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Bristol Sound and Vision Show 2015
#11
I was there today and will be there with 3 or 4 mates tomorrow. Saw and heard the Phantom on the Qobuz stand being demo'ed by a delightful French lady but the noise from surrounding stuff (it is an open room with lots of other exhibitors) made the sound a moot point.

The Devialet's driving the Spendors in room 102 and 106 seemed to be doing a good job though.
UK kit - Technics SP10 - Technics EPA-501  - AT33SA - NUC5i3 - W10 - Roonserver - Roon AIR - Devialet 1000 Pro CI - Blue Jeans Speaker Cable (0.5 metre each side) - Magico S5

Spain kit - NUC7i5 - W10  - Roonserver - Roon AIR - Devialet D250 Pro CI - Blue Jeans Speaker Cable - Ergo IX speakers
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#12
The Phantom was being played very quietly when I first passed it at the show yesterday, a little louder later but to be honest the surrounding environment was so noisy and busy that it was simply impossible to make any judgement on sound quality. It is very very white and shiny! And possibly a little smaller than I was expecting. A passing member of the great unwashed did say "what that, it looks like a vacuum cleaner". Oh dear. Maybe Devialet will have a tougher job than they think persuading the general public to part with their cash for the thing. For me, I will reserve judgment until I can hear one properly. For what it's worth, I actually thought it looked quite good, the display model was a Silver Phantom.

I agree with NickB that the D200 Spendor D7 combo sounded quite good. In fact I thought it was one of the most detailed "hifi" sounding set-ups I heard all day, very good, but might not be to everyone's taste, perhaps just a touch bright. Very hard to judge in what was admittedly a very quick listed with unfamiliar music.

In the non-Devialet world, the Chord CPM2800 Mk II was interesting, with a built in DAC this could be considered a D200 rival. This was running KEF Reference 1's and was a great sounding system. I couldn't help thinking that with a touch more bass this set up would have been even better. D200 + SAM + KEF Reference 1 perhaps? Might work well.

The CAD set up with Harbeth mini monitors was certainly very impressive indeed, but at the same time a bit baffling for me, the idea of a very expensive front end on tiny speakers is not my thing to be honest. This set-up was impressive because what the CAD front end could make such diminutive speaker do, I'm sure a better balanced system for the budget could be found elsewhere. (but what do I know? Each to his own)

I also quite liked the Kudos Titans, but that was possibly because some bloke was getting them to play Zeppelin's' "Whole lotta Love" at full tilt as I wandered into the room. Frankly it's impossible to make sensible judgments on anything at a show like this.

The star of the show for me wasn't even a hifi product. The What Hifi demo room featured the latest Sony 85" 4K TV. This was genuinely like a mini cinema, simply stunning. This little telly is not cheap though, £20 grand in fact. (Plus the additional cash for a house with a suitable room to put it in)

In addition, I though the Audeze headphones with A&K player was also rather good.

They also had an MQA demo, using a laptop and headphones. Simply choose a track, listen to an MP3 version and MQA version. To be honest, I did not learn much from this. (try listening to a compressed and uncompressed version of a track at home for similar effect) The MQA rep stated that that MQA will work with any existing DAC's capable of running 24bit PCM, which I guess is just about everything, Devialet included. He also explained something about MQA "folding a 24bit file up" whilst making generous folding gestures with his arms and that MQA was aimed at streaming services, I wondered off after that....
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