A personal report on the Hi-Fi News Exhibition Sept 13th 2003 - Hi-Fi Show & AV Expo 2003
This years Hi-Fi News Magazine Show at the Renaissance and Meridian Heathrow airport hotels was visited by our own Colin Mackenzie. The Hifi Show & AV Expo 2003.
The Hifi Show organised by Hifi News in London has been running for more years than I care to remember. It's an exhibition which appeals to the readers of Hi-Fi News. In recent years HiFi News has changed its style but the show hasn't yet caught up with its wider remit. It still appeals to the hifi equivalent of the Ferrari owner, the kit car enthusiast, the Morgan driver and the MG anorak. There is the occasional Mercedes each year just to add that extra sparkle. This show is bereft of Ford Ka's or any Nissans.
This weekend What Hifi? magazine ran their own show in competition (with Stuff magazine). The result, a hotpotch of split loyalties. Every member of the trade thought the whole thing ridiculous, neither show having the top, middle and bottom products. Some manufacturers boycotting shows altogether, and everyone moaning. I didn't make the What Hifi? Show. I think both magazines are sufficiently apart in their readership style that if What hifi? took another floor at the Renaissance the entrance fee could be increased and both could make a profit. The public would have a UK show that caters for both export and the home counties market. I've been sufficiently long in this business to realise this is as likely as Scotland winning the World Cup. I love tweeky manufacturers, and wish I could feel I could make a living selling some of their products. The main problem for me is that often they don't give value for money and if they are not doing enough turnover, there may be a problem with supply of spares over the long term. Even some of the well known relatively high end manufacturers are, in effect, withdrawing from the marketplace as they realise the customer base for this equipment is not large.
You will see few comments about the sound of the equipment here. I felt the majority of sounds were not good enough value for money to rate a mention. One exception was the Avantegarde Acoustic speakers. Although they can't really be rated as fantastic value for money at £32,000 per pair, they did (on light jazz style music) sound very good. I later bumped into an old friend of mine, Chris Beeching who is at present in the record reviewing business and he owns a smaller pair of these speakers. Another potentially interesting speaker range is the Wharfedale Opus speakers. Not normally associated with expensive and successful speakers, Wharfedale (and Quad) have been enjoying a revival since their owners (IAG) have moved production of the speakers to China. The Opus 3 sells for £3000. It was difficult to make a considered judgment on the Opus 1 which I heard, other than to say that it deserves careful listening. The finish and perceived value for money, like the more recent ranges of Wharfedale, look to offer fantastic value for money despite their high prices. Quad were exhibiting in the Meridian Hotel. I've discovered that the electrostatics will be offering a new, and very attractive finish next year.
Quad Book Launch
Probably the most amazing sight at the Hifi Show was the queue of public on the Saturday at the Quad book launch. Quad, a name that's been around even longer than I have, has produced a superlative coffee table book written by Ken Kessler called 'The Closest Approach'. As I understand they sold 200 copies in twenty minutes! Having a cost of £50.00 makes it all the more incredible. When I arrived about fifteen minutes after the book launch the public were still in search of autographs. What amazed me most was the queue of people wanting the service engineers to autograph their books. I've spoke in the past to Ken Ichiwata of Marantz who has such a reputation that in Japan that has in the past autographed consumers equipment. Never have I experienced people wanting the autographs of the service engineers, the unsung heroes of the hifi world. Truly amazing. If you want to buy a copy of this book email us and we'll organise it for you.
No doubt there will be pages and pages in Hi-Fi News magazine devoted to the show. This isn't as detailed as this as we don't have a garage selling classic cars, but we do range up to the likes of Quad, whose most expensive equipment offers, in my opinion, superb value for money. This isn't just my opinion but also that of much of the trade. Recently the Quad E11L speakers won the best speaker at the What Hifi? Awards and the Quad system won the 'best value system' award at the HiFi News awards - more of this later.
HDMI
In the real world where real innovation and improvement is obvious and offers value for money this is where we position ourselves as retailers. HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) is one of those improvements. Pioneer were showing their new Plasma products with HDMI. In brief non technical terms, HDMI is a the equivalent of a 'digital scart lead'. A digital signal which hasn't gone through a digital to analogue conversion is taken from a digital source (such as DVD player or could in the future be a free to air box) and put directly into the receiving equipment. In plasma and lcd tv's this is directly fed to the light emitters giving a cleaner flicker free tv. There are other improvements to the new range of Pioneer tv's including, even higher light output (10% more on the previous 43" for example), better colours etc. If you have a memory card you can plug it directly into the new media box and view your photographs on the plasma set. After seeing the picture I was very impressed. The new Pioneer plasmas can be seen in Scotland for the first time at the Ideal Home Show Glasgow.(13th 21st October). Picture left shows an intriguing universal plasma and lcd mounts which will be very popular. (Dave Taylor from BBG is on the right of the picture just in case you are wondering which is which We'll be organsing an article on HDMI in non technical plain Scots soon.
Meridian G Series
The Meridian G series attracted lots of comment, although being in an open hotel foyer it was impossible to tell the sound quality. Certainly looks very sexy and if as good as previous equipment will be a winner. See our Meridian page for more details. The remote control is very dinky. You gotta have one of these. As well as being a learning remote, it contains the facilities for hundreds of other brands and all of the past Meridian equipment. The cool thing (I now sound like my son) is that it has a light sensitive detector and the controls are backlit when the lights are out. If you are someone who worries that the fridge light doesn't go out when the door is closed, then don't buy this. Everyone else should!
Hi-Fi News Awards
Details on the Hi-Fi News Awards and show going ons will follow, once I've determined which photos are suitable for publishing.