Times AV Revolution Exhibition in Bangalore

[reignofchaos]

Load of crap show it was. All the TV manufacturers (Pioneer, Panasonic, Sony, LG and a few others) were present. Other than that, nothing much to write home about.

Profx had some kind of sad demo going with really high end Chord electronics paired with a cheapo Polk Monitor speaker. I fail to understand the whole point of it - using a cheapo speaker when they had a Focal Electra and KEF reference floorstander sitting there idle.

Do not waste time or money on this.

 

[Dushie]

Well i visited the expo, pro fx was offering some discount sale products, spoke to Mridul regarding the deal as he was also present there, i went ahead and bought a denon 2307 for 27k.

Apart from that Pioneer dv-610 with bill was being sold for Rs9990. But thought it will be better to pick from grey

 

[Sujit]

I had originally planned to travel to Bangy for this! Was feeling bad that I couldnt make it.. not anymore!!

 

[ajayk]

I agree with what the rest of the folks have to say about the expo. There was a not a single booth that had a decent demo on offer. The pioneer booth had the Kuros on display. Agree that they have been having the best TVs around for a while, but the salesmen there were doing some serious customer profiling. You looked swanky, you get to ask questions, else you get shooed away. Guess what happened to me!

One thing that surprised me was the pricing. Some 3 months back I was auditioning for a 5.1 speaker + av receiver combo and had been to vector to get info on wharfedale + yamaha 663. I got a rough quote of around 65K for the speakers and 38K for the receiver.

And today at the expo, I visited the vector booth and they had the same speakers for 69K and the best price on the receiver was 43K. More surprisingly, the yamaha booth right in front of the vector booth had the receiver for MRP 52K and after discount price of 46K.

I can understand the price of the speakers staying the same or marginally higher, but for the receiver, that has gotta be coming down, not going up by 15%!

 

[smedhavi]

Hi,

I checked it out yesterday along with a couple of friends. Despite the warnings

It was a scaled down affair this year, and people were blaming the state of the economy for that.

• The ticket was down to 40 rupees this year. They charged us just 30 per head.
• Regular brands like MA, Klipsh, Parasound, B&W, Rotel, Nuforce, Marantz, etc were missing this year.
• Home appliance brands such as Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer were present
• Profx (Denon, KEF, Focal, Polk etc.) was there with a few demo rooms. They were offering 15% discount, instead of their regular 7-10 percent.
• Cinebels was selling Jamo
• Yamaha was there too (The rear panel of the 863 receiver was less crowded than what I had expected)
• Bought a few Bandridge Profigold cables (Tried them out. Not bad!)
• Other brands present there included Logitech, Bose, Plus projectors, etc.
• As usual these were a few general purpose stalls at the end. The highest selling product at the Expo was a safety device to automatically switch off the cooking gas supply in case of a leakage I bought one too , as we have the gas cylinders sitting in a dog house out in the garden.

Regards,
Sharad

 

[venkatcr]

As usual these were a few general purpose stalls at the end. The highest selling product at the Expo was a safety device to automatically switch off the cooking gas supply in case of a leakage I bought one too , as we have the gas cylinders sitting in a dog house out in the garden.

So to sum it all can I say that this exhibition had great potential to go up in smoke, but actually ended up going to the dogs?

Sorry just could not stop myself from making that statement.

Cheers

 

[smedhavi]

Good one

 

[smedhavi]

BTW, my friend got to compare KEF, Polk and Focal speakers with Denon 4308A receiver (Focal was the best). So the trip was not totally a waste.
Profx had converted one of the green rooms behind, as an audio demo room.

Thanks,
Sharad

 

[Absolute Phase]

Could not make it as I was out of town, well as usual its the same story every year.

 

[realactivex]

I was there too as an "also-ran".
Nothing impressive. I got to know from pro fx that they made 50lakhs in three days and are going to take a long time to fulfil thier orders.
i had the denon 3808 in mind.. but could not audition (either way it would have been horrendous to carry my own cds )
Then, There were the usual bunch of jokers in some stalls. some guys in the epson stall and some other stall were adament that a 16:9 screen doesnt exist. What they instead offered was a 4:3 screen with masking to make it look like 16:9. And the customer was supposed to pay for the extra screen material lost in masking!!!. I couldnt really make them agree that they werent suitable for their jobs there.

Thanks Mridul for some nice contacts

 

[Dushie]

I myself was hoping to get some good deals and info on screen, but couldn't find anything decent either in screens or projector,

All they said was to leave your contact no and they will get back .

 

[sgmane]

Well i was there at the exhibition on saturday.

Entrance Time: 10:45am IST
Date: 31 Jan 2009
Venue: kanteerava stadium, Bangalore
Out time: 12:40pm IST

This review is purely non-technical. Its only the feel of the exhibition as a customer. It is no way related to any offence or otherwise.

Let me start on this foot note on Entrance.
Well as far as i remember last year entrance fee was Rs 49 (Seems like inclusive of free parking space). This time its Rs 30 for entrance + Rs 10 for parking fee. (Well even if iam correct, the entrance fee in Chennai trade center is apprx Rs 25 or so)

A look at Stalls:
Logitech
At the entrance you could find the logitech stall on your right. Couple of snippets on this. A wireless speaker system (Where you could play your songs from your mobile - oh!! that's what the rep did mention.) - The finish not that refined to look at. (Attached photo of the same) And then an ipod dock. Well i suppose one cannot expect a audiophile output though! (attached photo of the same)
And the usual display of universal remote, mouse, keyboard. So my interests towards these area were minimum.

Pro-FX:
This time i suppose the occupied area of them was bigger than last time. Neverthless one could see all the usual brands (KEF, Chord, DENON et al) that they deal with. I suppose the brand CHORD did have a CD player/ Amp which is new this time in the stall. Offers - Fusion series + Denon 1509 at apprx 37k (if iam right!!)
Clearance sale of DENON amps 2307, 1507 etc.. retailing at close to 40k + and 50k+ are price at 27k and 35k or so.
Demo room: As informed in our earlier threads, not to expect a good demo rooms as in retail shops, neverthless i did peep into. At 11.15am i was told that the demo room is being setup. When i walked out, the rep did mention that, "Sir you can demo the audio, but video setup will take an hour or so". Well i said ok, and had a demo.
Amp: DENON
Speakers: KEF iQ
DVD: DENON DVD player
Title: Hotel California

Even though i cannot give you here the audiophile review, i did find the sound to be pretty ok. I did tell him i shall walk in may be an hour later for the video demo (Oops! and finally i never came back.. that's other part!!)
Verdict: Brochures looks impressive and so the price tags of products with some discounts. A plastic bag to hold all their brochures. (The same design as last year too). This time too, i suppose they are the biggest on display (ie., floor area)

Sony:
Oh!! Do look at the snippet. Its impressive, the usual all inches (Starting at 19") LCD's/ plasma's, camcorders, digicam, printers, laptops. Point to note: Pocket-PC - 2GB, 60GB HDD - apprx cost Rs 50k. Rest all the old stuff. Two differences between this Sony stall and the last year are:
1. Representatives dressed up in attires like the "Kingfisher Airlnes crews" and
2.Pocket-PC. (Well last year i did remember seeing the LED TV of Sony and the rep did tell me that, it should be available in india in a year or so).
Verdict - Impressive on stall look (as before), with addition of representatives dressed up uniformly. Brochures available.

Panasonic:
The typical 32" inch LCD/ Plasma's Vierra and above. The brochures were hidden under the table, and the rep was least interested to give it to customers. But neverthless, finally she did give one.
Verdict: No specific positives or negatives.

Bose:
Their usual display as last year. Bose headphones starting price at 8k (Acoustic Noise Cancelling), Bose Wave Music System and Acoustic Wave Music System II. Like last year, no other display of their life style products. No pomp show.
Verdict: No demo room - same as last year. Iam not sure of their presence in this exhibition because by seeing only 3 products on display what are they implying to the (prospective) customers!!
No brochures. Typical - they do not tell you the "watt" of their products.

Pioneer:
Their acclaimed low budget best DVD players in the world, HT systems, LCD's, LX series. Did i mention that, the demo room (again as was in Pro-FX) was in setup stage. But again, the demo room (just closed on 4 sides but not on top), nothing impressive.
Oh!!! one point - i suppose i could see all their products (except the DVD players) to be in color black. Impressive. Even the rep's were dressed in Black. Seems like all were Men-Women-In-Black kinda!!!


LG:
The same design of the stall as last year. I suppose they picked up those wood work (Designs) from their storage center and just assembled it this time too. Display of LCD's.
Verdict: No negatives, positives.

Yahama:
Some of their amp products + speaker packages. No demo room though.

Jamo:
Couple of speakers did catch the eye. Marantz amps on display too.

Stalls as add ons:
Massage chairs.
DVD ROM on britannica et al.
LCD TV trolly (18" - upto 32" - apprx Rs 8500), (32" and above)
Some fun ipod docks (well do not ask about the speaker output and quality!!)
Cables, interconnects
What-hifi - subscription
Epson - projectors

Fag end stalls:
This time too, once could see stalls on induction cookers, leather items (hand gloves, wallets), carry-tables (foldable tables/chairs on vacation trips), belly reduction belts. What are these stalls doing here? Oh!! May be just like the title here - Add on's....Not to leave alone.. one of them was selling a "head massager" for 100 bucks!!!
And finally the security there was prompt enough to get back the "Visitor pass" from us, so that we do not get into as "second entry" or multiple entries by just paying one time entrance fees! Well i wonder if anyone would enter multiple times for this expo, though!!


Folks - This one bit from my side - is only for those who are either missed out in bangalore/ out-of-bangalore due to geographical constraints or otherwise. It also shall give a picture of how an AV exhibition organised in an indoor stadium.
I did put in some pictures which shall show the members of how it feels even though you are not present in the AV show!!

Please note that there will be E & OE.

Pictures at: http://www.hifivision.com/members/sgmane-albums-times-av-exhibition-bangalore.html

(I have couple more pictures taken, unfortunately no space to upload here.)

Do put in your comments.

thanks

 

[hkravin]

Doesn't worth a hill of beans!!!

 

[marsilians]

I dragged a poor friend of mine with the hope of seeing some new AVRs and speakers as well as deals. Failed on all the fronts. It seemed to me that they vendors were using this to push out old stock to make space for new ones. There was about 15% new models than what you would have gotten by going to the stores before the show.

Waste of time. Left about an hour and went straight for some drinks. Ended up spending more time at the bar than the show.

Wholesale disappointment. Promised myself - no more shows. Spend more time on HFV.

 

[smedhavi]

sgmane,
Good detailed review!

Did you see the ProFx demo room (partition) within the exhibition, or the audio only demo room back stage (brick & mortar). The latter had better receivers and speakers on sunday.

Thanks,
Sharad

 

[gobble]

@30 rupees they could have atleast given a free bag of chips .. I wouldn't have complained

Enjoyed a glimpse of the kingfisher red sales gals more than the AV equipment

cheers

 

[wong234]

I did see the show. Can't blame the brands participating. Times should have done a better job of attracting the right participants...or not have these shows at all. Its unfortunate that only PRO FX took the show seriously.

 

[gobble]

I did see the show. Can't blame the brands participating. Times should have done a better job of attracting the right participants...or not have these shows at all. Its unfortunate that only PRO FX took the show seriously.

Yes ProFx really put in a lot for the show. I thought so too.

Regards

 

[kneo]

Is it recommended to hold one's >30K AV purchases for such expos in the hope of getting additional discounts?

 

[smedhavi]

Is it recommended to hold one's >30K AV purchases for such expos in the hope of getting additional discounts?

May be for a month or so, if you know that an exhibition is scheduled in the near future. You do save about 5% more than the normal discounts, but there is a limit to how long you can wait for it.

Thanks,
Sharad