The Velodyne had a static display of some of their subwoofers. Some of them had transparent tops…
Internal construction of a Velodyne subwoofer
Internal construction of a Velodyne subwoofer
Opera speakers and Unison Research electronics.
This is the Quinta loudspeaker from Opera Loudspeakers.
Opera Quinta speaker
The Opera ‘Quinta’ speaker
The Unison Research ‘Unico 50’ integrated amplifier
The Unison Research ‘Unico 50’ integrated amplifier
The Unison Research ‘Unico CDE’ CD player
The Adept Response power conditioner
The Simply Italy integrated amplifier
The Simply Italy integrated amplifier
There were two systems here – this first one is the smaller one.
In the the larger system there was the Kingdom Royal speakers, Tannoy’s statement speakers.
There wasn’t any music playing here, though it certainly looks like it was an interesting system.
The Tannoy ‘Glenair’ loudspeaker and ST200 super tweeter
The Tannoy ‘Glenair’ loudspeaker and ST200 super tweeter
The Tannoy ‘Glenair’ loudspeaker and ST200 super tweeter
The Tannoy ST200 super tweeter
The Tannoy ST200 super tweeter
The Tannoy ST200 super tweeter
The VAC Sigma 160i integrated amplifier
The VAC Sigma 160i integrated amplifier
The VAC Renaissance Mk 3 preamplifier
The larger system.
A closer view of the larger Tannoy and VAC system
The Tannoy ‘Kingdom Royal’ loudspeakers
The Tannoy ‘Kingdom Royal’ loudspeakers
The Tannoy ‘Kingdom Royal’ loudspeakers
The Tannoy ‘Kingdom Royal’ loudspeakers
The Tannoy ‘Kingdom Royal’ loudspeakers
The Tannoy ‘Kingdom Royal’ loudspeakers
The Tannoy ‘Kingdom Royal’ loudspeakers
The Clearaudio ‘Innovation’ turntable
The Esoteric P-03 transport [sorry about the fuzzy photo]
The Esoteric D-03 DAC [sorry about the fuzzy photo]
The Esoteric G-Orb master clock generator [sorry about the fuzzy photo]
The VAC Statement 450 amplifier
The VAC Statement 450 amplifier
The Tannoy Yorkminster speakers were on static display
A closeup of Tannoy’s Yorkminster speaker
Douglas Ordon giving a presentation in the Loudsoft room [it was a weird setup, with several people and some furniture blocking the area where I would have to be to get a better shot of what he was pointing to. So this shot is from the entry hallway]
Acoustic Zen ‘Crescendo’ speakers on Triode Corp electronics using Nittobo Acoustic room treatments.
OK.
Surprise, surprise, Neli was here. I hardly ever, ever run into her when I cruise the show exhibits. So I spent my time wondering whether this was the first time she has ever seen me photograph a room for the show reports or not [I do an unorganized sloppy job on our own exhibit rooms – don’t know why, and I am trying to be better].
All to say that I did not listen much to this room.
But she did: really good layout of the soundstage, really good soundstage depth [we are used to some of the best soundstage layout and depth I’ve heard anywhere – here on a day to day basis – so this is an extreme compliment]. She also thought, whether because of the room treatments or the amp’s innate abilities, the sound was not flabby in any way [we talked about and we really like the way the speakers degrade really, really well when paired with less than optimal equipment – i.e. we are not sure they EVER get flabby and uncontrolled. They degrade well enough that one could put a $1K solid-state amp on them and still get something worth listening to. ]
The Crescendo [and smaller Adagio] are really, really good general purpose speakers for general purpose listening and an extremely good bargain at their price points. They do like power [see how the watt meters in these amps in this room behave in the photos below], and, although we do carry them here, I did not intend for the previous sentence to be salesy [go ahead and buy them somewhere else then – most people do 🙂 – the vast majority of our customers are looking for extreme high performance in $30K+ speakers or extreme high-efficiency (or both :-)) . But the Crescendo and Adagio are still great speakers].
Sweet Neli in the sweet spot
The system in the Acoustic Zen, Triode Corp room
The Acoustic Zen ‘Crescendo’ loudspeaker
The Acoustic Zen ‘Crescendo’ loudspeaker
The Triode Corp (Tri) TRX-M845 monoblock amplifier
The Triode Corp (Tri) TRX-M845 monoblock amplifier
The Triode Corp (Tri) TRX-M845 monoblock amplifier
The Triode Corp TRX-M845 amplifier
The Triode Corp (Tri) TRX-M845 amplifier
The Triode Corp TRV CD5SE CD player
The Triode Corp TRX-1 preamplifier
Nittobo Acoustic’s Acoustic Groove System room treatment
Nittobo Acoustic’s Acoustic Groove System room treatment on the side wall first reflection points
The Orb ‘Destat’ CD destaticizer. Removing static from CDs really does work, in our experience, but it has been hard for us to incorporate it into day to day listening.
DLS Sweden makes in-wall (on-wall) loudspeakers.
As I remember it, these didn’t sound too bad at all. Problem is that my expectations aren’t very high – but I thought that the sound was pretty good, not high-end audio, in my opinion, but they had a lot of company at this show in that department [:-)]. And definitely WAY better than, say, the in-ceiling sound at our gym [my problem here is that I do not have much to compare these kind of speakers to] .
DLS Sweden in-wall (on-wall) speakers.
Another display of DLS Sweden speakers
The Rega room this year. For some reason, until now I did not know that Rega made speakers and amplifiers.
Rega RS10 loudspeaker [I think]
Rega RS10 loudspeaker
Rega RS10 loudspeaker
Rega RS10 loudspeaker. OK, yes, I like the look of these speakers.
Rega Apollo-R CD player
Rega Apollo-R CD player
Rega DAC
Rega Brio-R amplifier
Black Rega P6 turntable
Black Rega P6 turntable
Black Rega P6 turntable tonearm close-up
Rega P6 turntables in several different colors
A Rega display showing where the company is located in the U.K. and more turntables
This year the Gradient speakers have a new look, presumably because the old look [see below] was too weird for some people.
In previous years, the rooms with the old look speakers were actually pretty good – sounding sophisticated yet musical, with good separation.
This year my feeling was that the sound here didn’t have the same positive qualities of the previous years.
Sorry for the poor photo quality with some of the photos below – the sun was perfectly positioned to shine directly in the windows causing some issues with the photos.
The previous look of the DSPeakers and the blue-haired gals.
The Gradient DSPeaker
The Gradient DSPeaker
Bladelius EMBLA playback system and ASK amplifier
Bladelius ASK amplifier
Bladelius EMBLA playback system
Not sure if this is the Gradient crossover or amp or what.
Smaller Gradient speakers in the rear of the room.
Dali loudspeakers on Primare gear. Never did figure out which Dali speakers these were, but the photograph well, so… 🙂
Dali speaker
Dali speaker
Dali speaker
Dali speaker
Dali speaker
Equipment rack in this room.
They were showing someone the features of one of their music servers – bottom photo – and no music was playing.
The oh-so-difficult to photograph deep flat black Naim gear on a similarly colored equipment rack.
A Naim music server
