Silverstone Hi-Fi Show 2009

Posting from Whittlebury Hall, extremely close to the legendary Silverstone race track.

Nice hotel, letters from Lady Diana in 1986 on the walls in appreciation of her stay etc...

Will have a good look round tomorrow. This show replaces the yearly major event usually held in London. The noise from the race track earlier really was a bit of a concern. Hope it doesn't interfere too much tomorrow. But there is much more space and better rooms than the usual (and deteriorating over the years) London event.

Will manage to post some pics & some inital thoughts on Sunday, I guess... but I'm sure not all will get posted before the inevitable RMAF onslaught.

OK - Summit X driven by the new Audio Research CD8, the new REF 5, and REF110 - even though you can see the 210s in the pic too. The idea, according to the sales rep, was to show the X doesn't need oodles of power to drive it.

Did you hear that everyone? No, you don't need that much to drive them well.

Thoughts on what I heard - well, right up my alley, I am afraid. Tube city. This system had a tube output CD player, tubed pre, and tubed power amps. Result? As smooth and relaxing as hell with the material that was being played. Not a hint of grain or roughness. Very nice indeed - sublime in fact. Much of what I heard was female vocal - and ML strong point, I guess.

The glass windows behind were open - quite a nice day. Room size was pretty big. To be honest, too big really for the X's. And that's my gripe, if I want to get picky. I'd want more scale in line with the older MLs for the $/£ being asked.

Don't take that as a huge gripe - it's still a great speaker. But would I buy it over a Spire plus 2x Descent I? I don't think I would... but I'd need a demo of both, one after the other, to be 100% sure. Those with space constraints or low WAFage acceptance factor will plump for the X, I expect.

Can you hear the bass/panel divide? Well, of course you can, but the blend is very good indeed. A box still sounds like a box, a panel like a panel.

But note this - the JM Lab efforts sound much boxier still to me, so compared to a conventional loudspeaker, this is much less boxy. So ultimately, it wins in my book.

Pic below, a bit small, but we do seem to have agreed this 750 pixel limit. I much prefer 900 with my short username, but needs must...

I blame Bernard

This was the most laid back - no make that effortless - combo I heard at the show - with a firm emphasis on musicality. Choose different "ampage" etc and get very different results, I'm sure.

And no, the glass background wasn't affecting things too much - the windows, being angled as they were open, really didn't seem to be causing a problem, before anyone asks.

Some close ups of the partnering electronics to follow to keep AR heads like Adam and Bernard happy...

REF 5 close up, REF5/CD8 long shot (CD8 close up sucked), REF210, new REF 2 phono... and time for a beer and some sleep. More later...

Thanks for the pix. Yeah, ARC stuff just looks "right" to me.

A CLX center channel, now that's just the thing!

User211 said:

I blame Bernard

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Steady on, laddie! I had no gripes about your porn pics.

User211 said:

Some close ups of the partnering electronics to follow to keep AR heads like Adam and Bernard happy...

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Thank you, sir! You are too kind ! Nice job of the pics. I'm drooling.

Bernard said:

Steady on, laddie! I had no gripes about your porn pics.


Thank you, sir! You are too kind ! Nice job of the pics. I'm drooling.

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What are you on about? You love my porn pics... There's more AR but maybe later.

Anyway... Gamut S9s that Jeff seems to be on about at the moment. Well, they were there in a huge room, driven by Gamut 250 Watt monos, Gamut CD3 CD player (£4700), ClearAudio Innovation turntable (£5670 TT only), Aesthetix Rhea phono etc.

I must have been in and out of this room about 7-8 times during the day - not always massively impressed, but on some material they really were rather good. Not cheap by any means at £65,000 odd. The wood was untreated, which kind of gave the impression they'd just come off the lathe. I choose a different finish, for sure.

Definately a top flight system. Loved the TT and the sounds emanating from it. Whilst the S9s are big, the room was truly too big for them.

Having said that, this is a much better venue for a hi-fi show than the London hotels. Much more space, though some rooms were small. I guess it just depended on how much various exhibitors wanted to pay.

The Gamuts versus CLX plus 2x Descent Is? Tough choice, I'd say. I've only heard the CLX by itself. But it is a testament to the CLX that I think it'd be a hard decision, given it's price point. I'd expect I'd go CLX, in all honesty, though, if I was in the market at that price level.

Old news CLXs, gently weeping in the corner, beaten to it by some young Summit X upstarts...

Plug the old timer in, however, and it is a different story...

OK, which speakers would I take home after the show? If I had the space and money for them?

Well, not S9s, not CLXs - nope, I'd take the Cabasse La Sphere. These things sound pretty incredible - really lively and packed full of detail. Brilliant off axis, too. Discovered them too late in the day to spend masses of time with them. But they are brilliant. And they were being driven by class D Cabasse amps. Somehow - it worked!

£90,000 for the speakers, £18,000 for 4x BCRREF 1000 + BCF300. Incredible looking beasts & therefore loads of pics of them.

Within a few seconds of listening, these hit the spot like nothing else in the show. Great speakers, no question. Wish I had had more time with them - I admit I don't know them that well, but from what little I heard - wow!

Huge room, but these things filled it - no problem, due to their radiation pattern. The French babe in the posters looks like a class act, too

Enough of this unaffordable - or affordable but don't want to spend the money on it type kit - depending on your view point.

I was really impressed by the following system. All Chinese front end with some Audio Epilog Adut loudspeakers, which cost a mere £552, plus £230 for the stands. It was simply brilliant playing the Beatles and other pop/rock material. Excellent imagery, very detailed and clear. Far, far in excess of what you'd expect for the outlay. I'm positive the 845 based amps are great, at least in the context of driving these tiny monitors, Chinese though they may be.

Not much in the way of bass extension here, though. A matching sub would ultimately help it out quite a bit.

Pre was a Cayin SC-10, power Cayin 9088D monos, and a vacuum tube output Cayin CDT-17A CD player.

Recommending Chinese kit maybe straying on the edge of credibility - but in all honesty, this was and is a great system. Honest!

User211 said:

OK, which speakers would I take home after the show?, I'd take the Cabasse La Sphere.

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Justin, myself I don't care how good they sound, I wouldn't have those carnival, eyeball looking 'things' in my house ! LOL !

Well I suppose if one wanted to you could put them together a shoot a Gieco commercial.

iOXOMOXO! I am the Eye... ha, ha. Reminds me of the Rick Griffen cartoons I used to see in the late 60's Surfer magazines. Oh No, Flash backs!!! Bad Dog, Bad Dog!!!

Justin, Thanks for great audio porn and reviews.

Satch

twich54 said:

Justin, myself I don't care how good they sound, I wouldn't have those carnival, eyeball looking 'things' in my house ! LOL !

Well I suppose if one wanted to you could put them together a shoot a Gieco commercial.

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I suppose they do have a certain "Dr Who" element to them, but I think they look incredibly cool in the flesh...

Anyway, since I had a good chat with Tim De Paravicini about his turntable and the design thereof, I'm going to cut him some space. The platter is made from Corian, it isn't that thick, and is covered with cork, which Tim claims is great for dispersing energy.

Tim claims a clamp isn't necessary since the label is recessed, but I think he could tell I wasn't really convinced on that one - especially for warped records. I think my Orbe clamping mech does a much better job.

The TT is a sprung chassis design, and it turns "by magic", as Tim says. He took the platter off, and you can see then that it is completely decoupled from any drive mechanism, which is basically a belt driven disk a few inches wide. I'd guess it uses magnets in some sort of configuration - Tim claims people have tried to copy it but they have been unsuccessful.

What I can say is as a result there is no rumble - none at all that I could detect. Whether that makes it worth £13,443 or not only you can decide. Using a Helius (£2,965) tonearm and an Ortofon Kontrapunkt B, the noise coming from his own speakers and EAR 509 (£9,124) monoblocks was top class. Sure the speakers aren't huge - you're looking at a smallish room for best results, but the sum of the whole was very convincing.

A few more pics of Tim's stuff, out of respect...

V20 (£6,106) followed by an 890. Oh, and the in use 912 preamp at £7,418 and below it Acute CD player (£3,674). Last pic is the 868 pre, which with phono comes in at £4,703. Nice kit.

OK - Quad time. I dunno what was going on here, but this is the best I have ever heard the 2905s sound - ever - period. The room was tiny, but it did have some treatments - the UK scene seems to be using these more and more. Infact I have never seen a UK show use them so abundantly.

But the real news item here is the new Quad Classic Integrated tube amp. Designed by Tim De Paravicini (or at least the output transformers were), it is a nice sounding amp indeed. Glancing through the cage, it looked to be using EL34s - but the sales leaflet I photo'd had flash glare in this part of the spec, so I may be wrong. Good for 25 Watts and good at driving low Ohm loads, so it says.

Anyway, this room sounded very good on the two occasions I was in it.

GT Audio time - and that means Avantgrade Duos and Tron amplification, with a Raven One TT. The 211 amp that was in use can be built to your spec - the one in use featured silver wiring throughout, but I suspect that will hit your wallet hard. It was running GE 211s, which I don't think are the best, but they are the most common NOS 211 available.

Just good, natural, easy on the ear sounds in this room. The bass/horn interface is well done and seemed more seemless than the last time I heard Duos quite a few years ago, if my memory serves me correctly.

GT Audio are here, if you want more info.

Oh - that's an AcousticPlan Vadi CD player, and it looks cool & sounds good. More details on the link supplied above.

Nice Pics, hadn't seen that TT before

Not sure which one you mean, Tel, but I'm sure you'll answer on the Wam Thanks for the complement, but see below.

Anyway, another great system by my recogning was this one: Zu Essence loudspeakers driven by Vacuum State DPA 300G monos. I think the Zu's cost £3750 in the UK, and I think they're worth it, but surely stateside they'll be even better value.

Bags of resolution, presented in a free and easy manner. Not a million miles away from, say, a Border Patrol 300B amp driving Living Voice OBX's. I'd say the later is rather better, really, but this was and is very good system. Like some of the Zu finish options a lot too.

CD player was an EMM labs. Not sure about the preamp.

Notice the curtains are closed. So many of the rooms were dark, which makes taking decent photos a pain. Not the case in Hong Kong, were I nearly never used a flash the light was so good.

When are the UK guys gonna learn that bad light equals bad pics for most people without pro standard photo gear? Or do they shut the curtains because they think it helps the ambience and sonics? Who knows. Some of the pics I'll show later are pretty badly compromised because of this. I took multiple ( and I mean a lot) of pics of some items and NONE of them came out well. Bummer, to say the least.

New Unison Research S-9 power amp driving Malibran loudspeakers (£19,500). The amp is so new it doesn't feature on the website.

This didn't move me much on the occasions I was in the room. Not sure about those speakers, really. Nice looking amp, though I have no price or spec for it. Interesting looking output tubes, too. Not sure what type they are, but chime in if you know.

Unison Research Unico CDE with dual mono DACS, too. Not sure what was up in here - usually Unison kit impresses me. Put it down to a bad day for them, I guess.

Just a couple of nice Jadis pics - Jadis Orphee 1, and Jadis DA88S. Not actively working when I was around.

Not seen the Orphee before - looks new & is not on the Jadis website. Some info, including a 12,000 Euro price tag, here: http://www.audioconcept.ro/product.php?brand_id=9&cat_id=3&product_id=199

Thanks, as ever, for the wonderful audio porn! I'm an ARC fan too, so thanks for those pics especially. But is it me, or does ARC's new (all-natural aluminum look just seem wrong? All black or (preferably) natural with black handles is how ARC stuff is supposed to be! (I know it's possible to order the latest stuff in natural with black handles, and if I ever get the chance, that's exactly how I'll order 'em...)