Hegel At The Heart of 2 System Awards At Chester Show 2019

Hegel DAC equipped integrated amps were at the heart of 2 systems receiving audiophilemusings awards at the 2019 Chester Show:

Hegel, Auralic, Dynaudio

 

A relative newcomer to the hifi scene in the UK, Hegel have very quickly forged a good reputation for 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.

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 190.  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.

Kudos & Innuos: 2 Awards Each At Chester Show 2019

Kudos & Innuos were involved in 2 system awards from audiophilemusings at the 2019 Chester Show.

Innuos, Naim, Kudos

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, 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.

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.

CHESTER HIFI SHOW 2017 - NAIM SNAXO AND KUDOS ACTIVE TITAN 707 - SOUND OF THE SHOW

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.

FULL SHOW REPORT HERE

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 Acoustica Show March 2015: Kudos Titan T808 and Naim: Heavily Revised

A room to look forward to.  In the past 2 years Kudos have showcased their then new Super 20 and X3 models in this room and its often been the most enjoyable room at the show - often outperforming many of the more expensive systems, at least in musical terms, if not in absolute resolution.  Last year a turntable was in use, in addition to a Linn Klimax DS/1 for streaming.

This year was an all Naim streaming system fronted by an NDS with 555PS DR,552 pre-amp with Supercap and a 300 / 300PS DR power amp.  Files were being fed from a Naim NS01 server.  Chord cables in use, but not the Sarum tuned array in this case - Signature Reference cables for the speakers.

Kudos Titan T808

Naimness on Hutterness

Given such great sounds from Kudos in the past, we were looking forward to hearing their new top of the range efforts.  Mated with a pretty high end set of Naim black boxes would suggest that this system should produce good results.

REVISED NOTES, FOLLOWING REVISIT ON SUNDAY:

See below for the listening notes from Saturday, which were, quiet frankly, disappointing (Derek from Kudos has a different word for it, which I shalln't use on a family safe blog).  On Saturday there was talk about all the Naim electronics being straight out of the box.  Having expected a set of fully run-in electronics, Friday night had seen unpacking of brand new kit.  Now there are believers and non-believers when it comes to burn-in or run-in with electronics.  I tend to think that it is very manufacturer (and maybe even product) specific.  Cyrus claim it takes a few weeks for their amps to sound their best, and experience with my Naimist mate's system suggests that it could be even longer for Naim.  As Richard (the Naimist) is also the owner of a pair of Kudos Super 20s, it was decided, given the poor performance of the Kudos room on Saturday (see below) and the story about the Naim boxes, that we'd revisit on Sunday.

Well, a more clear example of the need for Naim electronics to settle in, I've never heard before.  On Sunday this was like a completely different system.  The flatness had gone, the dynamics are back. The music has life and it flows.  The system is kicking with out any aggressive edges (and yes, this is still Naim we're talking about), bass goes seriously deep but is gripped and controlled.  Sparkle is back with the (we find out today, Beryllium) tweeters and vocals are expressive and full of nuances.

We stay in the room for a while, go back to the Statement room, check out Arcam and the UnitQute 2 / Focal 905s, then head back to the Kudos Titan room.  We stay for a long time.  A Hugh Masakela song about diamond mining is absolutely stunning.  The emotion in the music being completely engrossing - dynamics, subtleties, detail, structure, rhythm, timing, layers upon layers and fantastic storytelling.

By far, this is the best I've ever heard anything being produced by a Naim system.  I could very much live with this system, and that's something I've never said about Naim.  I wonder if they will survive being partnered with Focal speakers all the time - they are doing their electronics a severe disservice. Congratulations to Kudos for the T808, and well worth a listen.

There must be something about isobaric loaded speakers.  Linn Akubarik and now T808s use this approach and feature high on my list of best listens.

SATURDAY NOTES:

And yet... This system just didn't grab the attention.  London Grammar was very clear, imaging excellent in width and depth whilst been stable, bass is reasonably deep but not subsonic, well controlled but not really kicking.  Previous Kudos speakers such as the Super 10 and Super 20 (I haven't heard the previous Titan T88) have been notable for the detail from their tweeters, combined with smoothness and sweetness, but here there is lots of detail, but not that sparkly and not so smooth.  The sound was all just kind of OK.  A shame.

I suggest to my Naimist buddy that it was due to the lack of KDS/1, as a wind up, which was met with the expected comtempt.  Later, in the corridor, we bump into a friend who had heard the T808s on the end of a Linn Klimax Exakt system a couple of weeks ago at the Bristol show, where they were performing very well, and much better than they are here in Chester.

If you enjoyed this post, consider supporting Audiophile Musings on Patreon.com:  Patreon Patrons

Chester Acoustica Show March 2015: Chord Cables

Here Chord were running step by step cable changes - climbing up the range of streaming network cables and interconnects.

System is:

Naim NDS streamer with 2x 555PS DR power supplies
Naim 252 or 282 pre-amp with Supercap
Naim 250 power amp
Focal Diablo speakers
Melco SSD NAS (with direct connection to the NDS - not using a network switch between the 2
Bennec mains unit
Chord cables (network and interconnects varied, speaker cables are Sarum tuned array throughout)
Quadraspire racks with the new phosphor bronze top shelf spikes

A track is played and the Diablos sound suprisingly good - I've heard these 3 or 4 times before with a variety of electronics and have not enjoyed them - to brittle, edgy etc.  Better sounding today on the first couple of tracks which are being fed music via a standard commodity ethernet cable sitting between the Melco and the NDS.

Focal Diablo with Chord Sarum Tuned Array cables

Naim streamer and pre-amp with the Melco SSD NAS drive.  Quadraspire rack using the new phosphor-bronze spikes

Next up is the removal of the commodity cable and in goes Chord's lowest cost C-Stream cable in its place.  It is worth noting (for the demo police) that the pre-amp was muted for this process, then un-muted.  The point here is that the volume control was not touched.  The C-Stream seems to give better control over the music, with more nuances as voices and instruments decay, imaging stabilises and the band sounds as though they've been practising a bit more.  There are no dissenters in the room.

Then incomes the next up the range, the Anthem and a similar improvement follows, and again with the Sarum.  I think the biggest changes comes from C-Stream to Anthem.

There's some discussion with our room host being disarmingly honest about what's going on.  Its all about rejecting interference which Chord thinks gets into the DAC (probably the clock) and messes stuff up (technical terms!).  They use shielding, but this is not actually connected to any grounding at either end of the cable.  They talk about dialectric properties and the speed and machining quality of the cable extrusion processes.  The smoother the surface of each strand of cable is said to improve flow.  But, and this was the most interesting bit for me, they really don't know what's going on.  They try stuff and decide which sounds better.  Some of it they think they understand the science, but much of it they don't.  They just listen - even to different brands of solder in the plugs.  Its a bit disarming, but there are a good few people in the room that hear the differences, just like last year.  Might have to take this stuff home for a try in the Musings system.

Similar effects with the interconnects, with the new as yet un-named top of the range cable using machined Teflon plug outers and Talon diaelectric.  Apparently Teflon causes frequency dependent phase shifts (dunno, could be true I suppose) but Talon doesn't and that's why its used in military systems that use radar arrays to track incoming missiles where phase shifts would be highly undesirable.  Not sure that £3.8k can ever be said to be good value for a pair of cables though.

But still there were tracks where the Diablos were edgy, brittle and unpleasant to listen to.

First listen to Troy Campbell's song Killing Time In Texas - really enjoyed that, will be investing further.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider Becoming a Musings Patron

Chester Acoustica Show March 2015: Classe and B&W

Next up was the Classe / B&W room, set up in their now traditional 2nd largest room over the corridor from The Statement room.  Here was an early outing of Classe's new "entry" level Sigma components - where "entry" is a purely relatively term.   Turns out that "set up" can also be a relative term too.

This year it was a combination of:

Apple Macbook
Classe Sigma SSP pre-amp DAC
Classe Sigma Amp 2 stereo power amp
B&W 803D speakers
Chord cables

We enter the room which has one punter and the room host - it's after 10:30 and the show has been on the go for over an hour (the point of saying this will soon become obvious).  There's a conversation under way and we wait patiently for a few minutes for some music.  First time for me with this new set of electronics and with these speakers.

As the music fires up, its a track I'm not familar with, so its a bit difficult to judge exactly what this system is doing, but there's soon certainty that something's not very good at all.  Bass? No.  Imaging?  All over the place.  Vocal expression?  Nah.  Integration between the drivers?  None at all - you could pretty much hear each instrument or voice tied to a specific speaker and specific drive unit.  We briefly debate leaving but decide to wait for second track, in the interest of fairness.

And that track was one of the ones that worked really well last year on the Classe CP / B&W 802D combination - Lou Reed's Walking On The Wild Side.  But this time it was a mess - no bass again, no drive to the bass guitar, insipid drums and Lou seemed to be singing through the wall on the left side of the room.  We decided that there was something wrong with the system, or there is no way that these speakers come close to being worth £1k, never mind their actual £7.5k.

I choose to wander around the back of the speakers to check out the cables - no problems, then to the back of the rack, where it is obvious that the right hand speaker cables were wired the wrong way around - red to black and black to red, but the left hand cables were connected in the more traditional way around. I've done this myself before, and its not a good thing. An explanation perhaps?  Quick chat with the room host and the connections were quickly sorted.  Apparently there hadn't been any time to listen to the system after set up.  How bizarre. Why would you do that?  I'm wondering where to send my audiophile consultancy invoice to, as I don't think there would've been anyone buying either of these products if the cables hadn't been sorted...

And now we have the family sound of this combination of products.  Nicely controlled and tight bass, decent image stability and very smooth, sweet top end.  Its not as inoffensive as older B&W combinations, but still has that slightly reserved sound.  Now they're working properly together this is an enjoyable system - Lou sounds much more his usual self with a well controlled bass guitar and sweet backing vocals.  Foot tapping too.

When the track ends we hope for some more, but the conversation fires up again - I think it was the same here last year - one track of music then 10 to 15 mins of chatter.

More music please Classe / B&W, your system deserves to be shown off.  Oh, and how about taking a duster to your speakers to make them look their best when on show?

B&W 803D, fortunately, installed the correct way up

Classe Sigma SSP and Amp 2.  On their shelves, and plugged in.

If you enjoyed this post, consider supporting Audiophile Musings: Become A Patron

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.

If you enjoyed this article, consider supporting Audiophile Musings: Become A Patron

Thanks!