 5 grand record centering laser. Total nonsense unless your records were out of centre by more than a mm. I couldn't hear any difference, and they were unwilling to reverse it after having corrected it, so no chance to A-b-A test it.

Pffff.

A few disappointments, not worth mentioning.
 
My first hifi show and a lot of what I’m thinking has been said already.

I’m after a new pair of speakers so that was at the front of my mind, wandering around yesterday. The Longdog room was fascinating (very good sound), those giant speakers in one of the big rooms gave the Bridgewater Hall a run for its money (I wonder what they’d sound like with the obligatory test track, Yello The Race?!), and I finally got to touch a pair of Avondale speakers (also pretty much my amplification too). Full marks to the demonstrators for using systems that aren’t exclusive to oligarchs!

For various reasons three others stood out..

The YG Carmel 2 - I commented the same to the exhibitors, how such relatively small speakers didn’t get left wanting in a room so large was amazing. Unfortunately, after googling the price they won’t be on my shortlist.

The Neat Petite - yes, they miss the detail and other things of the super high end kit, but listening to something so unobtrusive to do so much good was a treat.

But the big ATC SCM40 actives we’re out of this world. Several others competed with them in one way or another, but I find many speakers fatiguing at the top end - none of that with the ATCs. I could’ve sat in that room all day and still wanted more.

10 out of 10 to the organisers too, it was a great experience and one I’ll do again.
 
Those Kerr speakers/system in the last photo above sounded really nice actually, as did the Proac K6. Those Neat floorstanders in the first photo sounded a bit lumpy and bumpy I thought, again, all the usual caveats about having to work in whatever room they are in etc. And also, a big thank you to all the organisers at the venue and demonstrators for all the hard work. Really enjoyable show again.
 
As is usual with hifi shows, the rooms were very hit and miss.

Kudos disappointed me. All of their smaller standmounts sounding too bright and full of tipped up false detail to me, but then they always sound like that when I hear them. The Kudos 707's were very good although the dark and warm sounding monster Accuphase amp wasn't doing them any favours, neither was the room. I stayed in there a while towards the end of the day and on some tracks the bass was rolling around your feet, sometimes it sounded flat and sometimes it sounded epic. I continue to be intrigued by the Titan series though.

I really liked the Neat Orkestra's being driven by a Chord Dave and Chord system. The Neat Petites were sounding great too.

Another speaker that impressed were some Australian stand mounts called Serhan Swift making some big old beats from such tiny boxes. These were very high quality. I would have liked to hear them on music other than banging techno though.

Some things don't change from the veterans though. The Living Voice/SJS and Audio Note rooms were making convincing noises as ever and Funk Firm/Arthur K was as madcap as he always is :)

I thought the Vertere room was sounding quite good with their turntables and those active ATC SCM40's. However, most of the ATC's I heard were on the border of being too bright for me. Very material dependant.

I heard the Auralic Aries digital streamers a few times in different rooms and these systems were always sounding very good.

Probably the best sound I heard was the Auden Distribution room with some large Egglestoneworks beast speakers sounding very natural on a wide variety of material. The sound was very dialled in.

One final thing, I was intrigued by the presence of old refurbished Townshend Rock turntables sporting nice paint jobs sitting on some kind of isolation device in 4 or 5 places throughout the show. They sounded very good indeed. I didn't catch who was refurbishing these though.

Not a bad show overall but it was still full of white, ageing, balding, fat blokes still clinging on to their Dire Straits and Pink Floyd albums. Hifi just attracts a certain type. I felt right at home ;-)

random pics:




































Those modded Townsend turntables were by 'The Rock Dock'; he was there today and was also helping out Midland Audio at the Midland Audio Show last year.

The last picture was in the Kerr Acoustics room which I really really enjoyed, partly becuase of the sound but also because Jez and his business partner were such good guys and played things at my request and at 'proper' volumes. Their system sounded best with the Lukasz Audio LDMS and Lampizator (both of which I own, albeit example a few rungs up from these items).
 
Any observations on the Music First Audio room?
There was a suggestion they might be using a new speaker from EJ Jordan that is bigger than the Marlow speaker that has been reviewed in the major mags recently.
I was expecting much, but was underwhelmed by the sound of their system, and if pushed to hazard a guess at what was responsible I'd have plumped for the speakers.

Sound of the show for me was the huge red horns in the basement next to the Lowther room, sorry, can't remember the name, powered by 300b amps and DHT preamps. I'd been round the show twice, and had returned each time to their room and had returned a final time to bestow my best sound in the show card on them.

Unfortunately this coincided with their streamer refusing to read the hard drive, and they wired in a Teac reel to reel. As this was probably 25 percent better than their digital, which was better than their vinyl, they now absolutely walked best sound in the show as far as I was concerned.

What did I like about their sound?
Full range system, not bass shy, but in no way overblown either. Treble was natural, but not hyped or obtrusive. Soundstage was huge, with a palpable central image. The tape provided several startles, and sounded beautifully natural and live.

Honourable mentions to the Hegel/Egglestoneworks system, the Lowther room playing the corner units, and the room on the ground floor with all the Lampizator kit and the speakers using what looked like a large version of the old Lineum tweeter as a mid - excellent sound.

And honourable honourable mention to the 1/4 wave with a 4" driver designs - they sounded better IMHO than some designs here costing Ks.

And honourable honourable honourable mention to Brian and Trevors room, which never sounded less than excellent, with accurate tonality, explicit treble without being in any way hard, and very fine imaging. In fact the only system I heard all day which managed to image way outside the speakers.

Whoops, nearly forgot the NEAT room...musical and communicative, from really quite small speakers, and very good sound judged on any terms.
 
Sound of the show for me was the huge red horns in the basement next to the Lowther room, sorry, can't remember the name, powered by 300b amps and DHT preamps. I'd been round the show twice, and had returned each time to their room and had returned a final time to bestow my best sound in the show card on them.

Unfortunately this coincided with their streamer refusing to read the hard drive, and they wired in a Teac reel to reel. As this was probably 25 percent better than their digital, which was better than their vinyl, they now absolutely walked best sound in the show as far as I was concerned.

What did I like about their sound?
Full range system, not bass shy, but in no way overblown either. Treble was natural, but not hyped or obtrusive. Soundstage was huge, with a palpable central image. The tape provided several startles, and sounded beautifully natural and live.

I think those were the Universum Mk3;



And I agree - that was a very good room - I'd like to have heard the R2R.
 
Did anyone see the price of the Living Voice equipment rack in the SJS room?
I just want to check that either my eyes weren’t working correctly or they added a zero onto the end of the price in error :eek:

(Irrespective of price, would echo what others have said, I sat listening to some violinist giving it what for and thought it sounded very very good).
 


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