Anyone going this weekend?
Not going, but I had to google the location, never heard of Staverton!
May go on the Sunday if I’m not too fucked from Saturday’s shenanigans.
My neck of the woods Kevin. No reason to have heard of it. There’s nothing there much there other than a golf course and a hotel but it’s a pleasant enough venue.
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I will be going as it’s just a few miles away from me. Might see you there Paul.
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Links to ‘do you want to exhibit’ on their site but the exhibitors list seems to have disappeared. When it was up there was very little on it.
If the Ascot show is anything to go by…
Hoping to get there.
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Be heading off after I’ve walked the dogs for a potter about, chiefly to remind myself why I have the stuff I do. If you see a puzzled-looking fat cunt trying-and-failing to dredge-up a name, say hi/hide, to taste.
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Anything worth seeing ? Last year Audionote had their field coil speakers which were the standout for me.
I quite like the updated aesthetics on Guy’s Puresound range.
Switches and pots feel better quality too.
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The fascia and knobs are much nicer imo of the newer look a30
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The 2a3 has the same looks now too.
Yes I agree much nicer.
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I wish they were presented better - where pray tell is the purple table cloth and bowl of toilet mints? Furious.
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Must try a pair of the power amplifiers at some point
Now I have the matching preamp
Not a lot. The AN rooms were both good but overall it was quite underwhelming and the number of visitors today appeared to be a lot lower than I was expecting. No idea what it was like on Saturday though.
Generous.
First: it’s Daventry - you set your expectations low, and they limbo under anyway.
Second: it’s Chester Group - you set your expectations lower, and they slide under like a drunk’s piss under a shop doorway…
Third: “No you hifi scum can’t park at the hotel - fuck off to a muddy field half a mile up the road and wait for a minibus!”
Fourth: £15 for a ticket and it’s a brusque “Cash only.”! Welcome to 1984.
Fifth: no ale of any kind available at the bar.
Sixth: no less than six EXHIBITORS didn’t bother showing-up on the day.
Seventh: 10 years since my last hifi show, and yet still old, autistic people haven’t discovered showers, deodorant, washing machines, adult diapers or toothpaste…
Eighth: You can spend 5-£igures on hifi and get something that sounds like a portable radio.
I went because I am very seriously considering spunking a life-changing lump of cash on a pair speakers, and felt a bit of due diligence was in order by of checking what the competition are up to…
I needn’t have bothered.
Well with one exception - Sigma Acoustics T10 25th Anniversary monitors were really bloody lovely, albeit demonstarted with the usual overly-safe material.
Sound was sublime - detailed, layered, hugely spacious with pin-sharp imaging, truly believable and yet easy to listen to! And they were doing all this attached to distinctly mid-fi components in a highly echoey, resonant room.
I went and looked them up, and these are the absolutely babies of SA’s range - which spirals rapidly into 6-figure prices. These are £3,995, and TBH they piss all over monitors I’ve heard at three times the price, steep as they are:
The only other room I liked enough that I’d take something home were the large ART coffins being demonstrated with Bricasti electronics. The speakers drove the very large room beautifully, with no overhang, no shrillness, and a very natural overall presentation. Only a hint of dryness let things down, and that may very well be the electronics: a nice bit of quality class-A would likely help.
These usually get plaudits, but I found the sound very lacklustre -
Forgotten what they’re called and don’t really care…
I was rather surprised to find that Crimson Audio still exist and is still making basically the same neat little amps they’ve made since Moses was a boy…
Not bad sounding either.
This room was demonstrating half a dozen black pillars that look like room air-filters and which are alleged to function as bass traps. The “explanation” of how they work wasn’t one, and their effect was intangible, perhaps because the speakers weren’t overdriving the large room in the first place unless you got close to the boundaries, so they didn’t have much to do. As so often, a potentially useful device badly demonstrated.
I didn’t ask what they cost, but £many is likely.
These tiny standmounts - Alchris Audio 'Booki’ ( 
) - stupid name, nice sounding speaker, were wholly lacking in harshness and with quite remarkable lower frequency extension and impact for such a teeny squirt:
Exceptionally-nicely finished Leak-alikes from English Audio were actually managing to make dinky Heybrooks sound OK, if still a bit flat and dull - some things never change.
The custom paint-jobs are fab, though, and on livelier speaker no doubt they sound pretty damned good.
I found all of Audio Note’s rooms underwhelming, Focal seem to have gone backwards and Meridian were too busy yakking at their rapt audience every time I went in to play any music - but then we all know what to expect…
Cadnam sounded pretty good if oddly recessed - like a really good hifi system played in another room (which it wasn’t, there was only one really good system there, see top)…
Russel K also managed a pretty decent sound, if not remarkable. Musta been the cable lifters…
Arseache of a drive to get to, arseache of a drive back. Never again.
I dodged a few rooms for obvious reasons (Chord, NVA, &c.), all the rest were average to downright poor.
Nice to have a swift pint with Nick though - show highlight 
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An honest review illustrating why the best bit about ‘shows’ is stealing Chinese branded stationary.
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Yeah, there was absolutely fuck-all of that - Saturday-vultures picked the place dry.
I nipped down a side-passage and nicked a matteress instead
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