Popular Post BigAlMc Posted February 25, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted February 25, 2018 So I attended the Bristol Sound & Vision show yesterday, or the Bristol Show as it's often described and figured I'd share some observations. First off for once the attendees were mostly youngsters and mostly female. Nah, I'm just messing with you! The crowd was the usual mostly middle aged, or older, men. Occasionally with young adult offspring in tow and occasionally with the wife dragged along. No doubt for some reciprocal arrangement! The title of the this post refers to the fact that for the first time in the few years I've been attending such shows more of the sources were digital. And better still more of them sounded pretty good. It's been slightly depressing for me as a fully digital pilgrim that the rooms at these events that tend to take your breath away are generally vinyl sources. Last year for instance the Wilson Benesch room was stunning (as 40 grand speakers ought to be!) but the source was Dido's No Angel on a 20k turntable. This year the source was a Melco, hooked up to some very expensive CH Precision streaming and amplification components. And it sounded terrific. But then it should! The Chord Electronics room also sounded great. They were demoing their new Cutest DAC and it was very natural and impressive sounding. But the demo was odd because they paired the Cutest with the Innuos Zenith SE, a ten grand Chord integrated amp and ten grand Bowers & Wilkins speakers. The speaker wire (Chord Company, different from Chord Electronics) cost the same as the DAC. So it was odd in terms of I doubt anyone would pair a 27 grand setup with a 1,199 DAC. But I guess that was perhaps their point. The Naim & Focal room had a really nice sound too. It was their all-in-one player (the Uniti Nova I think) with music on the Uniti Core. I didn't get the Focal model but they looked and sounded terrific. A few of the other rooms I was looking forward to were a little underwhelming. But it's hard to tell because its hard to make music shine in what's essentially a hotel room with the bed and furniture removed. Naim & Wilson Benesch both had larger suite areas. But a good event and thoroughly enjoyable day. My chat with Nuno from Innuos (as described over on the Zenith SE thread) was my personal highlight. Will be interested to see if that more digital streaming than vinyl truly is the trend or was an anomaly at this show. Over and out from the train back to London. Cheers, Alan The Computer Audiophile and beerandmusic 1 1 Synergistic Research Powercell UEF SE > Sonore OpticalModule (LPS-1.2 & DXP-1A5DSC) > EtherRegen (SR4T & DXP-1A5DSC) > (Sablon 2020 LAN) Innuos PhoenixNet > Muon Streaming System > Grimm Audio MU1 server > (Sablon AES) Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC > PS Audio M1200 monoblocks > Salk Sound Supercharged Songtowers Link to comment
BigAlMc Posted February 25, 2018 Author Share Posted February 25, 2018 Oops - meant to post this in General and not in Servers. Chris @The Computer Audiophile please feel free to move it if you want. Thanks, Alan Synergistic Research Powercell UEF SE > Sonore OpticalModule (LPS-1.2 & DXP-1A5DSC) > EtherRegen (SR4T & DXP-1A5DSC) > (Sablon 2020 LAN) Innuos PhoenixNet > Muon Streaming System > Grimm Audio MU1 server > (Sablon AES) Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC > PS Audio M1200 monoblocks > Salk Sound Supercharged Songtowers Link to comment
The Computer Audiophile Posted February 25, 2018 Share Posted February 25, 2018 51 minutes ago, BigAlMc said: Oops - meant to post this in General and not in Servers. Chris @The Computer Audiophile please feel free to move it if you want. Thanks, Alan Done. Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems Link to comment
Spacehound Posted February 25, 2018 Share Posted February 25, 2018 Knowing Chord DACS, the Qutest is probably well up to driving the fancy stuff (as is the Mojo which I mostly use in my car). If I didn't have a far more expensive, though not necessarily better, DAC already I would buy one today. Recently Chord's main DAC competitor seems to be themselves. (Though their expensive Poly 'networking attachment' for the Mojo seems a bit of a farce. Who's going to carry a 'network' about and for home use it hasn't even got an ethernet socket.) Tell the show site to buy some nicer carpets. Link to comment
BigAlMc Posted February 25, 2018 Author Share Posted February 25, 2018 1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said: Done. Thanks Chris. Synergistic Research Powercell UEF SE > Sonore OpticalModule (LPS-1.2 & DXP-1A5DSC) > EtherRegen (SR4T & DXP-1A5DSC) > (Sablon 2020 LAN) Innuos PhoenixNet > Muon Streaming System > Grimm Audio MU1 server > (Sablon AES) Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC > PS Audio M1200 monoblocks > Salk Sound Supercharged Songtowers Link to comment
George47 Posted February 25, 2018 Share Posted February 25, 2018 I was at Bristol as well. One of the major companies did not have Tidal. When I questioned him he said that Tidal uses adaptive bit rates and as we were in a hotel he could start streaming at 16/44.1 but as more and more companies started streaming the bit rate would reduce as Tidal do not want delays in streaming. Is this true or just an excuse? Link to comment
NOMBEDES Posted February 25, 2018 Share Posted February 25, 2018 6 hours ago, Spacehound said: Tell the show site to buy some nicer carpets. FYI: There are entire websites devoted to hotel carpets. As long as they are reasonably clean, I don't care. In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake ~ Sayre's Law Link to comment
left channel Posted February 25, 2018 Share Posted February 25, 2018 24 minutes ago, George47 said: I was at Bristol as well. One of the major companies did not have Tidal. When I questioned him he said that Tidal uses adaptive bit rates and as we were in a hotel he could start streaming at 16/44.1 but as more and more companies started streaming the bit rate would reduce as Tidal do not want delays in streaming. Is this true or just an excuse? It's an admission they were too cheap to buy a dedicated wired Ethernet connection for their booth. Tidal does stream in a variable bit rate, though in that situation the app might have done even worse and just stopped working completely at the most embarrassing moments — just as other apps slow or hang when too many people are on the same Wi-Fi — but that problem could have been eliminated or much reduced with a wired connection. Everyone wants to date my avatar. Link to comment
beerandmusic Posted February 25, 2018 Share Posted February 25, 2018 8 hours ago, BigAlMc said: First off for once the attendees were mostly youngsters and mostly female. that was cruel (grin). chord, focal, B&W, wow....sounds like heaven! Link to comment
The Computer Audiophile Posted February 25, 2018 Share Posted February 25, 2018 1 hour ago, George47 said: I was at Bristol as well. One of the major companies did not have Tidal. When I questioned him he said that Tidal uses adaptive bit rates and as we were in a hotel he could start streaming at 16/44.1 but as more and more companies started streaming the bit rate would reduce as Tidal do not want delays in streaming. Is this true or just an excuse? It’s a complete misunderstanding of how digital audio works. The audio will always be 16/44.1. Even Spotify and Pandora stream 16/44.1. Tidal will stream lossless FLAC if you set it to stream lossless FLAC. Whether the bit rate is 1411 or 500 kbps, Tidal lossless is lossless. P.S. I also don’t doubt it was a cost saving measure because audio show internet rates are usually hundreds of dollars per room. Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems Link to comment
BigAlMc Posted February 26, 2018 Author Share Posted February 26, 2018 The Darko site has a similar but different take on the unbalanced Chord Cutest DAC vs far more expensive components demo. "Coming down to earth (slightly). Chord’s £1200 Qutest was turning digits into music for a £21k amp and speaker combo (B&W 803s and Chord 3350). David supporting Goliath. With aplomb; digital really has changed system building rules." https://darko.audio/2018/02/highlights-from-bristol-sound-vision-2018/ Synergistic Research Powercell UEF SE > Sonore OpticalModule (LPS-1.2 & DXP-1A5DSC) > EtherRegen (SR4T & DXP-1A5DSC) > (Sablon 2020 LAN) Innuos PhoenixNet > Muon Streaming System > Grimm Audio MU1 server > (Sablon AES) Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC > PS Audio M1200 monoblocks > Salk Sound Supercharged Songtowers Link to comment
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