Cloney's Sound and Vision Show 2011

[Ivor]

Damm Cant make it on Sat , is there anybody heading there on Sunday ?

I'll be there early on Sunday, 10:15 ish. I only have until noon or so to drool on the equipment.

[Ken Moreland]

Great return to form for Cloney's show today and good to see Noel dashing about doing his thing. Parking woeful as usual of course. For me the highlights were the Devaliet amp and Wilson speakers closely followed by the Kharma speakers and amps. Didn't have time to stay to hear Eleanor McEvoy so looking forward to reports.

KM

[DaveF]

Just a few quick thoughts on the day. A definite step up from last years show and there was much better isolation of the rooms this time with less sound polution coming from each of the adjacent rooms. Not perfect but still not bad at all considering.

For me the larger of the two Kharma rooms was the best for me. Lovely effortless sound overall and those monster 1000W Kharma amps certainly showed a lot of refinement. Part of that though was probably down to the Meridian 808.3 CDP which seemed to be a very smooth player, no harshness at all, it just played the music with no party tricks nor was it drawing attention to itself. The music being demoed was a mix of plink plonk and a good deal of classical, the latter being very welcome. The size of the cables though looked a bit ridiculous!

The smaller of the Kharma rooms featuring the db7 sounded nice too but at times the bass of the room was a bit dominent. If I'm being honest I didnt think that the db7 justified its 20K price tag. I think the now discontinued 3.2fe model is better sounding especially with the the new driver fitted.

Other highlights were the Devaliet amp paired with the Wilson speakers, the Lavardin room and the Eleanor McEvoy show.

I didnt have time for the Roy Gregory talks later in the day.

I didnt venture into the Lars room as I didnt wanna get myself upset!

I walked into one of the rooms with the Audio Research and Martin Logins(I think?) only to hear one of the most ear piercing trebles that I've ever heard. I turned around to Claus who didnt seem impressed either! We both promptly left the room then.

The only gripe I had were the prices of the vinyl! Very expensive I thought.

[dubber]

Great show I thought - going to go back tomorrow. Strongly advise anyone who's half-thinking of attending to get themselves down there tomorrow. Well done Cloney Audio!

[fergus]

Congrats to Noel and all at Cloney for a good show. It cannot be easy putting something like that together. It certainly was well worth attending.

[cybot]

Congrats to Noel and all at Cloney for a good show. It cannot be easy putting something like that together. It certainly was well worth attending.

Seconded....

[Frankie Lee]

Just a few quick thoughts on the day. A definite step up from last years show and there was much better isolation of the rooms this time with less sound polution coming from each of the adjacent rooms. Not perfect but still not bad at all considering.

For me the larger of the two Kharma rooms was the best for me. Lovely effortless sound overall and those monster 1000W Kharma amps certainly showed a lot of refinement. Part of that though was probably down to the Meridian 808.3 CDP which seemed to be a very smooth player, no harshness at all, it just played the music with no party tricks nor was it drawing attention to itself. The music being demoed was a mix of plink plonk and a good deal of classical, the latter being very welcome. The size of the cables though looked a bit ridiculous!

The smaller of the Kharma rooms featuring the db7 sounded nice too but at times the bass of the room was a bit dominent. If I'm being honest I didnt think that the db7 justified its 20K price tag. I think the now discontinued 3.2fe model is better sounding especially with the the new driver fitted.

I walked into one of the rooms with the Audio Research and Martin Logins(I think?) only to hear one of the most ear piercing trebles that I've ever heard. I turned around to Claus who didnt seem impressed either! We both promptly left the room then.

This pretty much sums up my feelings exactly. I thought the large Kharma room was the most natural sounding hifi I have ever heard. The soundstage was just ridiculously large. A bit too much actually, I'd have like to try a bit of toe-in. When I heard the price tags involved though, it didn't surprise me. Apparently the cables cost more than the speakers. €10,000 a metre! The smaller room didn't impress me at all. And you're right those Logan's were quite overbearing.

I thought the System Audio stuff sounded nice too, but then I've always been a fan of them. Their new €599 speakers were particularly noteworthy.

Other highlights were the Absolute Sound room and I was delighted to get the chance to listen to the Schiit headphone amps as I've been planning on getting one of them at some stage.

Overall I enjoyed it, but I always find these shows exhausting. If I lived closer I think I'd go back tomorrow and just sit in the Kharma room for the day. Never likely to hear that level of hifi again any day soon.

[Rocker]

Congrats to Noel and all at Cloney for a good show. It cannot be easy putting something like that together. It certainly was well worth attending.

I agree Fergus, it is a good show and well worth the effort getting there. Nice to meet Noel and a lot of old friends there such as Fran, Claus, Neil, Ken and a few others whose names I could not recall [apologies to you all].

Soundwise neither of the Kharma rooms did it for me. And that goes for the Absolute Sounds room too. To my ears those rooms produced good or great sounds but the music and emotion got lost in the process. I liked the Lavardin setup and could happily live with the Sooloos controller and active Meridian speakers. I did not get to the Roy Gregory talk but did go to the Lars presentation. And almost everything that Lars said simply passed me by - the Krell electronics proved to be a decent system but I could detect no changes when Lars took away or replaced the Kones. I thought that I could detect an improvement when he replaced the cheap Nordost [??] mains cable with the Odin cable but if so any improvement was only slight. Lars choice of music is still as bad as ever - does he or anyone listen to that kind of noise for enjoyment? The Eleanor McEvoy show was very enjoyable even if the crowd were a bit too respectful and quiet.

[DaveF]

Congrats to Noel and all at Cloney for a good show. It cannot be easy putting something like that together. It certainly was well worth attending.

Yip absolutely! I didnt emphasis it enough in my first post. The organisation and effort put into the show by Cloney's was very impressive.

Apparently the cables cost more than the speakers. €10,000 a metre!

Feckin hell, I didnt think they cost that much! Makes no sense whatsoever.

Prices like the above though and the voodoo that Lars peddles isnt doing the hifi industry any favours at all. I tried to encourage a few guys at work during the week to pop in and have a look but mostly they sniggered at hifi in general, their gripe being mainly the silly prices, the voodoo tweaks and pseudo science that surrounds some but certainly not all of hifi.
One of the biggest issues that I see with the hifi industry is their failure to address the issue of an ever ageing customer base. How can they attract newcomers to hifi? Certainly not with voodoo, high prices and the like! That only alienates people and makes the hobby seem either unobtainable, silly or both.

Anyway, I think the hifi brands are missing out on an opportunity to really show what hifi can do at an entry level. Cut out all the bullshit and leave newcomers in no doubt as to what can achieved with a system that's good value yet has quality. That will get them on the path. Advertise in non hifi mags, do something to promote hifi. Ask anyone not familiar with hifi what they think hifi is and they'll most likely say Bose or B&O probably because they've come across them in other mags.

Of course there is also the way mainstream music is these days, with it being manufactured, packaged and listened to on the go through ipods and the like.

So is hifi going to get even more smaller, more specialised, more elitist?

This is probably a rant for another thread! :-)

[halvis]

I thought the show was excellent too. I actually thought the music being played was generally above par for a hifi show, I really enjoyed listening to a lot of the tracks played. The Absolute Sounds room with the Devaliet was probably my fave. Some music played by the Devaliet didn't even sound like hifi, impressive.

The Lavardin room was also good. I didn't pay much attention to the Karma room to be honest, way beyond what my budget will ever be and thought it looked vulgar IMHO.

The Meridian room was a shock, I thought it was easily the worst room at the show. What were they doing, I have never heard speakers sound that bad. I guess other felt the same, as it was always empty when I passed.

The main reason I wanted to go was to hear the Stax headphones and the Leben amp. The Stax stand was pretty cool, as they seemed to have every model they do on demo.

The Leben room was a bit of a let down though. The active bass driver in the speakers didn't really sing with the mid and uppers, good idea in theory but didn't work in practice IMO. In the end, I found the room too loud and tiresome on the head!! After the show, I went to listen to a Leben with Audionote speakers, which was far more like it - great stuff.

Great day though, well done to all involved.