HiFi Subjectivist ¦ Audio Forum ¦ NVA User Group

I enjoyed listening to other people's music on other people's systems at today's show.

On the whole I like the venue, but the noise leakage was bad in some areas, especially where they divided a very large meeting room into smaller rooms with those pull-across room panels.

Masking tape on door latches with a big sign on the door saying "Please come in" is a handy tip for exhibitors.


As is usual with hi-fi shows, it's more an exercise in finding the right recordings to play, plus a bit of a lottery on room acoustics when it comes to putting on the most impressive demo.
The ideal being something very well recorded that no-one's heard before.


Above all, I'd like to thank all the exhibitors for footing the bill for this event.

Post hi-fi show write-ups are more of an exercise in psychology than in discovering the merits the actual systems being exhibited.

Where it seems that the most glowing reports are too often given to systems that are owned by their mates or are similar to what they have at home.
As per post #2 here: https://pinkfishmedia.net/forum/threads ... 18.216636/

And coming back to recording selection. An example of this yesterday was a £five figure system that I thought "This sounds impressive" when I first sat down. But when they played a recording with which I am very familiar instead of the 1960's jazz they had been playing I thought "This system is making a mess of this. This is disappointing".

Well fresh back from an admittedly short visit to the show. And I will admit straight away that I only stayed in rooms long enough to get a first impression. Most of what I heard seemed to substitute overblown tone for musicality. There were a few that I quite liked: the ones I can remember are MusicFirst and Fanthorpes HiFi who were using Klipsch Heresy Speakers.

The audience was interesting - average age about 55 or so I would say and, of course, mostly male. The music choice was also interesting - I may have been unlucky but it seemed pretty solidly set in the past. The newest thing I spotted was a copy of the London Grammar LP. I walked into one room to be hit by Paul Simon's Graceland, did a u-turn and walked back out. Only two or three places were they playing anything music I found vaguely interesting.

But what did the little Cubette system sound like in comparison? Nobody else on these forums is going to mention them sadly...

Most interesting and amusing comment at the show, from a visit from Mr Piggy. Request for a photo of me with my show gear for piggy wiggy waste of time slurp blog - the answer was no! - comment "you know I don't like you, but I like your equipment", greatest compliment he could have paid me

It means I am probably doing it right in both directions.

Why do people think I want people to like me. I am proud of having the people who don't like me, as much as I am proud of the people who like me. If they had the truth and don't like it, too bad, people only have the piss taken when they deserve it. Same as if I deserved the piss taken I would accept it, but they find it so hard to find anything all they can do is tell lies and libel. Once again at AoS backhanded swipes at my wife by Marco - he is a sick creature.

BTW Marco was here on Saturday, I found (and avoided) the slime trail going around the corridor Jabba was here!

_D_S_J_R_ wrote: ↑Sun Jun 24, 2018 4:15 pm But what did the little Cubette system sound like in comparison? Nobody else on these forums is going to mention them sadly...

Of course, I'm completely biased on the matter, but the NVA room was one of a handful I thought was playing music.

The Cubette in that room sounded to me a little 'polite' at times and a little harsh at others - but I'm comparing with mine in my rooms and most of the time, they were delivering what I'd expect. Judging by the smell of solvent in the room , I suspect the system was quite new, which could explain a lot of that.

Compared to many others there the NVA system sounded 'stripped back'. This, to me, is a good thing because you're not listening to the 'bloom' caused by other components in the system. But I'm thinking that is 'built into' some systems to make them sound 'like' vinyl. (One system was playing Shelby Lynne's "Just a little lovin'" LP - something I'm very familiar with in a digital form - it sounded dull and awful, the demonstrator put something on the CD and a pile of mush instantly disappeared.)

They reproduced the source material, it was a variety of youtube, wifi radio, tidal, customers CDs and my CDs. What was there the system reproduced with little added and little taken away. I heard no other rooms so can make no comparisons.

One shock for me was Rage Against The Machine (customer CD) it was both good and fun, never heard it before, the name had put me off.

Of course, just comparing with my choices of music I guess. I didn't hear anything I was particularly used to on that system.

On the music choice being firmly in the past thing. We can blame that on the Loudness Wars.
And exhibitors generally wanting to impress as much as they can.


One thought that I did have is that you get arch objectivists going on about valve amps being "pleasant musical effects boxes". I think that's a description that could be applied very much to a number of the systems / room system interaction at the show. Where I was sitting there, thinking "This track on this system in this room is sounding pleasant enough. But it doesn't really bear much resemblance to musicians playing actual instruments."