Very good, but to get the bass you needed to be a lot further back than the seats set out. The room had a bit of echo to it which muddled things tho unless you were in the firing line. For me this tho the 50’s in the chord room sounded more like a domestic situation with the 150’s being a bit ‘hey listen to this’
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Yes, Bill had put a great room together for Dynaudio. I spoke for some time with Jason from Naim who wished they had a more intimate room….err Bill;s room……as ever those Focal speakers did not do the Naim kit justice, the Dynaudio sounded great with the new Naim kit.
But hey….it was a free day out….met some friends old and new.
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Yes the dynaudio room was one of the best sounding, my dad was interested in the speakers until he learned the price!
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Hope he wins in the free draw.
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I thought the best sound came from the 808s driven by the Chord amps, so good I went back twice and fortunately my wife agreed they sounded better than my 707s.
I also enjoyed listening to the Dynaudio speakers which did a far better job with the same Naim set up than the Focal speakers.
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Yes….forgot to mention the Chord room……the Kudos speakers sounded very good…….better than the ATC speakers. Probably spent too much time talking-to Maurice from Chord.
It’s a Herculean event for a small dealer and suppliers, well done Signals.
I did enjoy the Russell K/Kevin in depth discussion on his speaker design philosophy. Kevin held up tweeters or bass/mid range drivers in the air whikst the same track was played through them. Russell K listens to drivers this way before any computer analysis……his drivers compared to some from other speakers (anonymous) was very interesting choice. A very expensive Scanspeak……spoke for itself.
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The Chord room sounded excellent.
I enjoyed the large ATC speakers.
Those large,shouty Dynaudios were not to my taste.
But my star of the show was
Coupled with the Meze Elites they gave a beautiful warm halo to the jazz I found in Roon. But I am a headphone person.
That incredibly simple but expensive Accuphase system is the one I would take home with me though. Only CD player and amplifier not sure of the speakers.
Enjoyable couple of hours.
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Big thank you to Alastair and the entire Signals crew for again hosting a fine event.
I left at lunchtime having had a nightmare journey up from Somerset in an unsuitable old school sports car in driving rain on crowded, pot-holed motorways the day before, a poor nights sleep and the prospect of the same nightmare journey back on a pre Bank Holiday weekend Friday night was enough to end it early for me. I probably should have thought the whole venture through before going!
All that not withstanding, my thoughts:
I thought a lot of the bigger rooms sounded rather poor - they were just too cavernous and the smaller rooms fared better, as well as offering a better approximation of a domestic setting. The exception may have been the ATC150’s which might have preferred a Cathedral or an aircraft hangar!
Kudos : 808’s nowhere near as good as I know them to be. Room too big, Chord Amps probably not to my taste. Music choices didn’t help either.
Dynaudio : The standout star act. The new Naim 3 box system sounded a million dollars with the 30’s. For my personal preferences the whole thing was a bit ‘HiFi’, but no faulting a fast, secure, rich, colourful and authoritative sound. Excellent.
Naim: Very nice too, but not as good as the Dynaudio room with the same electronics. Too big a room and too French a speaker.
Post edited for unhelpful snarkiness. Apologies.
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I bet that speaker weighs about 2 Dads…
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Great day out and the new NC 3-boxer was sounding good, though probably best in the Dynaudio room, bizarrely.
Very interesting talk by Russell K, and learned enough from the Song Kong seminar to have a go myself. I really liked these ‘side events’ as they were informative and broke up the day.
My only regret was I missed a chat with @Gazza. Gazza, I tried to find you in the afternoon without success. Hope we can catch up at some point.
Well done to the Signals team for putting on an enjoyable and informative day.
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We git their early, so we left about 1 ish. Will catchup at some point👍
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Phew. Lucky we’ve all got different ears and tastes. For me, those monster ATCs were very much the stars of the usual excellent Signals show, but I did take the time to listen to them for a fair old while until material I happened to know and like came bouncing through them. They do have the 15" ATC bass units, as do my venerable Naim DBLs, so maybe that helped me be more enthusiastic about their sound than others. Possible candidates for when the latter finally expire.
It was great to meet up with old paIs who I haven’t seen for donkey’s years due to the Covid thing. Had a nice chat with NigelB, said hello to Gazza.
Being a convert to Accuphase, their demo only served to reinforce how good their kit sounds, and it was refreshing to see such a simple setup - CD player, integrated amp, & speakers.
I did tend to migrate to the rooms demoing kit I already own, so I spent a fair bit of time in the Chord room. I find it difficult to evaluate hi-fi in demos, but those ATC (50s?) in the chord room were far more to my tastes than the Kudos ones, and the Chord amps seemed to do a sterling job with driving them.
As usual, the Rega room, playing a bit of vinyl I like, was lovely.
I didn’t dwell for long in the Audioquest/Golden Ear room but not because I didn’t like the sound quality; those narrow speakers weren’t bad at all, but I was a bit hi-fi’d out by then.
Anyway, many thanks again to the Signals gang for pulling off such a great show. As a veteran of those old Heathrow ones, I really appreciate how much better Audio Show East is.
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Yes, good to see you Tony……and looking so much better than an Audio show east of a few years back👍
I think the music ATC played was not my cup of tea.
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I’d agree that the passive 50’s were, to my ears better than the titans and £6k cheaper.
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Ditto, well said that man!
I travelled the 133 miles yesterday door to door and had a wonderful time. I got there a tad early as i was unsure of the traffic i may encounter on route. Even though i was early this was not a problem, i was welcomed by two rather fine ladies who were doing a sterling job. I was able to access the Chord demo first. I got to hear ATC’s up against the Kudos 707’s. I could hear what both speakers were doing and thought I could easily live with both. I went back in a few hours later where the Chord guys were discussing with a member of the public the merits of the system. They demonstrated what the mscaler was doing upscaling and I’m glad I got to hear that A/B dem as surprisingly I preferred it without the upscaling.As Tony says different ears etc etc! I also preferred the Kudos as they really opened up, Arctic Monkeys, Billie Eilish were sounding rather glorious. The bass that kicked in on the Billie Eilish track was most surprising and welcome!
I popped into The “Monster” room to see where all the “noise’” was coming from. I thought I had walked into Glastonbury!!! The bass was ‘epic”! The music was changed and the ATCs handled anything thrown at them with an iron like grip. I can see why ATC’s are so popular around these parts.
I then popped along to hear the 808’s (my speakers) and again at low volume whilst Derek and the guys were getting things ready i had a great chat with them both, so friendly and as ever knowledgable and passionate. Again i could also hear why people love the Kudos range. I can only conclude that we all hear things so differently, there is no right or wrong. You listen, you demo you make a choice and you hand over your hard earned cash…simples really!!!
I continued to “dart” between rooms really enjoying well everything actually. The atmosphere, enjoying what must be really hard work for all involved. I got to chat with Jason in the Naim room, and as always a delight and always makes time to chat and makes me feel so welcome.
Even when i brought myself a coffee the guy serving was very obliging and helpful!!
There is something there for everyone, enjoy and the suns out so those grounds at Trinity Park will look stunning.
I can only conclude that “well done Signals”, you guys done good…no…you done great! A journey for me to get there, and so worth it, thank you for having me and making me feel so welcome.
If anyone is going today, enjoy. You are in for a treat!
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Nice write up Dusty……we were probably in some rooms at the same time as we were early too……i had my wife along to keep my wallet locked😂
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Can I just add to the views above and say that I thoroughly enjoyed the event yesterday.
As stated by many, myself included, we all have different ears and expectations. However, without events like this we wouldn’t get to exercise our ears or our wallets😁
Thank you very much Alastair, Mick, Andy and Kevin (who I got to meet briefly over a cup of tea).
Already looking forward to next year😊
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At the show yesterday on the Melco stand I came across an ADOT Audiophile Fibre Network Connectivity Kit, which I found intriguing.
Never seen or heard of one before and after speaking to the chap on the stand, I now understand what it is supposed to do.
Has anyone got one and does it make the improvement that they suggest.
DG…
So what does the chap on the stand say they’ll do?
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