London Festival of Sound

Novotel Hammersmith, London: 28-30  September 2018

The main B&W PA sound rig and stage for the Festival of Sound concerts

Predictably quiet on a weekday morning it was a breeze getting round the show on the Friday first day. I wanted to catch up with audio industry members, see and book new products and discuss findings for published reviews in HIFICRITIC.

Perhaps the main attraction was a joint presentation by Naim and Focal of one of the most costly systems ever shown, estimated at around £350,000 complete with sources amplification, cables, tuned equipment racks, and loudspeakers. 

The music source was the latest high resolution flagship  streamer, the ND555 which  a panoply of features such as high-res UPnP™ high-resolution streaming, AirPlay, Chromecast built-in, Bluetooth (aptX HD), Spotify Connect, TIDAL, ROON compatibility, vTuner internet radio and multi room streaming as well as digital and USB inputs and not least, DSD playback.

The ‘focal point’ of the high end system was the latest and major iteration of the well regarded Focal Grand Utopia Be flagship, with the new beryllium IAL2™ (Infinite Acoustic Loading) tweeters, mass damper driver suspension, low inductance motor systems, and further reinforcements to the cabinet structure. The installers had to work hard micro tuning the Grandé Utopia EVO 3’s Focus Time™ alignment which they say allows for 1,458 possible adjustments to optimise sound quality in situ. The installers also had to  deal with that great weight of 265kgs per channel. The Utopias ably drove a decent sized space and at generously impressive but thankfully not excessive sound levels. Driving that focal point was nothing less than the one horsepower (750W) per channel Naim Statement tower monoblocks working with the matching S1 Statement preamplifier.

The latest Focal Grande Utopia Be Evo 3 powered by a full Naim Statement electronics including the new ND555 multi format streamer with auxiliary 555PS DR power supply; see below

One channel of the second Naim/Focal system with the new Focal Kanta 3

KEF had several areas and rooms for extended demonstrations, and from their new passive r​ange the elegant R5 slim floorstander caught my eye, here in a white finish and also with an eye-catching matching light grey grille.

The Cord Cables demonstration suite

CHORD Cables fielded two displays including a demonstration room where they compared the sound quality of various designs and took questions including the worth of bi-wiring, for which the view was that it had had its day.

Chord electronics brought their compact series of DACs and audio players, demonstrating in conjunction with Danish loudspeaker company Raihdo in an eye-catching blue display!

Audionote’s well practiced and easily installed demo system

Audionote found a quiet corner off a corridor to set up an effective system, making crisp, dynamic and well timed sounds from LP, especially from an old Jacques Loussier jazz record, no, not the Bach series, but his own improvisation, titled Pulsion. The audio components are several thousand pounds each, but not bonkers prices, and you did not want to leave this modest room such was the compelling musical entertainment on offer......

Jacques Loussier LP Pulsion, post the first phase of his Bach improvisations

PMC put on a great sound with the AVM MA 8.2 monoblocks, 2kW/ch 4ohm, played loud, but not too loud, with their flagship fenestria loudspeakers first seen at the Munich Show. Not intended for Pro monitoring, top class control and clarity was shown thanks to the sophisticated anti-vibration measures adopted both for the mid range and the high frequency units. The mid dome has an almost completely open pole leading to a graded tapered termination, painstakingly tuned for the minimum  coloration signature. Characteristically agile in the PMC mould, the crisp focus observed also belied their great size.

AVM distributor PMC also showed many AVM products including a fetching acrylic platter turntable with suffused platter illumination in blue, this Evolution R 5.3 with 10 inch AVM tonearm.

AVM Evolution R5.3

Max Townshend fielded his new high setting resolution preamp/control unit based on the illustrious Allegri, but now powered, and with remote control, also with headphone amplifier and dubbed Enigma, priced on the way to £10,000. I recall these  steps are now fine tuned to an 0.4 dB resolution.

Audiolab showed their new and competitively priced 6000 series of electronics, a multi format and powerful integrated amplifier with a matching CD transport.

PROAC fielded two pleasant sounding systems in conjunction with Michell turntables, here using the high end K3  loudspeaker at nearly £10,000 and also the more competitive Response DT6 at £2,000 a pair. Amplification included the Audio Research GSI 75.

Trifonics: One of the many music sessions at the show, and very musically accomplished this trio sounded. A welcome reminder of the amazing sound of the real thing.

The scene before Ken Ishiwata the Marantz designer came in. It was playing demo tracks on his new audiophile tuned electronics, powering the highly respected Q Acoustics Concept 500 loudspeakers, which we reviewed very favourably in the last issue, and this system sounded very good indeed.

Vertere shown their latest lower priced complete turntable the D-Groove, beautifully finished as usual. It has been in design and development for over three years and will be released in November 2018. It has an improved motor drive, bearings and a brand new largely planar tone arm.

Vertere also took a large room as before, here powered by FM Acoustics electronics and using the towering PMC studio monitors offering exceptional dynamics.

Supertramp on vinyl for Mark Levinson, playing on the Mark Levinson No515 turntable, with  Levinson Electronics and Revel F208 BE  loudspeakers these now   with beryllium dome tweeters and sounding very well integrated in this system. 

Apologies to all those I was not able not visit in my available time slot.