At the Indulgence Show 30th September to 1st October, 2017, some 250 brands were exhibited over 5 floors of the Hammersmith Novotel (formerly the Cunard) including some massive suites with substantial sound systems. Both live music and music production featured, and as before, a massive floor area was devoted to headphones earphones and supporting amplification.
 ERT Awards Recognises The Indulgence Show |  Victoria Ballan provided live music at the opening of the show. |
Kog Audio showed the German high-end product from Tidal, not to be confused with the Tidal music streaming service, which is Norwegian of course. A pre- and power amp were on hand with a pair of powerful but more moderate cost adjustable floor standing loudspkers called the Velvetec, here in a white matt heavy texture finish and priced at £23,000, the finish contrasting the well-known deep piano gloss of the more costly examples of this genre. Dealer Lotus is looking after Tidal audio for the UK.
New Tidal Impulse eye catching pre-power amplification at the Indulgence Show
The ground floor had a number of exhibits including guitars, vinyl, cables and accessories, and not least Townshend who were showing the latest version of the Allegri passive auto transformer line controller, now called the Allegri Plus. Improvements include a 2.5mm front panel line jack for auxiliary music players, and a revised volume step calibration for finer control of the loudness settings.
 A colourful Max Townshend with the Allegri Plus |  |
CAD demonstrated their new local grounding components for RFI noise control, perhaps and alternative to the Entreq, here kitted out with a high tech Harmonic Resolution HRS audio rack. A Trilogy 925 integrated amplifier able drove this effective noise control demonstration with Kawero Vivace loudspkers.
 Trilogy 925 integrated amp |  A detail from the HRS equipment stands seen above |
An Audio Note TT-2 turntable, ably replaying a Beatles vinyl reissue: Yello Submarine: Valve amplification and enjoyable sounds.
The impressive Vertere installation by Tourage Moghaddam with FM Acoustics The Inspiration System XS-III loudspeakers and electronics from the same brand.
The Vertere turntable and vibration control system, at work here with more F M Acoustics electronics, including a phono stage which boasts click and scratch suppression for noisier LPs, and sounded quite effective too.
The inimitable and irrepressible Costas Metaxas arrived with a new line of electronics and loudspeakers from Metaxas and Sins, looking as if they came from the film set of the opera house in the Fifth Element. Costas played open reel tapes on his prized Stellavox master recorder, sounding delicately refined and atmospheric.
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Milled from a huge block of solid alloy, a Metaxas & Sins amplifier of anthropomorphic form, one of a set of three, all analogue, line input designs at around £25,000, 50W plus 50W. The image here cannot do justice to the eye-catching form.
Yamaha NS-5000, bass reflex, recently introduced to commemorate and acknowledge the pioneering NS-1000 sealed box monitor of some 40 years ago. After a search for an ideal diaphragm material to replace the pure beryllium of the original, Yamaha has developed a silver coloured diaphragm made of ZYLON® — a synthetic fabric invented in Japan vapour-coated with a reinforcing monel alloy, and used for all three diaphragms. (Monel is an alloy of nickel and copper with further trace metals, which variations confer a range of properties.)
 |  The original, pure-piston NS-1000M studio monitor |
The J A Michell Prisma, with a more than passing resemblance to the historic Transcriptors Reference, but actually of differing engineering design.
A Teac open reel recorder playing copy master tapes gave good service with Pearl Acoustics Sibelius full range single driver loudspeakers (these are reviewed in the 2017 July-September issue HIFICRITIC).
AVM introduced a new, well styled CD player/streamer priced at a little under £12,000, this the CS 8.2 which includes a volume control.
The new Innuos Zenith ripper/server, which we aim to review soon with 2TB of specially audiophile configured, low noise SSD and massive linear power supplies.
A simple but effective demonstration for Musical Fidelity with their Core streamer now well under way in the market. The KEF Reference One three way compacts sang well in this well-presented system.
| I knew Goldmund were at the show but the signage was a bit confused and eventually I found it at the Sonata room, a dealer/agent based in North London who uniquely hold the Goldmund agency for the UK. It was worth the search because fine sounds were on demo in this room, from the Goldmund ProLogos Plus. A three-way bass reflex design, stand mounted, it is distinguished by a cantilever styled frame support while the enclosure is firmly grounded mechanically by a rigid vertical central spar/spike. It is fully active, very powerful and wirelessly connected to music sources via a high definition proprietary Goldmund interface. It has a 3-way crossover implemented in the digital domain, with full amplitude, phase and time correction. Total amplification amounts to 1.2kW and it sounded like it, fully in control of the input signal. The price is somewhere north of £60,000 complete. |  Goldmund ProLogos Plus |
There was much more to see, which was impossible to cover but these were some highlights which attracted my attention. My apologies to those not visited.
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