Do tell us more......
.sjb
I really had to get round pretty quickly so probably missed an awful lot of little nuggets. I only went as I needed to pick up with a couple of people out there, and I should have stayed for more than a day. I guess if you're interested in hifi (as most of us here are to some extent or another) then it probably is a must visit. Probably not if you've reached that age of permanent cynicism.
First off, there is hifi, then there is high end hifi. The latter is sometimes based on sound quality and performance, and sometimes is led by style and an almost jewellery like presentation. But it's nevertheless interesting to see how some companies are leading a charge in to this area and almost creating a market segment from nothing. Fair play to them, and this obviously started a few years or decades ago, it's not something I have been familiar with, but in some ways it's good to see the industry trying to take some of the wealth that would just be spent on supercars and yachts and channel it in to audio.
I saw quite a few speakers constructed from aluminium. This has intrigued me for a while now and I haven't actually heard any before and perhaps I may be misinterpreting things but they do seem to have a unique character. Albeit there are a lot of other variables for sure. Naturally at this stage they tend to be very expensive, but I'm not convinced that needs to be the case, though I would expect them to have a premium over conventional wood boxes.
I had a good listen to the Techdas. Deadly quiet background, this deck was fitted with a SAT tonearm, not sure of the cartridge. Heard the new Technics SP10r, conversely, whether it was the system, the record, or the cartridge or whatever it sounded very flat. I didn't see a single LP12 being used, though a few rooms were using Klimax DS players. Heard the Monaco turntable, can't remember the arm etc but it sounded good.
Cables, power supplies, and flashy connectors in abundance. Clearly this is a very profitable area from what i could see. Unfortunately missed a with/without demo and couldn't wait for the next one.
The MBL room was extraordinary. Sound quality and cost is not a very linear relationship, but every now and then as the cost goes up, so too you can reach a sudden jump in performance. The system was a staggering EU391k but I don't think I've heard such a palpable sense of realism, a musical event. Perhaps if I listened for longer I could become more critical, but for 15 minutes I was spellbound.
