I thought I'd share with fellow AC members my impressions of the
Hong Kong AV Fest held over the weekend. This was supposed to be an AV show but included quite a few 2 channel demos. The pure 2 channel Hifi show will be held later in October.
Typhoon Krovanh or not, I visited the HK AV Fest with my pregnant wife
yesterday - she insisted on coming along to ensure that I don't get tempted
I was gratified to find that show-goers were generally kind enough to give her a seat in most rooms.
The show was held at the large and plush HK Exhibition and Convention Centre in Wan Chai. The corridors are broad and the conference rooms are generally quite large with high ceilings. Sound proofing was better than the average hotel room. Here are links to a pretty good pictorial coverage of the show:
http://www.avbuzz.com/bbs/av/diss.php?id=130224&ordering=aschttp://www.avbuzz.com/bbs/av/diss.php?id=130927Please don't ask me to translate though, my Cantonese is abysmal
As expected, almost all the systems presented were waaaay overpriced and overdone. I suppose each distributor/agent was trying to outdo each other in terms of price tags and prestige, which has no relation whatsoever to good sound. Also bear in mind that these are show conditions i.e. difficult to optimise and the equipment used is usually limited by what the distributer carries. So system synergy may not be optimal in many cases. But within these questionable parameters, I found it quite interesting to hear the overall presentation of various brand-name systems. I divided the systems into subjective categories of sound as I heard it:
Natural and transparentIf I had to choose, my vote for best sound was the
Verity Audio/Matisse room. The big
Verity Lohengrin speakers (1st pic) with ribbon tweeters sounded very refined, transparent and sweet with Matisse Ref tube mono's/pre and an
Accuphase transport/Dodson DAC. Highs were gorgeous, all shimmery and tinkly, mids were 3D and had good density but bass although deep, was a little loose (underpowered tubes?) and at US$80K
a pair, you've got to be kidding! Makes me want to hear a RM40 very soon!
Next up was the
Eggleston Andra II/ Musical Fidelity system. They were playing some Cantonese vocals on vinyl (so all bets are off as to how the system sounds with cd/SACD
) and the system provided a clear, balanced and quite natural sonic picture but noticeably lacking in terms of spaciousness and scale. Most show goers, me included, did a double take when they noticed the Musical Fidelity amps used were the HUGE, limited edition KW(kilowatt) Tri-Vista series. But boy! do those blue lights on the amps/cdp's feet look tacky...
Smooth and warmThe big, active
ATC SCM 150A speakers (3rd pic) sounded quite fluid and coherent but a bit veiled, as the highs are just not as refined as the other speakers at the show (the Mission and Verity monitors). I suspect they only come alive at louder volumes.
The giant
McIntosh system (2nd pic) was quite musical and I'm a sucker for the BBM (Big Blue Meters) of the huge MC1201 mono amps. But it really didn't sound too special, except that you'd need a small conference hall to do them justice as was the case here.
Further down from the ATC pic, there is a pic of the
Avalon Sentinel/Jeff Rowland 302 system. Now this system had good tonal colour and nice scale on classical (using vinyl, of course) but sounded quite poor on vocals. Quite similar results to what I heard at their showroom a few weeks ago and certainly unforgivable for the mind-boggling price.
The
Quad room was using tall 989 electrostats with all Quad electronics - mono tube amps, pre-amp and cdp- sounded soft and rolled off at the top and bottom but the mids were probably the most natural I heard at the show. Quite promising these electrostats.
The other system that sounded big and warm was the
Westlake/Boulder/Wadia room. They had huge
Westlake HR7 speakers driven by Boulder mono amps. The sound was listenable but I noticed that when they played a track by Patricia Barber, her voice was hollow-sounding. Highly questionable set-up and value, I'd say.
A friend has a pair of HR7's bi-amped with Jadis JA 500 monoblocks and they certainly don't sound hollow!
Whizz BangFor most impressive 'hifi' sound, the flagship
Mission Pilastro (since when did Mission speakers cost US$35K??) speakers driven by
Gryphon Antileon Signature mono amps takes the cake. Very clear and stunningly (literally) dynamic with superb instrumental decays and tonal colour. But I was sitting in the front row when they played a dynamic jazz drum track and had to abandon ship as I was getting a headache!
Despite the aural fireworks, the system was somehow not very emotionally engaging.
The room with a full
TACT digital system including pre/processor and 6 stereo amps was also quite impressive. They played a 2 channel classical SACD of a soprano and choir via floorstanding Dali Euphonia MS4 speakers and the sound was very spacious and atmospheric with great ambience. Still heard a hint of steeliness (digititis?) though. Then they had a TACT surround AV demo and played the jail dance scene with the 6(?) female inmates from the movie 'Chicago' - sounded really dynamic and transparent but slightly hard during musical peaks. Could have been too loud for my poor 2 channel sensibilities.
My candidate for most disappointing sound was the
Pass Labs/Kharma room. It was a cd based system using Pass X600 amps, X1(?) preamp, Metronome cd transport/dac, Shunyata cables and the Kharma Midi Grand(?) speakers. But it all just sounded a bit closed-in and flat.
Missing in actionDidn't see any Audio Research, Martin Logan, Magneplanar gear at all. No SETs or big horns either.
Interestingly, Krell and Revel were only on silent display (Did the distributor finally decide that these brands cannot produce good sound together or separately?)
There was an impressive top-line Meridian system (DSP 8000 speakers and 800 series player/DAC) but they were playing it at literally whisper levels. Were they trying to hide something? Quite strange.
I didn't get to hear the Dynaudio/Mark Levinson and the PMC/Bryston rooms. Just too many people waiting in line and we were getting hungry.
Plain weirdAudio Space (the well-known HK tube amp manufacturer) had a large room displaying what must be their entire product line including an LS3/5A clone. I thought the sound was quite musical BUT they shot themselves in the foot by playing 2 separate audio systems AT ONCE in the SAME room....unbelievable! Talk about crosstalk...
Lust inducingWell, even if you disregard the astronomical cost, most of the systems I heard are too darn huge and impractical for most HK apartments. But the Verity Lohengrin speakers, McIntosh MC1201, Wadia 861SE or the huge Luxman universal player I spotted are next on the list if I win the lottery!
Guan
p.s. As always, any views, bias and cynicism above are definitely my own and I'm not responsible for any mistakes, errors or controversy
I also don't know a thing about surround AV and fancy projectors. The show was riddled with them.
