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Exhibitor Icon Audio: Chris Liauw who designed the Curvi speakers reviewed for 6moons had a pair of interesting stand mounts on display utilizing twin NXT or a similar drivers but they weren't wired up when I entered this busy oasis of valves. Pity the exhibitors having to safely transport and set up this lot but it was definitely worthwhile.

There was a quite a substantial range of affordable products, primarily Icon Audio valve amps but also speakers, preamps, buffers and headphone amps along with the new CD-X1, a 24/192 valved player.

It was impossible to get a decent seat here as the glass on display seemed to attract passing audiophiles like moths to a street lamp but it was a sound very nicely balanced—not too lush or rolled off—especially considering the prices. I might want to solicit another review of this kit later. 


Exhibitor Ikon Audio Consulting: A new brand for import house Ikon, Burmester Audio System's 089 belt-drive player was the resident disc spinner, speakers were Audioplan Kontrast Vs while Audioplan also manufactured the PowerSystem mains distribution, interconnects and speaker cables. My notes indicate a 'smooth detailed' presentation from their valved Greek Tsakiridis Devices Apollo monos making 70 watts combined with the Alexander preamp I reviewed earlier in the year. The Apollos can be toggled between triode or ultralinear pentode equating to 56wpc or 90wpc respectively and while catching a couple of tracks I was once again persuaded that the Greek family who designs these electronics must be real lovers of music.

Exhibitor ABC Audio: I guarantee than anyone poking their nose through the ABC Audio demo room was instantly seduced by the shapely forms of the SW speakers within. Eye candy it certainly was but also ear candy to match. This was worthy a short blurb from their website: "SW speakers were founded in 2006 in Sweden. For the last 3 years we have been doing final development of a unique way of building loudspeaker cabinets. The idea was to create a new shape for the cabinet shape which would not disturb or distort the pure sound from the drive units. The first drawings were made in 2000 during a university acoustic study. The aim was to eliminate as many cabinet noises, edge diffractions and reflections as possible. The perfect loudspeaker system should look like an infinite sphere without the edges and corners which create the typical box sound. That's why the Magic Flute loudspeaker looks so different. The special design was developed to come as close as possible to the infinite sphere. Since an infinite sphere is impractical in the normal living room, we developed a turbine shape based on airflow research."

Despite their striking appearance, my initial suspicion was that four drivers spaced relatively far apart would make for a disjointed sound with time alignment issues yet they did seem very well integrated indeed. Electronics were an MSB DAC IV with built-in passive preamp, MSB M202 mono amps and Synergistic Research cables, Powercell and Acoustic Art room treatments.

Exhibitor Absolute Audio: Rant intermission. In one of the larger rooms, a darTZeel setup with Magico V3 speakers sounded quite nice but when one listeners approached with his own CD, he was politely but firmly refused. The exhibitor explained that he'd been instructed to stay with only the approved demo CDs. The poor guy reacted with far better grace than I would have and to be fair the exhibitor was apologetic and professional enough in his rebuttal explaining how poor recordings could have other listeners blame the system. However I'd suggest that it's only audiophiles who attend these shows. They don't tend to use crap recordings to evaluate equipment. More importantly, a decent system should enable one to enjoy the vast majority of a CD collection, not just audiophile labels. A system which only performs with audiophile CDs is as useless to me as an automobile which can only be driven on a test track.

Personally I'd be very suspicious of  any exhibitor who exclusively use pre-approved CDs to demonstrate. In a worst case scenario this could cover up shortcomings in frequency response or dynamics for example. To qualify my comments, the system here did sound quite nice when using audiophile reference CDs but which rig wouldn't?

Exhibitor Absolute Sounds: Here a Micromega CD30 CD player and PrimaLuna DiaLogue One integrated combined with Sonus Faber Cremona stand mounts for a very lovely sound. While the speakers were gorgeous, a glitch with my camera flashcards meant you'll have to google elsewhere for images of these Italian beauties.

Exhibitor Tannoy: Sitting as far back from these monsters as possible, the sound was decent enough but nothing to write home about. Once again I was left craving for a listening session elsewhere in a more suitable room. This became my overriding sentiment at Whittlebury (but also every other show I've ever attended). Source component was a Wadia CDP, amplification a 200wpc Moscode 402AU valve/Mosfet hybrid with a Music First TVC pre connecting the two.

As a former owner of 15” Tannoy Monitor Gold speakers, their point source of single dual-concentric driver was their main strength, giving them a unique cohesive sound reminiscent of electrostatics. Here the Kingdoms sported a 1” ceramic coated super tweeter, 12” dual-concentric and 15” woofer in a cabinet whose port was tuned to 15Hz. I really would like to hear a heavyweight comparison of my older Monitor Golds vs. the Kingdoms. I strongly suspect it would be the Tannoy equivalent of Ali vs. Klitschko with the same result.

Exhibitor Audio Smile: Here an interesting demonstration of a super tweeter had the device turned off and on a number of times during playback. These super tweeters use isoplanar ribbons and extend to 40kHz. The results were obviously more air, focus and crispness. How speaker-dependent this effect is should be something for prospective purchasers to ascertain. The Kensai monitors used for demo measured just 25cm high x 15cm wide and here sat atop the matching Advantage bass units to create a three way semi-active speaker system.

Exhibitor Alternative Audio had NAT electronics and Analysis Audio speakers for decent sound but I had to nip out for fresh flash batteries and had no time to return for more details later.

Exhibitor The Right Note/KOG Audio/VTL: Focal speakers were quite prominent along with accompanying Beryllium tweeter declarations. I liked this room a lot on Sunday though couldn't stay long. I did manage to get a full list of the gear from their website, these being the dCS Paganini CD/SACD upsampling transport, upsampler with USB input, DAC and clock, VTL TL-7.5 Series III two-box preamp, VTL MB-450 Series III 450-watt monos or S400 400-watt stereo amp, Focal Scala Utopia loudspeakers and Vertex AQ mains cleaning, support platforms and (mainly) HiRez cabling including the new HiRez Moncayo speaker cables.


Exhibitor Audio Note: There's always guarantee of decent sound and music when Audio Note's Mario spins the discs and AN/Es load the room but surprisingly no 300B was in sight. Instead we had the Vindicator power amps sporting 2A3s. Mario informed me that listeners who like 2A3s don't tend to fancy 300B and visa versa but this 300B lover thought the Vindicators were very good indeed.

The Audio Note website described them as "Level Three 3.5 watt single-ended Class A no feedback stereo power amplifiers with valve rectified choke power supply, Audio Note™ copper foil signal capacitors,  Beyschlag metal film resistors, in house made copper wired I-E core output transformer, audio circuit hardwired with silver wire, 1 x 6SL7GT input stage, single Sovtek 2A3 output stage with 5R4GY rectifier."

Exhibitor Select Audio/AMR: AMR's Vincent Luke whom I know quite well had the unenviable task of handing out free AMR audiophile fuses to visitors as part of a show promotion. There were plenty of takers to keep him on his toes. He and Select Audio's Steven Riddick had set up a system utilizing the AMR CD-77, Verity Audio Amadis speakers and a Luxman C-600F pre/M-600 power combo. This made very nice sound as the speakers didn't overload the room and were a two-part designs, basically monitors atop bass bins. The AMR CD-77 is my CD player of choice so enough said there and even though I'm a 300B man, the class A Luxman rig here was musical enough.

Exhibitor Music First: This was an all-analogue source fest with turntable and Revox A77 reel to reel to make for a lively, detailed analogue sound. My Music First Silver TVC reference was on show along with the copper-wound models and I'm hoping to procure their cost-no-object Reference model for review now that I also have a copper version in house to make comparisons even more interesting. Amplification and speakers were by Howes Acoustics, namely the PX4 SET amp and Quarter Wave Omni loudspeakers whose rather plain cabinets at first glance looked like some bastard son of Shahinian but upon closer inspection revealed a single Lowther firing upwards into a conical deflector. As mentioned the sound itself was fine and enjoyable though lovers of pin-point imaging should look elsewhere. I did manage a center seat which still made for rather ethereal vocals which perhaps playing with positioning might have improved.

 
To conclude, audio shows are excellent places to visit if you want to see and learn about new components. Just don't expect to be wowed by sound unless you're dissatisfied with your own system. If you do have a system you're happy with, I'd suggest that duplicating it under audio show conditions would result in you tearing your hair out trying to convince visitors that it really performs a lot better in your house. While it might be tempting to dismiss some of the mega-watt mega-buck exotica on display as overhyped and overpriced, my own experience demonstrates that a component can sound wildly different in two equally sized rooms in my own digs where one has mains treatment and the other doesn't...