Since speakers were my priority, that's what I concentrated on. I was also on a bit of a timer, since my wife were going to pick me up at a later point in the day; she had no interest in joining what turned out to be a sausagefest (for mainly white, middleaged sausages. Big surprise right here, I know). So in a lot of cases I have no idea what the other equipment were, or can't remember because I'm pre-senile, so sources etc will not be documented. If you recognize gear; feel free to chime in. Many rooms were dealer rooms, so there could several brands in one room. The first one was right off the entrance, with Wharfedale speakers.
Playing both times I came by was Linton 85th anniversary eds, which was fine; I wanted to hear them. Now I've heard them. Not particularily impressed really, they were nice enough, playing some reggae stuff I think first time around, bass was a bit undefined. They sell here for a bit more than my speakers cost me, 10 years ago, but they were on par I'd say, mine has better bass definition I think. The EVOs in the room never got to play during my visit, which was too bad. This dealer had several rooms and I'll go over a few other very fast: They had a room with some Cambridge electronics and some Triangle floorstanders which were fine, if a bit anonymous IMO. Another room seemed like it was a showcase for Kimber cables, it had some Quad ESL (2912, I think) that fell flat on their face first time I got by: Chris Cornell sounded allright, if a bit anemic; but the rest of Soundgarden played 2 rooms over, at the end of a tunnel; down a stairwell... Dunno what went wrong here. No dynamics anywhere in sight.
Next was another dealer; here we had some Stendheim, some Magico and some GoldenEar Triton One. Price range for the assembled systems went from ½ a mortgage to 2+ mortgages. I wanted to get a feel for GoldenEar, but had to hear Stendheim first. Song was Sound of Silence in a cover version. Honestly, I'd expect more in that pricerange, lots of essy treble. They did better with saxy jazz. The GoldenEar was really nice though, I'd hope you can tame the bass in them (since the sub part in them is active; I guess you can), I'd say the Ones are outta my budget, but the Two's are reasonable. I went back to this room and they were back to the Stendheims, being the most expensive I guess they had to push them. Got a list of full equipment from this room, which was a nice touch. No pics from this here.
Next up:
I planned to check out Audio Note UK, they had a room 2 sizes up from broom closet, way too small. The system in the room cost about one years salary, and sounded really, REALLY good. AN UK are definitely still on my shortlist; AN-Es used are just within my limits. The ones playing were AN-E sth sth at around $10-12000. Picture is really schiit, room was dark, and I didn't want to use flash. They had Victor Belanger to do some stuff too but willfully missed out on it, room got way too stuffy (I briefly mentioned they should get a bigger room next time around). Also 99,9 % sure I rode the elevator with Peter Quotrup, but I'm not fanboy enough to start pestering people.
Wanted check out Spendor, they had A7s playing they were very nice, reminded me a lot of my own speakers. Still considering if they were 4 times better than mine, price said they were. I'd say they were very good. The picture from that room was blurry, find one on the net. Very nice looking speakers, very musical. I'll keep them in mind, if all else fails maybe a special offer could convince me. Or used. At half price. Thereabouts.
Harbeth room. Not much to say. I wasn't superimpressed. They were nice.
Next time I went by this room, a bunch of old dudes from Hearing Aid Inc. sat there listening at 110+ dB. Some young guys who looked like they could rock out once in a while came in, said "Oh. It's really loud." and left. I was right behind them.
Next up:
See those little lumps? Those are Jern speakers, cast iron cabinet speakers, and was my biggest surprise. They sounded VERY good, huge soundstage. See the cast iron beach ball on the right? That's a sub, and everyone in the room had to go feel if it was connected. It wasn't. They are cheap too, although IMHO they did show some limitations at one track, someone wanted some bass heavy music; the dude put on something with female vocals and some deep bass (a la Massive Attack, although swedish I think), and they kind of lost it there. Other than that very impressive, and being a new company, certainly one to watch.
I'll end this here with a bunch of piccies, feel free to ask, but I probably can't say more than a line or maybe two on each of these:
Need bigger speakers:
Stage Accompany, their motto is "Mo' speaker, mo' house"
And:
Horny.
And:
Not an appliance for an industrial kitchen but speakers from Bayz Audio. Sounded really good. Sell your house and children, live under a bridge with these.
Christ, if a vendor offered me a 6922-pinned tube with a plethora of swirling heater elements (that sounded just as good as Schiit's stock tubes), I'd snap it up.
