My visit to a proper AV Store - in Mangalore

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I came to know of this store when I put in an inquiry to Profx for KEF Q300 on their website. I got a call from them immediately after I clicked on the submit button and they told me much to my surprise that the closest dealer for KEF was in Mangalore.

I waited for a day for the dealer to get in touch with me and seeing that he did not, I went ahead and ordered the Quad 12L2 without audition.

I get a call a few days later from this dealer and he was very apologetic for not calling me sooner as he had misplaced my contact number which he had taken down over the phone from ProFx. He requested me to visit his store and take a look at his AV demo room.

I called up my friend who is also a AV enthusiast and we decided to visit this store today. To be honest, I dd not have much of an expectation as I have seen such stores earlier in Malls etc, where the people were even less knowledgeable in AV than I am.

As we walked into the store we were immediately attended to and were taken straight to the demo room. The demo room had a huge screen, a projector, 3 pairs of Wharfedale diamond speakers neatly placed adjacent to each other, quite a few sub woofers from wharfdale and Polk Audio, a pair of Wharfedale bookshelfs on stands , some polk audio speakers, HT amps from Denon and Yamaha, stereo amps from Denon etc and the room was acoustically treated. I was immediately impressed.

After a demo of the HT setup (wharfs played through the Yamaha) which hugely impressed my friend, I handed over a CD that I had taken along and requested him to play it on the wharfs through the Denon PMA 710 which he did. He then told me that I could listen to any 2 speakers of my choice side by side at a time as he could switch between them in a matter of seconds. Very Impressive as this is most essential for a true A/B comparison with most else remaining the same.

I spent more than an hour in the store demoing speakers and amps (2 channel and avr's)

Product that he carries / deals with :
Norge, sonodyne, Denon, Marantz,Yamaha , Kef, Wharfs, Polk, Quad etc.


The audio store : CRESCENDO, 207, 1st FLOOR, MAHENDRA ARCHADE Mangalore.

Fellow FM's from Mangalore, do give a visit to what I would like to call as the first proper AV Store in Mangalore.

We left with a request to contact us as soon as anything new was up for a Demo for which Mr. Praveen Lobo readily agreed to.

 

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I got a call from Mr. Lobo telling me that the Q700 and the Jamo C809 were set up for auditions. I was excited. There was a time when I was considering the Q700 as my front LR setup. I called up my friend and we where at the store sharp at 10 am !!! The speakers were being driven by Denon PMA 710 in pure direct mode.

I had taken a few of my CD's with me and the first one that I chose to listen to was Andrea Bocelli's Vivere on the KEF Q700's. After a couple of songs, I requested the same to be played on the Jamo C809. This was followed by a few symphonies of Beethoven.

I would have probably stayed there all day if my day was devoid of commitments but sadly I had to leave after an hour and a half.

I don't consider myself qualified or experienced enough to comment on the sound of the speakers but if I have to, I would say that my Quads are somewhere in between the slightly bright Q700 and the very smooth Jamo C809.

 

[Shivam]

Good to know that now there's a nice store in Mangalore. When I used to be in Mangalore, all I had was a person who doubled as an electronic engineer and a close friend. He had helped me source some good components then and with some DIY speakers too.

 

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More than 25 years back, I used to get all my music from a gentleman who was popularly known as 'RK'. He was an engineer who also used to build custom speakers on request. I was in fact, for the last 11 years or so, listening to music on speakers designed and built by him. I was told by Mr. Lobo that it was RK's dream to put up a high end audio video store in Mangalore and that RK was the inspiration and support behind this store. RK unfortunately passed away sometime back before he could see his dreams realised.

 

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Latest addition to the speakers at Cresendo:Mangalore

The Quad Z2.

I have given them a total of 3 auditions now. Mr. Lobo was accommodating as always. It was driven by a Stereo amp, I forget which.

Not a speaker that will wow the casual listener. I have played some of my vocal focused CD's on them and they do sound lovely. Not too big in the bass department, probably a more capable stereo amp might change things a tad bit. Build quality and finish is very very good.

When a song playing was accidentally switched to the Klipsch RP-280 F, it felt like a blast of high frequency. On it's own, I did not find the Klipsch leaning towards the high frequency. Not one with good hearing though.

Purpose of this post, all those people in Mangalore who are members of this forum and dont know about Cresendo, please do give it a visit. It is the only place in Mangalore where one can audition speakers of the likes of Wharfedale, Castle, Klipsch, sonodyne, Polk etc