Tír Na HiFi

I very much enjoyed the day, but like DaveF I'd be struggling to find something that blew me away. If anything I think some of the guys were finding it difficult to get *really* good sound from the systems, and whether that was rooms or what I don't know. Certainly the Meridian guys had had a bit of a nightmare time, with a centre channel lost in transit and various other issues. Anyway here are the rooms as I heard them:

B&W 800/Classe/Dariusz's record players:
I heard expensive gear sounding less impressive than I'm sure it's capable of. Part of the problem here (for me at least) was that the source was vinyl every time I was in the room. Sorry lads, it just didn't do it for me. The TTs look the absolute business, gorgeously put together and finished, but the sonics left me cold. At first it was dark, then it was thin, but it was never genuinely lifelike. With speakers like that in a show environment a little bit of contrast would be nice, not least in volume. Put on a CD and belt it out!

Arcam/B&W/Panasonic home cinema:
One of the better dems for me, I liked the R-cube, and I thought they were doing a very convincing job of making the AVR600 and B&W CM8's sound good. I would have to disagree with DaveF's assessment of picture quality. I don't know if the TV had been set up incorrectly, but all I saw were dreadful motion artifacts and slightly cartoony colours. I've yet to be convinced that paying €1100 for a Blu-ray player (brand spanking new Arcam model) makes sense, but if you're going to lash out the cash, take a bit of effort to set up your TV properly. A special shout-out for the track played early on -- "I've got you under my skin" sung by the very attractive and velvety voiced Katharine McPhee on the Chris Botti in Boston disc. Enjoyed that for many reasons!

Kharma/Gamut power/Copland pre/Arcam player:
I'm biased of course, but this was probably the sound I enjoyed the most, although I'd agree with DaveF that it was sometimes hard to pick out the qualities with the onslaught of bass from next door. Still, I was impressed with the Gamut and Copland combo, and I may need to borrow that myself at some point. Solid.

Meridian/JVC projector:
Disappointing in a musical sense, and while the Batman demo was good fun I still didn't think the gear sounded as good as I was expecting. The user interface is absolutely fab, can't argue with that, but the sonics were unconvincing for the money. If I'm allowed to complain a bit, the most disappointing thing in this room was the guy's unwillingness to actually demo anything anytime I was in there. Too much talking to people, not enough sounds. (God I'm really sounding cranky!)

Sonos room:
Wandered in, saw some stuff, wandered out again. I'm resisting this for now but my resistance is waning. Anyway, it's good and all very clever from what I can tell. Not much music when I was in there, but that's perhaps understandable. This is about functionality first and foremost, it's the job of other equipment to sort out the sonics.

Elac:
Good sounds, small boxes, lots of wives and girlfriends hanging around this room for some reason...! I'd heard them before, liked them a lot, and I still think they're just an excellent little package. I'd be surprised if the boys don't sell a few of them on the back of this show.

Lars/Nordost/System Audio/Primare/Classe:
Lars was in cracking form today I thought, and if the dems weren't quite as compelling as some I've seen him do before, it's for the simple reason that the room was chockablock all day long. You could barely get into it. I have to say, I think it's really great that Nordost bring the Odins along to this kind of event, and no matter what you think about it, it's good fun to say you've listened to 60-70k worth of cable! I quite liked the sound in this room as well, it was undeniably bright and forward, but it had a fair bit of impact and was very immediate. Good fun.

Apart from the exhibitions it was great to see so many familiar faces and meet a few less familiar. I ended up having to run off a little early which was a shame, although I'd probably exhausted everything by that stage anyway. All told, it was a good event, well supported by members of the public as well as those in the know from what I could tell, and not a half bad way to spend a November Saturday. Sounds like it was better entertainment than at Lansdowne Road anyway.............

Thanks lads for an entertaining but honest appraisal of what went down at the show today :-) Wish I was there :-(

Speaking of music on Sky, if anyone has Sky Anytime, there's a good programme on there at the moment where Howard Goodall looks at the beginnings of musical notation, and what a profound effect it had on everything. Howard Goodall's always good value, and this is no exception.

what were your impressions of those isolation cones that Lars was demoing?

I'll admit that I was put off when one person asked for the cones to be removed from the under the CD player. Lars did it alright, slightly reluctant I might add, but only played the music for about 15 secs before shaking his head saying it sounded awful and then putting the 3 cones back in. Played the music for a few mins then wedged a 4th cone in somewhere under the player saying that it gave a further improvement.

That sort of procedure was very similar to the power cables/Quantum things demoed by Lars last year.

Its hardly the best method for illustrating what the cones add to the mix versus when they're not there.

I actually left the dem just as he was about to start including those, so I never heard them. That said, my getting-increasingly-sucked-into-this-ridiculous-hobby colleague texted me later to say that he thought the difference was incredible when they were added. I've been to enough of these dems to know the tremendous power of suggestion, and even though Lars is admittedly scrupulous about leaving levels constant (and fair play to him for doing that, cos lots don't!) I do find that the shorter/longer listening has an effect. I'm not saying the isolation things don't work, far from it, but sometimes I find it hard to really hear what's going on in a show environment.

To be honest, the single most effective thing I ever heard Lars dem was the step-up from Valhalla to Odin in the Cloney shop a few years ago. There was a Mahler track I think that was absolutely night-and-day, to an absolutely astonishing level, and it didn't matter which way you went, Valhalla to Odin or vice-versa, you could hear the difference clearly. I don't know why they don't use more classical in these dems, because it seems a lot more revealing of some of these things.

I'm not saying that isolation doesnt work by the way. It may or may not have an affect on some components(if the component is vibration prone in the first place) but surely it cannot bring magical improvements to every piece of gear.
My main issue is the way the demo was done and just makes me believe more and more that its all a load of boll*x. But as you said Simon, the show environment does make it difficult for me to gauge things too.

From the Deco Audio site some very sane ideas on isolationism :-) http://www.decoaudio.com/

Like cables specialist supports are a cost effective way of getting more out of a system. Electronic components benefit from individual shelving, speakers from being still on a stand. Unfortunately, they are not all the same, and don't all work in the same way. Put it this way: if you bought a high performance car would you run it on remoulds? This is, metaphorically, what you are doing giving a hi-fi system poor supports.



How do you judge?

Often, when talking to people who are not enthusiasts, the comment 'I could not tell the difference' is made. I have a stock reply ' You could, but you might not think it is important' This is something you will have to work out for yourself. This is how I do it. The starting point for most component evaluations is to substitute them into a known system: used in selling as an A/B demo. It is really the only way to start but the upsetting of system synergy means being aware of 'shooting the messenger'. Rapid A/B substitutions are not a good idea.
With hindsight I will guarantee that 20 minutes doing this will result in a mistaken judgment, and maybe an expensive mistake. Why? Because you start to listen to odd bits of the music, a bass line, a voice, an audience noise, and so lose track of the whole. I have a collection of albums where one track is used for an 'odd bit' just to give a reference point, to work out exactly what the change is doing, but a better indication is when you end up listening to the whole album. When I stop thinking about the system is when it is really working. If you are listening to albums you have left for months, making sense of music you had struggled to understand, then the changes are working.
After all what the extra expenditure should be buying you is access. I am increasingly convinced the 'golden ear' beloved of critics should be made a notifiable disease. Back to A/B comparisons: in the early days when stands were a new idea I did use them a lot but made the mistake outlined above [often]. A better way is to put in the new component, leave it for a while, in my case for at least a week, and the changes will be obvious when the original is installed again. Not using the system is also a giveaway. Any product that gets this far is then tried in other known systems, in other rooms to check these findings before the search for customers begins. All systems operate in context: the room, the listener, music used, major components, and accessories all contribute, but in the end it is your judgement that counts. There is no such thing as a universal component. All operate within the system context, but over the years as my product has improved fewer mismatches occur.
This is, in part, due to an insistence that improvements in system sound are essentially musical and not 'hi-fi' or just 'moving things around', and a better understanding of the compromises involved. Yes, there are always compromises!
One final thought: the systems that I have really enjoyed listening to have one thing in common. And it is not cost. They have all been put together with great care and no little effort.

How does it work?

There is no simple answer to this. The scientific approach is not particularly helpful since it requires definition and quantification of the variables, and there are too many, though it is still physics in the end. The ear is the only valid measuring instrument, and being objective about a personal response to music [distinctly subjective] is not always easy. I have another principle that has held good over the years: the closer I think I am to understanding this the closer I am to having all theories turned upside down. And yes, it just happened again!

Start with a visualisation: think of everything around you vibrating. A good analogy is an electron microscope photo of a surface you would always think of as smooth. Extremely lumpy. Into this you put music - a lovely collection of resonances. If the loudspeaker baffle is moving, the cone will not reproduce accurately, electronics may act as microphones, internally energy is produced from transformers [only obvious when they buzz.] All lead to inaccuracy, loss of definition, dynamics etc. So equipment supports are seeking to manage the physical energy reaching and leaving components, trying to hold equipment still while everything around is moving. It has some similarity with making musical instruments: the way that materials behave and are put together has a significant effect on the end result. There is a considerable degree of intuition mixed in with the science.

Thanks for the link Dermot.


From the Deco Audio site........

How does it work?

There is no simple answer to this. The scientific approach is not particularly helpful since it requires definition and quantification of the variables, and there are too many, though it is still physics in the end. [/i][/color]

I've always had some difficulty with this sort of reasoning. If science or independent scientists/engineers cannot explain it then what makes people think that those companies have the secret knowledge/expertise to create those products with consistency. Trial and error maybe? I'm not so sure. The physics involved isnt that complicated.

To be honest, I prefer the honest way of comparisons.

Ingredients.

Two CD albums both exactly the same.

Two CD players both exactly the same make and model.

Both CD players feeding into the same amplifier and speakers. All having the same interconnects.

One CD player to have isolation cones, the other to sit on its own feet.

Synchronise the playing on both CD players so that they are playing the same track at the same time.

Using the amplifier remote then switch between the two CD players to see if one can hear a difference.

Switch back and forth several times over the course of a track to ascertain if a difference is present.

If difference is present, produce wallet with credit card, empty bank account and prepare for WWIII with wife.

p.s no guarantee that you will survive even if you have made the correct decision.

It's tough being a man sometimes!!

Adrian wrote:To be honest, I prefer the honest way of comparisons.

Ingredients.

Two CD albums both exactly the same.

Two CD players both exactly the same make and model.

Both CD players feeding into the same amplifier and speakers. All having the same interconnects.

One CD player to have isolation cones, the other to sit on its own feet.

Synchronise the playing on both CD players so that they are playing the same track at the same time.

Using the amplifier remote then switch between the two CD players to see if one can hear a difference.

Switch back and forth several times over the course of a track to ascertain if a difference is present.

If difference is present, produce wallet with credit card, empty bank account and prepare for WWIII with wife.

p.s no guarantee that you will survive even if you have made the correct decision.

It's tough being a man sometimes!!

AND ENSURE THAT THERE IS NO NOISE POLLUTION FROM ADJOINING ROOMS!