HiFi news show 24th 25th October

[GuillaumeB]

Having missed this show for various reasons over the last couple of years, I was determined to go this time 'round.  Unfortunately, other commitments dictated that even though I could make it this year it was going to be a bit of a flying visit, I was there at 9:15 and just about out by 12:00.  So it would not be possible for me to write any kind of definitive show blog for this one.

Anyway, one thing I was particularly keen to hear, and indeed to have a look at, was the KEF Muon.  You know how it is, we all get that desire to upgrade from time to time and if you have found some speakers that you love, why not consider the next one up in the range?  For me, the Muon is that speaker, currently the next one up from the KEF Blade.  There is a slight problem here though, they have a retail price of £140,000, so assuming no discounts and a reasonable PX for the Blades, that would be a £130K upgrade.  Anyway, the Muons are pretty rare beasts, not the sort of thing you might find on permanent demo in your local hifi shop, so I was keen to listen just to see what is possible.  The front end a Chord Electronics set up, including the SPM 1400 MkII mono blocks.  Was it good?  Yes it was, but I really can't say that it blew me away.  There was an absolute effortlessness about the Muons, they has a certain magnificence to the sound, the very large number of and size of the bass drivers (including rear facing) meaning the things were just coasting, even when required to reproduce the lowest notes.  Get them in a big room with lots of power, I'm sure they would be sensational.  One other point to note, they are huge!  They looked much bigger to me in real life than I had imagined from the pictures, and they look big in the pictures.  The problem was that the system did not really engage me as I would have liked, and considering that with the Chord Music cables this was a rig pushing £300k, that was a little disappointing.

I did of course visit the Devialet room.  Here they were running a 1000 Pro with Elac Concentro speakers.  Apparently the speakers are a flagship product designed to celebrate 90 years (??!!) of speaker production.  The Elec's kind of look like the KEF Blade and Vivid's awkward ugly sister (or a rugby playing big brother), and they are not cheap Euro 60,000 (= approximately £60,000 post Brexit).  This system was very engaging!  If I had more time, I think this is the room I would want to spend some extended listening time, it was a very enjoyable listen.  I did think there was something not quite right with the bass though, and I did have a huge desire to start messing around with speaker placement!  (which I resisted)  Maybe sitting a couple of rows back in the chairs or something would have helped, in fairness, it cannot be easy setting up in a hotel room for a two day show.  I did leave wondering what the Muons would have been like with the 1000 Pro rather than the Chord rig, from I heard yesterday, I suspect Muon + Devialet rig could well have been the best in the show, just a shame the respective components were in different rooms!

When I first entered the Devialet room I saw Devialet's Antoine, I shook his hand and said hello and sat down for some listening.  I did plan to have a chat with Antoine, to ask about lead times for the 1000 Pro, why the upgrade scheme appears to be slowing down a bit, a quick ribbing about the O'dA situation, that kind of thing.  However, after listening to a few tracks I noticed that he had vanished!  In fact, I strongly suspect that he saw me and did a runner!  I may be being a little unfair here of course, there are very many legitimate things he may have had to do, but as Devialet never contribute on this forum the poor man is utterly unable to defend himself, so I am sticking with my theory, he saw me and ran for it!

EDIT:  One last thought about the Devialet / Elac room.  They were running the 1000 Pro via USB, direct from a MacBook.  I think it is fair to say that a few hours checking posts on this forum would reveal a few hints that this is not the best way to maximise the performance of a Devialet.  OK, maybe they want to emphasise the potential simplicity of a Devialet system, all you need is the Devialet and a MacBook and away you go, but they don't even have the confidence to use their own AIR protocol.  Considering that with speakers and cables, this must have been best part of a £100K system, this struck me as being very poor!

When I saw Devialet at Munich a couple of years ago they were also using USB to connect a MacBook to the Devialet master. Given how flaky AIR was at the time I could forgive them for doing so. But the SQ did suffer for it, it was a shame they didn't use an Aurender or Melco instead since the end result was a demo that should have sounded so much better (4 x 400 and Nautilus speakers) even taking into consideration the less than ideal acoustics.

But using USB today?! That's just silly and lazy. AIR 3.0 sounds so much better, what are they thinking?!

Guillaume