West of Scotland Hi-Fi Club
2010-2011 season
West of Scotland Hi-Fi Club2010-2011 season
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12 November 2007
SCOTTISH HI-FI SHOW 2007
The Club was represented at the hi-fi show on Sunday 28 October, by a small but distinguished duo comprising the Chairman and a double past chairman, R Davis Esq. This was the first meeting of the new season because of the unfortunate cancellation of the visit to RSAMD which is currently being re-arranged.
There were 21 exhibitors comprising a range of exotic high-end equipment (ie very expensive) some of it shown by manufacturers and others by hi-fi retailers. As one would expect, there were some home cinema displays, eg KEF and Arcam, but the emphasis was very much on audio for most of the show.
There were well known names such as NAIM, Moon, Meridian, Tannoy etc and some less well known (to us at least). The Tannoy speakers sounded particularly well (R Davis may well be putting things aside in his piggy bank but not a word to Collette!).
Many of the demonstrators were using lap-top computers as the music source citing the advantages of carrying a huge library easily but there were others using vynil as well as CDs. Indeed there were many turntables on show and almost all were beautifully engineered and sounded well. Valve amplifiers were also a strong feature and Einstein had some massive valve jobs demonstrating, including a CD player with ‘balanced valve output stage’. Before you rush out and buy the complete set-up, I should advise you that the remote control costs £350!
Finally, there was something we had not seen before, a huge speaker from Robson Acoustics described as a ‘Laminated steel braced double baffle’. It had 8 drive units per speaker and handles 300W peak unclipped programme. The double baffle became clear when one walked round the side of the unit and could see that the speaker cabinet has no sides or top. As the speaker stands 1500mm high, is 360mm wide and 230mm deep, you need a big room with a sturdy floor (they weigh in at 80kg each) and will set you back £15,000 (or £12,000 on special offer).
As always, there was too much pop type music (not ideal for judging quality of sound), played very loud and because of the close proximity of the various rooms, the competition when anything classical was played was just too much. Notwithstanding, there was some interesting stuff and it was good to see high quality engineering on display.
Robert |
Copyright Alistair Biggar
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