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Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2015 15:30:11 GMT
That Pink LP is the latest Bjork 'Post' pressing by the look of it..
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Post by The Brookmeister on Sept 25, 2015 20:30:49 GMT
That Pink LP is the latest Bjork 'Post' pressing by the look of it.. Correct, sounded bloody good too!
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Post by The Brookmeister on Sept 25, 2015 20:35:50 GMT
Yes, Nick told me he designed it for Music First. It was a joint effort chief, J. Billington contributed parts wise, its been a near 10 year journey to get this far. Nick's friend Andrew started off 10 years ago by asking Nick to build the best phono possible and he would too. A friendly battle not for commercial gain just to see what was possible from a hobbyists point of view. Along the path various versions made it to Owston, now the final triumphant 2 box version is finished. Fully tested with certification and one sold already, the client collected it at the show! My own is out for review at the moment, missing it badly!
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Post by MartinT on Oct 23, 2015 15:49:33 GMT
I'll be going to the Hi-Fi News show in Windsor this Sunday. If anyone wants to meet up, please PM me. I'll be hovering around Coherent's (TonyC) room at times.
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Post by Stratmangler on Oct 23, 2015 16:06:57 GMT
I'll be hovering around Coherent's (TonyC) room at times. Nice trick if you can do it Hovering that is ....
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Post by ChrisB on Oct 23, 2015 16:32:25 GMT
Typo: I think he means hoovering. Tony has terrible dandruff, so I hear.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2015 17:40:43 GMT
I'll be going to the Hi-Fi News show in Windsor this Sunday. If anyone wants to meet up, please PM me. I'll be hovering around Coherent's (TonyC) room at times. Also going to the show but on Saturday so won't get the chance to meet which is a shame. Anyone there on Saturday? Paul.
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Post by SteveC on Oct 23, 2015 19:15:17 GMT
I'll be there on Saturday!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2015 23:21:55 GMT
Shaping up to be a good show guys
Sound fowdations making some nice sounds, Magico and constellation doing their usual thing
Great atmosphere during set up today, so very well presented rooms as well they also a vicious rumour that the DCS room is making music though this wholly unsubstantiated I may add
Looking forward to seeing you all over the weekend
spare a thought for Dave mcru he had a lot of equipment to move on his own and up several flights of stair poor lad looked totally cream crackered
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Post by MartinT on Oct 24, 2015 4:52:11 GMT
Looking forward to it, Tony.
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Post by SteveC on Oct 24, 2015 18:01:22 GMT
For anyone going to the show tomorrow, be aware that there are no AA-type signs leading you to the hotel. Just pop SL4 2JJ into the satnav and you will find it!
However, that is when your troubles begin! I arrived nice and early, just before 9am to secure my parking place. On driving up the road to the hotel, I was stopped by an eastern european gentleman in a hi-viz jacket who directed me to car park 4. Once at car park 4, there were no spaces to be found so I turned around and headed back, whereupon our car parking man directed me to the other side of the hotel grounds. A second eastern european man in hi-viz then gesticulated towards another road and very soon I joined a line of traffic that was backed up against a dead end! Everybody began turning around and our second car parking man came to tell us that "parking, we have run out of!" and instructed us to simply abandon our cars in this dead end road!
A fairly long walk to the main entrance then ensued and for those pre-paid ticket holders, a "fast track" check-in followed (although no quicker than just paying the entry fee at the other end of the counter) and a "goody bag was presented, together with a show sticker to indicate that you had paid the entry fee!
The bag contained a show brochure, hotel plan (although easy to get lost once inside) and three Chesky Hybrid SACDS! No free copy of Hi fi News, although the year book was on sale for a discounted £4.00.
The stand out room for me (I went back a second time) was Tony Sallis's Nu Nu Distribution room, where Tony gave a very convincing demo of file based media through the TAD C600 preamp and M600 mono blocs into the TAD Compact Reference speakers (£40K) and the smaller TAD Compact Evolution One (£18K). Vinyl was represented by the Oracle Delphi 6 Gen II with SME V arm and an Ortofon cartridge making some nice sounds!
I attended a couple of Absolute Sounds ticketed demos (Magico S7/Constellation/ Metronome Kalista) - A mega bucks system, which sounded impressive but nothing spectacular. The second room had the new Audio Research CD player and amplification range, which I thought was rather ugly compared to their previous iconic designs and the new Wilson Sabrina compact floor stander (£16K) which sounded impressive for it's size (but then I recalled the TAD Compact Evolution One for around the same price tag, which was so much better in all respects!).
I spent a bit of time in the dCS and KOG Audio rooms, tried on some headphones (not for me, thanks!) and generally wandered around for another few hours.
Apart from those rooms I have mentioned, nothing else really floated my boat and, apart from vinyl, there were no CD retailers in evidence!
Was it worth £20? Thankfully, I had my ticket paid for by Studio AV, but I was reminded that todays hi fi shows are a poor shadow of those that I attended in the 70's and 80's!
Enjoy if you're going, but watch out for the parking and don't have the Chicken Caesar wrap (mine was partially frozen)!
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Post by John on Oct 24, 2015 18:05:46 GMT
Thanks for the update Steve
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Post by MartinT on Oct 24, 2015 18:58:07 GMT
Oh dear, I did note that there is an overflow car park with complementary bus service and wonder whether I should just go straight there.
Ruth and I will go see Tony and listen to his system, which knowing the TADs will be well worth hearing. I've heard the Magicos and Constellations before; very hi-fi but the soul of the music was missing. I far prefer Wilson speakers. Sometimes it's the smaller rooms or lesser known brands that surprise, I will keep an open mind.
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Post by MartinT on Oct 25, 2015 18:15:35 GMT
Well, it was an interesting show if not greatly rewarding for me. Firstly: the overflow parking was the best thing to use, we had the courtesy bus to ourselves both there and back due to the non-existent signage! The hotel was heaving with cars due to a wedding going on at the same time! We were greeted with a goody bag complete with three free Chesky CDs.
Tony at Nu-Nu Distribution (the same TonyC from Coherent) gave a great demonstration of both file-based audio and analogue via the superb Oracle turntable, both into the baby TAD speakers (which I think suffered from the room) and the big Compact References (which shrugged off the room as if it didn't exist). Great music choices and the telling comment from Ruth was that Tony explained things in ways that she could understand.
I did not enjoy the big Magico S7 speakers driven by Constellation electronics and Metronome CD deck. Once again, very hi-fi but the London Grammar showed a lack of emotion in her voice and where was the superb bass accompaniment in the track Hey Now? I have to say that the musical choices did not help their case. The new small Wilson Sabrenas at £16k did a much better job of sounding bigger than their size, even if they were called 'entry level' speakers in some degree of arrogance.
I also very much liked the new JBL 4367 studio monitors in the Harman room. Fast and impactful, powered by Mark Levinson electronics, no wonder the Japanese buy these up at a rate of knots.
I also spoke briefly with David Brook who was in one of the smaller rooms and trying to decide if the show had been worthwhile for him.
Best value in the show were the new small Elac B5 speakers, £250 worth of really superb open and detailed sound. These will become my default recommended entry level speakers for bargain systems, replacing my previous favourite Wharfedale Diamonds.
The best sounds of the show were Tony's TAD Compact Reference speakers with TAD electronics.
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Post by ChrisB on Oct 25, 2015 18:36:26 GMT
The Harman set-up sounds like the one they had at the Cranage Hall show in June - the JBLs were being juiced up by a Levinson integrated and the sound was big and utterly effortless.
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Post by MartinT on Oct 25, 2015 18:38:27 GMT
The Harman set-up sounds like the one they had at the Cranage Hall show in June - the JBLs were being juiced up by a Levinson integrated and the sound was big and utterly effortless. Yes, that's it exactly. I could listen to them all day.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2015 18:29:43 GMT
A big thank you to all those who popped in and stayed for the demonstrations and the comments.
All squared away now and back to repairing and improving items for a while now.
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Post by MartinT on Oct 27, 2015 21:53:55 GMT
Sorry we didn't come back to talk, Tony, but your room was swamped with a queue every time we took a look back.
Did you get a chance to look around much?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2015 22:15:26 GMT
I went on Saturday and was disappointed whilst not surprised that we had to park in the overflow car park as we arrived around 9:45.
The bus driver who was shuttling people to and from the venue was pleasant, an ex Prison officer who has recently paid his mortgage off at 30 which isn't half impressive (I might need to take a leaf out of his book!) although he was having a lot of trouble with the overflow car park managers, they had stolen the Hifi News show sign and wouldn't give it back so when we returned, Paul (can't remember his surname but he is the editor of Hifi News) came with us to talk to them (with a bouncer which was amusing!)
The show was quite good, not as good as the ones I went to in the 90s based at the Ramada Hotel in Heathrow, and certainly nowhere near as good as the Bristol show but overall it wasn't bad.
As Martin said, we were presented with a goody bad which contained three CDs a map of where all of the different manufacturers were located and some equipment bumf… have heard one of the CDs, Brian Dunlap and it isn't half bad.
We went and explored the different Absolute Sounds rooms. I personally thought the Magico speakers were nice but agree more or less with Martin's comments… I think I preferred the Wilson speakers and system in the other room but preferred the music choice in the Magico room.
In their other room, they had a choice of Martin Logan and Sonus Faber loudspeakers and I liked both, especially the top of the 'cheap range' Sonus Faber's…
We then went into Tony's room (although I hadn't realised that he was our own TonyC until afterwards) and listened to a combination of two different TAD loudspeakers… I liked the little ones better personally, although they unsurprisingly lacked the deeper bass, the larger speakers were to my ears extremely overblown (although that could well have been the room!). Tony was an engaging presenter as was his friend/colleague who was playing the Oracle turntable. We only had the chance to listen to Red Book digital files and were planning on returning as Tony had promised to play a high resolution Dire Straits track but we got distracted elsewhere.
The Naim offering was piterful and running the Dynaudio loudspeakers sounded awful to my ears, my Dad's friend who was with us liked them but I just found they sounded so lack lustre. The Chord room was impressive although I think they made a mistake partnering their electronics with Kef speakers as they had little sparkle considering the quality of the electronics.
The surprise of the day had to be the little Elac speakers, they were truly amazing and an utterly ridiculous price of a mere £250. I will seriously consider upgrading my Wharfedale Diamond IV speakers to them (if I ever have the opportunity to put them on dedicated stands) as I think they'll be waisted on the wall brackets.
Overall not a bad show, ridiculously bad organisation though for subscribers to the Hifi News magazine as their distribution service has changed so nobody knew subscription details and after about 2 weeks or chasing I finally managed to get the promised discount. On the day the organisation was better although I was disappointed that they hadn't mentioned the £6 parking fee which I thought was a little cheeky!
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Post by MartinT on Oct 27, 2015 22:29:39 GMT
For those of you using Zinio as a magazine reader (it's free), I can confirm that Hi-Fi News is available on subscription and is a good read on desktop, tablet and phone versions of the reader.
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