Visited the What Hifi Show today. Managed to visit only few rooms. I would have loved to go to every room but post (heavy) lunch it got rather tiring. Also some rooms were too crowded and one had to retreat and come back later, but this didn't always happen.
Brief report in no particular order:
The tiny Graham LS3/5 bookshelf speakers driven by an equally small Marantz amp/streamer (model number something 611, IIRC) was very good. Source was JRiver version 23 playing from a laptop. The setup was a fine example of minimalism - just 3 boxes to contend with. It presented a very believable sound stage width and depth, and sounded tonally very right - whatever that means to us individually! - but it certainly sounded right to my ears. The tiny sizes of the amp/streamer and the speakers belies the big sound that they were capable of. Perhaps the only dampener in this otherwise stupendously good sounding setup was the rather high price of the speakers which keeps it out of the reach of many enthusiasts.
QAcoustics Concept 500 floorstanding speakers (3.4L a pair) driven by a Musical Fidelity integrated amp was very good as well. After the initial hiccup in the setup (phasing, which we got corrected), it played sweet music. Source was an Oppo BDP. There was also a Cary in the room, but I never found out what it was. This was Babbler's room.
In the Riviera room Audiovector floorstanding speakers driven by Macintosh MA8000 solid state integrated amp and a Macintosh MCD500 SACD player was also good, though they could not completely tame the room loading. Lots of promise in this combo. This room made music.
In the Nexus Audio room Kaiser's new Furioso Mini bookshelf speakers was also very good. These are large stand mounts with side firing woofers. Apparently this is only the second time that this new speaker has been shown to the public (after Prague). This room was yet another sparse setup consisting of an AVM CD player-DAC-streamer-amp used as a CD player, driving an Octave 40W integrated tube amplifier. My guess is the room will sound even better on Sunday as Nexus Audio continuously tweaks placement, etc.
The Audio Excellence room displaying lots of Legacy and Definitive Technology speakers was a very good sounding room as well. We heard the Legacy Calibre bookshelf speakers (5L retail) driven by an Oppo player and Parasound amplification. Just an aside: Audio Excellence deals with the great JC series phono preamps designed by the legendary amp designer John Curl. For those playing the analog game and looking to upgrade their phono stage it is worth a serious consideration.
I went to quite a few HT rooms too. M&K had good 5.1 sound for about 1.4L. The bigger setup in the adjoining suite room was much better but also much costlier at 10+L. The new distributor is based in Vashi in Navi Mumbai.
The last room I visited was the Absolute Sound room. These guys from Surat once again showed how a stereo room MUST be set up! They had sOTM Ultra streamer, sOTM reclocker and a sOTM power supply unit (not wall wart) taking care of streaming duties. They also had Nucleus, the Roon Core machine. Power conditioning was by Transparent. And so were the cabling. Every box in the room was placed in its own bamboo shelf. Those benefiting from footers were Stillpointed, etc. Speakers were active Kii3. The meticulous care in setup showed in the near-perfect sound. Best sound of the show for me.
