It was to pop in on the Sunday, met some nice people and managed to say hello to those I have seen at the shows for over 30 years (yes Mr Raggett that is you)!
The room that most impressed me was listening to the Neat Mystique Classics.
Tim
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IME, when Naim amps & PSs (even head units) are ‘cold/only moderately warmed-up’, as is the case at shows, they can be quite bright in musical terms which, when feeding an analytical 'speaker (like the Focals), can be a recipe for top-end sharpness/sibilance. Of course, added to this is the likely sub-optimal power feeds.
And the further up the range you go, the greater the changes which occur – as appears to be the case on another thread running at the moment re the warm-up of a NAP500.
I had a nice little amble around the show yesterday. Lots to see and hear.
Dynaudio were making some good sounds on the ground floor with their big speakers. Couldn’t see what they were being driven by but they were sounding really good to me.
All the rooms running ATC’s seemed to sound good. The ATC50SE’s were making some particularly nice sounds.
Naim we’re running their 500 system with the S1. Nice big room filling sound that was pretty convincing.
The strange one for me was the Linn dem. I had to go back three times to make sure I wasn’t missing something. This was their top of the range everything and I thought it was all very mediocre. I was really expecting it to rock but it sounded shut-in, lacked dynamics, flat, coloured and with bass that I can only describe as very strange. Things got slightly better with vinyl but only a little. Most odd.
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Russel K presented their new RED 50Se speaker at the show which could be a good match with Naim. Are there any impressions?
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I did listen and the 50Se was rather good. However they are very small and I was missing a bit of scale. You should however never make a conclusive judgement on a brief demo in a small hotel room!
Interesting development by Russell K though. The 50Se looks like a 50 with the addition of a Perspex base and Perspex supports underneath the speaker cabinet. The Se treatment seems to be carried over to their other stand mount speakers in the range.
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Interesting Nigel, i thought it might just be improved crossover components👍
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For all I know, the crossover may well have been improved on the Se. I was only commenting on what I saw.
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I don’t know if my ears were shot or if I was in the wrong mood but it seemed a particularly poor show (soundwise) to me. A recurring feature this year was large speakers in small rooms producing overblown and undefined bass. Naim were a bit mediocre as usual. Probably their best room was the one with the Uniti Star! Best Naim sound of the show was not a Naim demo but the Dynaudios downstairs. A rare exception (along with ATC) of the overblown bass syndrome. I don’t think I encountered ANY “WOW I’d really like that at home!” sounds. I know there are issues getting good sound at shows - but there’s usually SOMETHING!
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Dynaudio speakers are sweet sounding and punchy at the same time… ithey are also neutral sounding . give them some good power it will sing very well … toe in the speakers and it will sound even better . Been having them for past 20 over yrs since I was 19 yrs old 
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Btw the dynaudio is powered by N**M
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Felt very similar to yourself, I know shows are always a compromise especially having to demo in small bedrooms.
Dynaudio/Naim was working for me but unfortunately way out of my budget, enjoyed the Chord/ATC setup, small Russell K’s where impressive but I always fine small stand mounters do that, perhaps being so small I don’t expect a lot, just me probably.
Really enjoyed the Lockwood room super smooth, no edge or bite which could not be said for a few of the rooms, Spendors room sounded particularly poor, very brittle but it may have still been warming up.
Did I come away happy with my day, guessing so, a day out with my mate is always a laugh, one thing we both noticed, the cost of Hifi seems to be going through the roof, think I need to ask for a rise in my pocket money😂.
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Anyone listened to Innuos and were there any new products?
Something about them reminded me of Guru.
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I’ve read on other places that the Dynaudio room was powered by Naim.
If memory serves me correctly (not entirely reliable) it was a 500 Series system in the Dynaudio demo room. They had a nice demo space, and in previous years it’s left generally positive impressions, when I went in on Friday it was excessively loud for some reason and thinned the room out accordingly, myself included.
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Thanks, I should have recognised the signature but it was a bit busy and the system seemed to be hidden away, so couldn’t really have a poke around. Volume levels were ok when I listened but they were playing some relatively simple acoustic stuff that just had a lovely weight and realism.
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Yes definitely a 500.
Unfortunately when we passed they were playing Metallica and it sounded @&££y awful. Probably how it’s supposed to sound but blimey I left immediately. It could have an alternative use as a jackhammer.
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I didn’t go this year (my vehicle being deemed unworthy by Bristol Council) but last time at the show before lockdown I was very impressed by Dynaudio’s demo of the big Confidence speaker driven by 500 based system.
Looks like the demo area used by Naim this year is unchanged - quite open.
I can confirm that I was indeed using a Naim 500 system in our room…
I didn’t have a curated playlist, I had a fallback playlist when required, but in the main, I asked guests what they would like to listen to and played whatever came up. Most of the suggestions were very good and I came across a couple of things I have since downloaded for my own pleasure (once I get my system back home!).
I also asked about volume - a lot! Most of the time it was all very reasonable but I have to admit, the guy that wanted Metallica did play it pretty loud! Almost as loud as the guy that wanted to hear a Polish punk band he had been following for years…
Unfortunately, that can happen when you decide it’s the visitors day out and they should hear things they want to hear… not something ‘safe’ and probably repeated in every room anyway…
But it wasn’t all chaos, I ran a few dems with a selection of music that I could illustrate with little anecdotes and that tended to calm things down a bit.
In future, if any Naim forum members come to any of my demonstrations, please make yourself known… it’s always good to speak with like minded people, share some music and talk about the systems we use.
(I’ll probably get a telling off for commenting on here… sorry Richard or any of the others. If I’ve overstepped the mark, I’ll accept a deletion…)
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