Acoustica Chester Hifi Show Report. 6/7 April 2019

It must be Springtime again as Acoustica's annual show was running this weekend at the DoubleTree hotel on the outskirts of Chester in the North West of the UK.

Being one of Naim's biggest dealers for Naim means that this show has a heavy bias towards that brand's electronics, but there's a good smattering of other brands too.  This year the format was very familiar from previous years with the larger rooms in the old part of the building and the remainder of the show in the groundfloor bedrooms and one system in the big "barn" function room.

A sample of previous show reports can be read here:

2018
http://audiophilemusings.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/chester-hifi-show-2017-naim-kudos-t-707.html
http://audiophilemusings.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/chester-hifi-show-2017-naim-uniti.html
http://audiophilemusings.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/chester-hifi-show-2017-naim-snaxo-and.html
http://audiophilemusings.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/chester-acoustica-show-march-2015-kudos.html
http://audiophilemusings.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/chester-acoustica-show-march-2015-naim.html
http://audiophilemusings.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/chester-show-2014-chord.html
http://audiophilemusings.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/chester-show-2014-rega.html
http://audiophilemusings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/chester-hifi-show-march-2013-review.html

As you can see, its a show I try to get to as often as possible - the venue is pretty good, its conveniently about 25 minutes from where I live, there's usually something new to hear, and its free for anyone to attend.

So let's get into this year's show.

Naim ND555, Naim Statement, Focal

In the big "barn" room, we find the ND555 / 555PS combination top of the range streamer, partnered with the incredible Naim Statement pre-power amplification combination into a pair of Focal Utopia floorstanders. With cables and racks we roughly totted up around £400k of equipment.  It has to be said that the system in this room has been set up in numerous different positions in the room over the years, but it always seems to be difficult.  You can see below the size of the Focal speakers which were finished in an underwhelming gloss black with a less than perfect finish.  Many lower cost speakers have a better black lacquer finish than this.

So things started well, with some superbly rendered, highly detailed acoustic guitar music.  This simple recording was very good to listen to.  At last some promise in this room?  But then Shelby Lynne's "Just A Little Loving" came on - a great track. Normally.  Here, we wondered what was making her sound nasal, why the bass was bloated and sluggish and why Shelby should be portrayed around 5 feet wide.  Ho-hum, but the good news is that shouldn't be taken as a view on the electronics, as further rooms described below demonstrate.

Also in the room were 2 of the bright green sofas from the Naim dem room at the factory - currently up for grabs in a charity fundraising project.  I wonder if Naim are treating this as a move away from green and towards white, but maybe I'm over extrapolating.  Alongside were some of the old "chrome bumper" kit, emphasising Naim's longevity in the market, and, I suppose, their ability to continue to support and service the older kit.

Dynaudio Confidence / Naim Audio

In the second largest room of the show we found Dynaudio showing the "smallest" of the floorstanders in the new Confidence range - the model 30.  I say "smallest" because these boxes are, at a guess, approaching 5 feet tall.  Slim yes, descreet, not so much, but far better presented and finished than the Focals above, and a fraction of the price at £17k.  Still a big price tag of course.  On the Fraim were Uniti Core,  ND555 / 555PS, 252 with PSU pre and NAP 300 power.  Cabling looked to be all SuperLumina.

Now I know this is not an easy room - we've heard a good number of systems in here over the years, such as Focal Utopia (painful), Focal Sopra (not too bad), Dynaudio Special 40 (reasonably good but too small for the room) and ATC SCM50 (good) and its never really been brilliant.  But today Dynaudio proved a couple of useful things - first that it is possible (like ATC) to get a good sound in this room and second that the lacklustre sound from Focal speakers in this room has nothing to do with the Naim electronics.  Today we heard a system that was taut, detailed, produced a good sensible sized soundstage, timed well and played a decent tune.  For the first time since Naim's new streamer range demo evening (using the ATCs), we sat in this room for half a dozen or so tracks enjoying the experience.

Kudos Titan / Naim Audio

Just across the landing area (passing the headphone / Melco area) we arrived in the Kudos room for 2019.  Normally Kudos are in the smaller of the 2 "medium" sized rooms, but here they were in the slightly larger medium sized room.  On demonstration today was some big news for Naim, Kudos and active system lovers.  The SNAXO for Kudos is back!  The 3 channel SNAXO active crossover for Titan 808 is orderable now with delivery likely to be later this month and the 2 channel for Titans 505, 606 & 707 plus the Super 20A and Super 10A to follow a couple of months later.

Why is this such big news?  Because Kudos pursued this route with Naim for about 18 months but finally announced about 12 months ago that Naim had chosen to pull out of the project.  But there seems to be a change of heart that has come along with the change of leadership at Naim and the active crossovers are going into production.  Based on today's experience, this is great news from a sound quality point of view plus it will give Naim dealers the chance to sell more power amps to Kudos customers.

So today, Kudos were running with:

Innuos Statement server
ND 555 / 555PS streamer
NAC 552 / 555 PS pre-amp
SNAXO 362 / SuperCap active crossover
3x NAP 300 power amplifiers
Kudos Titan 808 speakers in walnut
Fraim racks
Surprisingly (except for one Audioquest interconnect), standard Naim interconnects and NACA5 speaker cables completed the system

Top shelf showcasing SNAXO active crossover and its Supercap PSU

First time hearing the new Innuos Statement server

Its pretty much impossible to say how much the newly released £10k Innuos Statement server was making to this system as we didn't have anything to compare it against.  Suffice to say that it wasn't holding this system back at all today.
Importantly, how were all those black boxes performing when driving the Titan 808s actively?  Well, it was certainly on par with the same speakers heard recently with Linn Klimax Exakt electronics, but not the same.  Here the typical Naim drive and speed was very obvious, but what we weren't getting was any of the brand's forcefulness that can result in a quickly tiring listen.  Our first visit to the room was for around 40 minutes followed up by over an hour again later in the day (with some liquid refreshments to hand), so I'm pretty certain that it was a reasonable amount of time to work out if this would be tiring.
The system was playing pretty loud too.  It's difficult to directly compare to the Linn system, being in a different room and without the REL 25 subs, but here I would say it was slightly less refined and naturally flowing compared to the Linn front end, but it had more bite and solid power to the bass lines.  Possibly attributable to the front end, or the subs or a combination of both.  In this room we listened to the music flow through this system - timing is superb, the tune is easy to follow.  Glad to see the SNAXO lives, as the Titans deserve a front end of this kind of quality.  This system was simply superbly musical.

A nice touch: Naim signature green lighting in the Kudos room

 

Hegel, Auralic, Dynaudio

 

A relative newcomer to the hifi scene in the UK, Hegel have very quickly forged a good reputation with their integrated amplifiers.  I've heard the all-in-one doing a great job with Amphion speakers in the past, but today was the first chance to properly listen to their main integrated amplifier products.  And it proved be something worth waiting for.

Here an Auralic streamer was being used purely as a streamer, passing a digital signal to the DAC onboard the £9.5k Hegel 590 integrated amplifier.  Chord Epic Twin cables fed a pair of Dynaudio Contour 20 standmounts.

We listened to a good few tracks in this room too.  At around £15k this is not pocket money kit, but compared to the £400k in the barn, its an absolute bargain.  I'd much rather spend my time enjoying this system which delivered musicality in spades. The medium sized standmounts made the best of the source they were being fed - flowing and smooth whilst delivering strong dynamics and a suprisingly deep sound.  Vocals were perhaps a little recessed in the mix, but this is a very minor point and I'd much rather this than the upfront and brash presentations that some systems have, masquerading as "exciting".  We would've gone back for more but there wasn't time today.  Great stuff and another case of Auralic appearing in an award winning system, but I suspect the Hegel to be the star turn here.

Mark Levinson and JBL

It was back to the 70s in the JBL room - as you can see in the picture below, the orange fronted JBL L100 Classic has a style reminiscent of that decade.  Even the psychadelic artwork in the room was joining in with the vibe.  Fed by a Mark Levinson streamer and integrated amp, these re-imagined JBLs were probably the easiest to listen to I've heard from the brand.  I noted that they don't feature horn drivers so that might be at least part of the reason.  Also unusually from my other JBL experiences, this was a softer, laid back kind of sound that I'm not familiar with from this brand.  Bass was OK but the Giorgio Moroder track from Daft Punk lacked a good deal of detail, so the tune was less distinct and kind of blurred.  A reasonable listen.

ATC Electronics & SCM 40 Speakers

The first in a quick succession of 3 systems from ATC today, so interesting to contrast them one after the other.  Here ATC were fielding the same system as they demonstrated at Bristol in February this year.  CD2 was providing content through to the SIA2 integrated amp an on to the SCM40 floorstanders, here operating in passive mode.  As at Bristol, this was a decent sounding system.  Nothing outstandingly good nor bad.  Having heard these speakers at this show last year with an Auralic source and on a few other occasions in their active mode, I get the feeling the ATC electronics are holding them back a little.

ATC SCM100 & CDA2

At the opposite end of the room from the SCM40s, the altogether more imposing SCM100 speakers were partnered with ATC's CDA2 Mk2 CD Pre DAC and a Melco server.

Well this is more like what I'd expect from ATC, particularly these classic range speakers in their active form.  Built in power amplifiers and active crossovers seem to bring out a punchy, clear, articulate and strong performance.  The percussion on Dire Straits' "Six Blade Knife" was palpable in the room and the guitar interplay much easier to follow in comparison to the much more cost effective SCM40.  Great fun to listen too, all that dynamic and detailed behaviour can get a little strident in louder passages.

ATC SCM50 & NAIM Electronics

So far we'd heard ATC passive with their own electronics, active with their own electronics and here was another combination - passive with a different vendor's electronics.
In this room the ATC SCM50 played tunes very well indeed, making good use of the music coming from a combination of Naim NDX2 streamer (using its internal power supply), a NAC282 pre with PSU and a NAP300 power amp.

 

I think this was possibly the best balanced of the ATC systems today.  The Naim electronics complemented the 50s very well.  Another room we could have revisted to enjoy again if time had permitted.  This system seemed to do all the great dynamics and details of the 100s, but they never got to the point of being strident, even though the volume was pretty high.  I do think, however, that perhaps the smaller 50s better suit these smaller rooms and perhaps we had to sit a little too close to the 100s.  Enjoyed this system today.

Hegel, Kudos, Innuos

A thank you to the Innuos room host here as we turned up a couple of minutes after official closing time but he happily powered the system up again to give us a 10 minute listen.  Very helpful. 

I understand earlier in the day that Zen Mk3 vs Zenith Mk3 server comparisons had been demoed.  We just listened to some tracks using the Zenith as the source.  Having just enjoyed the slam and scale of the Naim / ATC SCM50 system, I was a little afraid that the smallest of the Kudos Titans, the 505, might seem a little undernourished, especially driven by Hegel's more modest £3.2k integrated amp with DAC, the H190.  But there was no need to be concerned.  Perched forward on the edge of the sofa moved us out of the worst of the room mode and directly into the music.  Insightful, tuneful, detailed, driving, emotional vocals all present and correct.  But the weight behind these chunky standmounts were the surprise here, a more substantial sound then when last heard with the Linn Selekt at Bristol.  If only we'd got to this room a little sooner, we could've enjoyed a lot more music in here.

Show Summary

A very enjoyable show again this year.  Thank you to Acoustica for hosting and to all the manufacturers supporting the show.  Whilst I didn't get around all the rooms this year (we deliberately missed a few that weren't showing anything substantially new, and ran out of time for others), what struck me was the number of systems that were genuinely good or better.  When I think back over all the shows covered by audiophilemusings, this probably has been the show with the highest propotion of enjoyable systems.  Quite some achievement.

ACTIVE SERVICE - Naim with Kudos T-707

Yesterday Acoustica Hifi in Chester had a Kudos open day.  T-808, T-707 and T-606 were on offer.  Thanks to Acoustica for the invitation.

I turned up towards the end of the day and all three pairs of speakers were crammed into the room.  A big sounding Deadmau5 track was pumping out and I assumed the T-707s were in action.  However, local Naimist R was sat there having a listen to the T-606s in passive mode - so a very impressive introduction.

There are quite a few reports on Audiophile Musings about the development of the Kudos Titan family, most of them are here:

Acoustica Show 2015

Acoustica Show 2017

Munich High End Show 2017

National Audio Show 2015

Indulgence Show 2016

The T-606s tonight were not ideally placed, in fact it was remarkable that they could sound anything like decent, given their position in the room.  Just enough to get a taster.  They did not disappoint and their performance here (being driven by an all Naim system, culminating in a 300DR amp and SuperLumina cables) just reinforced the view of their performance in Munich back in May.

T-606 in the centre flanked by T-707 and the T-808s on the outside

But the main course tonight were the T-707s, the mid-size speaker in the Titan range.  If you look at the above links, you'll find much praise for these speakers.  They don't have quite the finesse of the 808 and they don't go quite so deep, but boy do they boogie.  There's a real sense of fun in what they do - they party and let the music flow along very well.  Back at the Acoustica Chester show in March, they were driven actively by a development Naim SNAXO crossover.  Here they were in a similar set up, but the SNAXO has been back to Naim for some tweaks to the components and the box is now described as pre-production.  Hopefully Naim will find a slot to crack on with production soon.

The room was joining in quite a lot tonight, so conditions weren't perfect, and some tracks from Tidal sounded good (the Deadmau5, Kiasmos, for instance) and some sounded pretty ropey (for example, Eric Bibb).  So for proper listening we focused on locally stored rips on the NAS.  Daft Punk's "Georgio Moroder" and a Janis Ian track that I didn't get the name of were used for the focussed listening.  After enjoying the 707s active for a while, it was time to get down to a worthwhile comparison, despite the rather compromised room setting, at least the comparisons would be on a consistently inadequate set up and could therefore deliver a level playing field.

The speakers were switched back to passive.  As is usual with the Titan range, this just involves a few u-shaped metal links - with the links in place the internal passive crossover divides the signal between the drivers - remove the links, hook up 2 stereo power amps and the splitting of the signal needs to happen before the power amps - in this case a Naim SNAXO.  This SNAXO is now described as pre-production and will work with T-707 and T-808 with a small tweak to one of the internal potentiometers.

In passive form, the Janis Ian track was a pleasure to listen to.  The room was joining in to an extent but it was easy to hear that and ignore it to get to what was going on directly from the speakers.  The track is fairly funky by JI standards, which is to say its a not very funky track by funky standards, but there's some decent electric bass lines along the way.  The track starts quietly then adds extra instruments and complexity along the way.  The music was joined up and enjoyable in passive form, bass tuneful, imaging is good but not exceptional (but hey, look at the way they were set up on this occasion, that's no surprise), vocals nicely rendered - this is a very good pair of speakers in action.  We listen to the whole track, then go back and listen to the first 90 seconds or so to try and get the beginning of the track stuck in the memory.

Conversion to active takes a couple of minutes.  Understanding the magnitude of the difference it brings is a matter of seconds, then, as the track plays that understanding develops and deepens.  The active conversion brings much of what I'm used to hearing in equivalent changes in Linn active systems.  Its that clarity thing, the edges of notes are better defined, instruments start and stop with more conviction, the bass lines are crisper, tunes are easier to follow, the reverb on a guitar goes on that much longer but doesn't crash into the other instruments, there's a space between and around each instrument that wasn't there before.  Ian's vocals are better rendered, they've taken a step forward from the mix - there's subtelty in there that wasn't there before.  But all this is still joined up as a single musical message.  Back to that first few seconds of going active, and the thing that I really wasn't expecting but was quite a stunning change - the Ian track has a number of quiet elements right at the beginning of the track and that quietness was soooo much quieter than before.  With passive, I wasn't really concious of any background noise and hash in those quiet elements, but with active, the lack of that noise is very apparent (I'm sure there's still some there, but its notably less obvious).
I wish I'd made a note of this track - I've been trawling through the Janis Ian tracks on Tidal, but its a long list and I haven't found it yet!  I have discovered lots of tracks that I like along the way though, so that's a plus.

We then listened to the Georgio track and the way these active 707s can power through this piece of Daft Punk inventiveness is very impressive.  The intro clearly reveals the sounds of the 3 different mics used to record it, and the chatter in the background is easy to follow.  But the real test of this track is about 3/4 of the way through when the very complex bass lines play at tremendous speed and there majority of systems just can't do this bit very well - they end up playing monotone thumps rather than several complex and tuneful notes.  The active 707s do a great job on this not only maintaining the tune but revealling a really growly edge to the note, far better than some more expensive systems.  And playing loud doesn't phase them at all.

So, for me, an easy conclusion to reach.  But here's the sting in the tail, that will be of interest particularly to Naim system owners.  The passive system was using a single NAP300DR with Naim's expensive SuperLumina speaker cables.  The active system used 2 of the "lesser" NAP250DR power amps and the far more reasonably priced AudioQuest Rocket speaker cables.  Game set and match to active!  Get that SNAXO on the production line Naim!

Thanks to the gents from Kudos and Acoustica.

I look forward to giving the T-707 a listen in my Linn Exakt system - I think they could be on the Musings system roadmap.  Just need Kudos to finish up the Exakt crossovers in the next few weeks.

CHESTER HIFI SHOW 2017 - NAIM UNITI & DYNAUDIO EMIT M20 - HIGHLY COMMENDED

Dynaudio were playing the £500 Emit 20 standmounts (plus £350 for the stands) - they're modestly proportioned, but well finished - they don't try to be anything they're not so the finish doesn't try to look more expensive than it is, which is good, as that approach often fails.

They were being driven by one of Naim's recently introduced Unit Atom all-in-one streamer / pre-amp / power amp systems.  It's a very small box, has an attractive colour screen on the front, the Mu-so style rotary control on top and is very well built, looking every bit of its £1600.

Another foot-tapping system here.  Yes, bass is restrained a little, but not so you couldn't live without it.  The Emits, with the Uniti, seem to gel very well indeed - no sign of any aggression or brightness that can cause fatigue.  Imaging is not ultra-precise but its believable.  Tunes flow along well, the meaning in the music is very well conveyed for such a modest system.  Limited budget? Living with space constraints? Need something discreet?  Definitely worth a listen.

FULL SHOW REPORT HERE

Chester Hifi Show 2017 - Naim, Kudos T-707, Dynaudio, Arcam and more

As usual, the (Acoustica) Chester Hifi Show ran in early March for 2017 - based at the DoubleTree hotel on the East side of Chester.  A small show with around 15 or so rooms, easily accessible, not too busy and, of course, free to enter.

A gave a little (but not too much) thought on how to present today's listening, but then just decided to go with the order in which I wandered around the rooms.  Which is not at all logical in terms of the layout of the hotel as I'd promised to wait for a couple of friends to join me before going in the Kudos room, as there was much anticipation about the new T-707s.  So here they are, as they were visited:

ARCAM and B&W Home Cinema Room

Here Arcam were running their FMJ multi-format disc spinner into their top-of-the-range £4,500 AV receiver.  Around the room are a variety of B&W Diamond D3 speakers (I think the fronts were 802 and the rears were the standmounts) with a couple of tiny Atmos overhead speakers rigged up on a frame - at least one sub sat behind the screen.  So this is a seriously priced AV system.

When I went in, Jon Bon Jovi was playing so I settled in to watch the concert for a bit.  It was, well, rather dull.  Bass was indistinct and there was no sparkle to the sound.  I didn't find myself tapping my foot along to the music, even though there were clearly many in the concert audience boogieing along to the music.  We then had a brief talk about the design of the receiver amps being a blend of Class A and Class AB dubbed by Arcam as Class G, and how this was to make sure that this AV receiver would be as good with music as it would be with movies.  The Bon Jovi track apparently had been playing only through the front left and right speakers to prove how good the system is at music.  I'm hoping it was a badly recorded track or something.
Then on to some movie stuff ("Hollywood") with a clip from a Mad Max film (I think it was Mad Max) which is full of action, car chase, crashes and explosions.  And this was good, seriously good.  The detail and the steering of that detail around and above is very convincing.  Of course, the crash bang wallop was great too - and, thankfully, not wacked up to a massive volume to try and impress.  This was controlled, impactful, detailed but not OTT like so many AV demos can be.  Very good.  Not quite up to the standard of the full-on Arcam separates and KEF Reference system at Indulgence 2016, but not far off given how much less expensive the electronics are in this system.

I called back in later to some Bruce Springsteen which was better than the Bon Jovi, but not enough to make me want to sit and listen.

ON THE LANDING

An attractive collection of  Rega decks, although, unless I missed it, there wasn't a Rega room this year - usually they make a very good sound with modestly priced gear.

Chord also have a dem room on the upper floor.  I generally like their cables, but the demo process takes about 45 minutes and I just didn't have the will power to sit through it today.
The Kudos room had to wait, so then on to the "main event" room for the first visit (although these notes cover both visits - I had to go back when R&P turned up just to check my thoughts).



NAIM NDS, 555, Statement S1, NAP500 and Focal Sopra No3

The main Naim event of the show was, as usual, in the largest of the dem rooms.  This year, as last year, the speakers were arranged either side of the bay window which is opposite the entrance door - this layout seems to make the best of what is a bit of an awkward room.  Over to the right was the impressively equipped Naim Fraim rack, containing an NDS streamer with a 555 power supply and, at the time we were in the room, the NAP500 power amp with its matching supply.  The rack also contained a 252 pre-amp and another 555 power supply, but these weren't in use at the time, as pre-amp duties were being handled by the Statement S1 pre-amp.

If you need to ask, you can't afford it...

This lot was feeding into my favourite of the current crop of Focal speakers, the Sopra No3 - this time in the more subdued black front and wood side panels.  More subtle than the gloss white and massively more conventional than the gloss orange.  I first heard these with the full Statement amplification and NDS / 555 in the dem room at the Naim factory, and really liked them - very tuneful and full of detail.  You can read about that visit (and the Bentley driving to get there) here.

So today, some of that magic was there - lots and lots of detail, impact, dynamics, good deep bass (plus a touch of boom from the room), clear and articulate vocals - much to admire and impress.  There was a touch too much treble which risks becoming irritating over time (the room here is much less damped than the dem room at the Naim factory), improved by moving away from the back wall of the room.  As noted last time I heard these speakers, things seem to be a bit "big" - vocals are central but not specific - its like listening to someone with a three foot wide mouth, and guitars seem to be about 6ft long.  I've noted that before with the Grand Utopias - it make for less realism for me.  So small things, but they can detract enough to mean not being engaged with the music.  So an impressive system, but not an engaging one today.

A sneaky look around the back:

As Kudos were also on the first floor, it should've been there next, but I'd promised to hold on until P&R turned up, so I went off down to the long ground floor corridor of smaller (bed)rooms:


SPENDOR

I've heard some great sounding Spendors in the past, but at Indulgence 2016 and again here today, it was uninspiring.  Flat, thin, lacking dynamics, the D7 was not showing much potential.  I never even got around to asking about the electronics in use.  I was hoping the Indulgence experience had been a one-off.

DYNAUDIO CONTOUR 30 and EMIT M20

I owned a small pair of Dynaudio standmounts for a while - they were never in a main system, but when it came to time to move on, I found it very difficult to part with them.  They hung around for about another two and a half years "just in case" but an opportunity to put them back into action never occured.  So they were reluctantly sold on and their new owners got a great sounding pair of speakers for a small outlay.
Since then a couple of Dynaudios have been enjoyed at shows, mentally filed in the "they're nice enough" category.  Heard the Contour 30 for the first time at Indulgence last year where I found them (paired with Naim electronics) a good foil for the sometimes over enthusiastic Naim gear, but perhaps a little too polite?

So here are the Contour 30s again.  This time in a much smaller dem room.  Looking very well finished in a gloss white, their cast alloy baffle fitting well into the look.

Lots of Super Lumina speaker cable

An example driver and the cast baffle

Today, in this room, in this system (and, I suppose, with the music that was being played), it was a more uplifting kind of sound and I sat for a while in this room, suitably engaged by "Keith Don't Go" from Nils Lofgren, amongst other tracks.  Plenty of attack in the guitar, a good spacious sense of the venue and that "bite" in Logfren's voice was clearly projected.  Foot tapping along with the track is a good sign and there was plenty of that here.  There was a touch of boominess which is understandable in a room that's really too small for these speakers - they had to be fairly close to the corners.  So I wonder what was different this time compared to Indulgence?  I can only make reasonable assumptions as I didn't make notes on the electronics in London, but here, these Contours were being driven from some £28k or so worth of streamer, power supplies amplification and cables - so the first assumption could be that the electronics were significantly better.  The second could be the room - although this small room was probably not ideal, I think it possibly suited the speakers better than the very large room at Indulgence.  So a good result here, I went back for a second listen later as it was one of the most musical rooms at the show.

Across the corridor, Dynaudio were playing the £500 Emit 20 floorstanders (plus £350 for the stands) - they're modestly proportioned, but well finished - they don't try to be anything they're not so the finish doesn't try to look more expensive than it is, which is good, as that approach often fails.

They were being driven by one of Naim's recently introduced Unit Atom all-in-one streamer / pre-amp / power amp systems.  It's a very small box, has an attractive colour screen on the front, the Mu-so style rotary control on top and is very well built, looking every bit of its £1600.

Another foot-tapping system here.  Yes, bass is restrained a little, but not so you couldn't live without it.  The Emit's with the Uniti seem to gel very well indeed - no sign of any aggression or brightness that can cause fatigue.  Imaging is not ultra-precise but its believeable.  Tunes flow along well, the meaning in the music is very well conveyed for such a modest system.  Limited budget? Liviing with space constraints? Need something discreet?  Definitely worth a listen.

I was just about to head into the Russell K room (I had to miss it out earlier as when I arrived at the room they were just in the process of swapping speakers over so I thought I'd go back later), when the phone rang and I went back up the stairs to join P&R - their first visit to the Naim / Focal room and my second.

Then we moved on to:

KUDOS T-707 WITH NAIM SNAXO ACTIVE SYSTEM

Kudos have been the best room at this show for the past 3 years (even when launching their most modest floorstanders they've made a great sound here) so, with the T-707 just launched at the Bristol show about 3 weeks ago, anticpation was high, opportunity to disappoint therefore equally high, I suppose.

A bit of background - Kudos are big fans of making their speakers capable of working with active options from manufacturers such as Linn and Devialet.  Their current range leading T-808 has been played with passive electronics from Naim, Exakt active from Linn and active with Devialet at shows I've been to, in addition to active with Naim electronics being fed by an active Behringer crossover (which was good but not in the same league as Linn and Devialet).  The best of these was Devialet at Indulgence, although I understand the Exakt crossovers have been heavily modified since I heard them at the National Audio Show back in 2015.
The T-808 range topper comes in at £23k and is quite a large two-box cabinet.  So out of the range of most.  Kudos are now happy with the concept they used in the T-808 (e.g. the cabinet shaping, isobaric bass loading, complex flared porting, ability to easily run passive or active etc.) to roll-out the same concepts down the range into more accessible (!) pricing and suited to smaller (let's say, more UK sized) rooms.  So the T-707 scales down the 8" drivers to 7", uses one less of them, uses a single box cabinet and takes up less room in the room.  The 7" is a mid-bass that has another identical driver hidden in the cabinet, configured in isobaric mode.  For active use, 2 pairs of terminals are presented on the back panel so only 2 amp channels are needed per speaker.
A little more background - Kudos have been hoping to persuade Naim to provide a SNAXO active crossover for some time.  The design is now done (by Kudos with help from Naim) so hopefully it will just be a matter of time before it becomes available.  Naim really should do this - as we'll see below.

Today the system was Melco, NDS / 555, 252 / Supercap, SNAXO active crossover with Hi-Cap PS and 2x 250DR power amps.  Cables were, in the main, standard Naim fare (not hi-line) with the exception of the streamer to pre connection which was courtesy of Chord Sarum-T.  Sarum-T also provided connection between power amps and speakers, with the length of cables in use today just exceeding the price of the speakers themselves - at around the £13.5k mark.  Gulp.  The T-707 at Chester were finished in Tineo wood veneered sides - black oak, Tineo red and satin white are also available as standard.  Other finishes are options.

Let's get the negatives out of the way first.  There are really only 2 for me - the price, and that the room was playing its part a little today.  Boom was not really tolerable in the back row of seats, but the middle and front seats removed most of this, but there was still a touch too much.  It wasn't enough to distract though - just a hint that there's more to be had by a different set up, and Linn SPACE of course :)

If I said that I spent over 2 hours in this room, it might give an impression of just how enjoyable this Naim / Kudos active system is.  Music, music, music was what was heard in this room.  Track after track (with the exception of one rather poorly recorded Elvis track requested by a visitor) just flowed rhymically from these speakers.  Occasionally there are some bass details that aren't as well resolved as my Exakt/PMC system, but the overall set of compromises here is a much better mix.  Focal could learn from a big powerful sound that doesn't have to be over-bright, nor does a big speaker mean that instruments have to be over-large in the image.  It was impossible to drag myself away from the room - even for music I don't traditionally like.  As usual, the Kudos team encourage visitors to select music and they shy away from nothing.  This system just got on with playing tunes - there's a sense of joy in these speakers - I think the T-808 goes deeper, but somehow, in comparison with these 707s, they feel a little restrained - holding something back in case they get too excited.  The 707s feel much more like they want to get on with entertaining and being part of the party - but they still manage to be in control.  There's a sense of detail in there too, but its not the sort of detail that says "hey look at me", its just there when you seek it out.

Kicking electronic dance tracks? Hugh Masakela? Folk Rock? Sophisticated pop (think London Grammar)? Dire Straits? Mexican guitar duos? Deep electronica?  Just play whatever you like and enjoy.  For me, even more than the T-808.  I really look forward to hearing these with Klimax Katalyst Exakt.  Perhaps the Linn front end, a couple of Naim 250DRs and the T-707s could be a match made in audio heaven.  Maybe - it would be good to find out.

Top Shelf Stuff: SNAXO for T-707 on the left and its Hi-Cap PS on the right

A superb system.

Thanks to Acoustica for staging the show.  Another enjoyable and relaxed show.

Chester Acoustica Show March 2015: Naim Statement and Focal Utopia Stella

This small but nicely formed show was again running in the Double Tree at Chester in the North West of England.  About 15 rooms which thankfully did not include the massively vaulted barn which was always disasterous!

Being a free show, it really out to be very busy indeed, but as the previous 2 years, there's just a steady flow of visitors this particular Saturday morning / early afternoon.  This makes it very easy to get around the rooms and be able to pick and choose a seating position within those rooms.

We headed straight to the Naim Statement / Focal Utopia Stella room as we hoped it would be fairly quiet early in the day.  It was in the biggest room of the show, which in the past has hosted the highest end Naim system with top end Focal and Audiovector speakers.  Neither have really moved me.  Last year the Focals were pointing towards the door, this year they were back to the paired windows with the entrance door on the left - rather like the Audiovectors of 2 years ago.  The room was busy and we had to take up the front row of 5 rows of seats.

Naim NDS streamer with 2x 555PS DR power supplies
Naim Statement pre-amp
Naim Statement mono power amps
Naim Powerline mains cables
Focal Utopia Stella speakers
Naim Superlumia cables throughout

Naim Statement - 2 mono 750W power amps with the pre-amp in the centre

Top view showing the machined-from-solid cooling fins on the amp ends and the volume control on the pre-amp

This was the first time I've seen / heard a system containing Naim's new top of the range cables.  After years of saying the existing cables were good enough, they now think they've found a better way of connecting up the kit.  I expect Chord will be the main loser, if these prove to be a better solution.  No chance to hear the impact they have on the system today.

The new Superlumia cables.  Given that there was no demo of their capabilities, I'll just have to say that they look very well constructed and they were in a nice box.

The room had a set of tall bass traps in each corner behind the speakers and the crossover choice was flat except the bass was set to the minimum setting.  The room treatment and crossover choices suggest some time had been spent on setting the system up.

We heard a few tracks such as rock and jazz rock such as Jeff Beck and Supertramp, followed by a classical piece.  Well, this was all just too much in the front row, but as soon as space allowed we moved back to the 4th and 5th rows and it all made a lot more sense.  This system was better than the one featuring Statement at the Bristol show back in Feb 2014.  Much better.  It allowed some of the emotion in the music to come through, which the Bristol combination with the Grand Utopia speakers just didn't achieve at all.  This system still has that signature sound that comes from both Naim and Focal - its up front, dynamic and forceful.  Here, there is just more of everything in terms of detail, power, speed etc.  It took me until the 3rd track and sitting further back in the room to settle into what was going on.  This system has that insistent timing and causes foot tapping, but like before, the combination of the up front Naim with up front Focal means that leading edges can be a bit abrasive, even at this level.  The sound is massive in scale - and some ways that makes for a "wow" factor - but I do struggle with acoustic guitars that sound about 4 feet tall.  Whilst side to side imaging and clarity of where the instruments are in the mix is very good and very stable, we didn't get a sense of much depth.  I still think that the Naim electronics work better with more mellow sounding speakers, but this is the best I've heard this combination of these manufacturers to date.

Focal Utopia Stella in white gloss

The Focals have a servo drive for the bass units

On the rear of the Focals there's a drop-down panel which lists the specs of the speaker and a set of jumpers permit various trim options for the crossovers - allowing some tweaking to suit the room.  The transparent panel allows a view of some of the crossove components

Designer and builder details on the Focal's drop-down panel

SUNDAY UPDATE:

We revisited on Sunday, to give the Statement some time to settle in (if that was required).

Well, some large orchestral music really conveyed the sense of space of the venue and the scale of the orchestra, and with little percussion and hard edged instruments, was quite enjoyable to listen to. Then on came Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Relax.  And it was horrendous.  Harsh, brittle, grating and painful to listen to.  We had to leave the room.  Suspect the Focals - can Naim afford to keep using these speakers?  The 2 brands just don't seem to be compatible.

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