John Scott tells us about his visit to Cranage and the North West Audio Show.

As you curve around the driveway, Cranage Hall swings into sight looking like the kind of venerable country pile where Miss Scarlet could conceivably have done it with the candlestick in the ballroom. We are not here for a murder mystery weekend though (at least I hope not).

For two days each year, Cranage is home to The North West Audio Show, coincidentally the same two days when ladies wishing to date greying or bald older men with unhealthy Body Mass Indexes are likely to find themselves with slimmer pickings than usual. Sorry girls, we are otherwise engaged. Happily though, the NWAS attendee demographic may be an indicator that the world of the audio enthusiast has moved on (at least a bit) from being the domain of a bunch of blokes with a preternatural interest in boxes that make a noise. The show increasingly attracts young people, both male and female and families with children, and even a cuddly canine or two. [Surely you’ve missed an opportunity for a woofer gag here, John – Ed].

NORTH WEST AUDIO SHOW IS BACK!

After a two-year Covid-induced hiatus, NWAS was back, bigger and hopefully better than ever. It was certainly noticeably busier than in 2019 with a real buzz in the air. People were happy to be back. For many attendees, there would be old friends to meet and new friends to make, as well as new gear to investigate and listen to. With more than seventy-five exhibitors on-site and a range of seminars taking place throughout the weekend, there was something for anyone with any level of interest in audio reproduction. As ever, Kris Sawicki and his team were on hand to make sure that everything ran smoothly and did a brilliant job.

MY FAVOURITES AT CRANAGE

With so much to see and hear over the two days, I knew early on that narrowing down a choice of my favourite rooms would be something of a challenge, but I’ll give it a go. I think that no matter how technology changes, there will always be a place for multicomponent systems; a set-up with a turntable, CD player, amp, streamer and speakers for example still seems likely to be the norm for the foreseeable future.  Increasingly though, people are looking for a simpler setup that provides true audiophile sound quality and I thought this year’s show reflected that a lot more than last time around. It so happened that several of the rooms that stood out for me reflected this move towards a more streamlined system. So, let’s start by having a look at some of those.

“Start at the top floor and work down, it’s easier that way” I had been advised. So obviously I started at the bottom and worked up. One of the first rooms I went into was Kii Audio and their Kii Three BXT active speaker. The Three is a modular system; available as a standpoint-sized speaker comprising four woofers, one midrange and one tweeter and powered by 3,000 watts of Class D amplification. This can be upgraded with Kii’s BXT module which adds a further sixteen woofers per pair and boosts the amplification to 4,000 watts. “Tight, dynamic, rhythmic,” said my notes. And they were. They were also FUN. Lots and lots and lots of fun. Are they a speaker I could live with full-time?  I’m not sure but boy, I’d love to try. The £27.5k asking price may prove prohibitive though, but you do get a whole lot of speaker for the money, and you can’t put a price on fun, can you?

Along the corridor, KEF was showcasing their new LS60 Wireless speaker. With its slim front profile housing a four-inch driver and each side panel hosting four other drivers, the LS60s produced an open, airy and elegant sound that was as attractive as the speakers themselves. Due to launch later this year at around £6,000, I predict a strong level of interest in these; people were talking about them not just in the KEF room but in other rooms as well.

Still within the realm of the active speaker, Golden Ear had their Triton 3+ floorstander on show, being fed by Stack Audio’s Link II streamer. Another slim, attractive speaker, I was immediately struck by the Triton 3+’s impressive bass response. Spying a subwoofer in the corner of the room, I wondered if this was contributing to the sound. If so, it was doing it in a spectacularly integrated manner. Golden Ear’s rep assured me, however, that the sub was switched off and explained that each speaker had its own built-in sub. Listening to Betty LaVette’s version of Bob Dylan’s Going Going Gone, I was already imagining how the Triton Three+s might fit into my listening room. This is a speaker that I’d like to spend more time with and at £3,000 they seem like ridiculous value for money.

Moving on to the world of more traditional multi-box HiFi, if you had come to Cranage with £27,000 burning a hole in your pocket and didn’t find the Kii Threes approach to music-making to be to your taste, Audionote had a complete system comprising of a turntable, tone arm, cartridge, CD player, amplifier, speakers, speaker stands and all necessary cables and interconnects that would leave you with £4,000 change and which was making superb sounds in their room. While I’m sure every individual component was playing its part in the overall sound, if I was looking to investigate further then the Cobra amplifier with its built-in DAC is probably where I would start.

When I visited Wilkinson Audio, the new RA180 amplifier from Hifi Rose was getting a lot of admiring views from fellow visitors. My current amplifier has a grand total of zero controls on the front panel; the RA180 seems to have more knobs, buttons, switches and sliders on it than you can shake a stick at but it’s a lovely looking thing and I desperately wanted to smuggle it home to have a fiddle with. It didn’t hurt that it sounded as good as it looked driving a pair of Fyne Audio F1-5 speakers and fed by the Hifi Rose RS150 streamer. This is another highly-attractive looking bit of kit; those 70s-styled VU meters look even better in real life than they do in the press photos and are just a small part of what the multi-function front display is capable of. Topping off the Wilkinson Audio offer, Stack Audio was making another appearance, this time with their modified LP12 turntable exhibiting a wealth of detail and refinement.

Alchris Audio is a relatively new brand helmed by speaker builder Alan Clark and ably supported by his partner Christine Ineson, although Alan and Christine are well known to Cranage visitors through their previous range of products. Alchris had three speakers on display this year: the standmount AR6 at £799; the AR66, Alan’s reimagining of the Celestion Ditton 66, at £4,500 and a pair of custom-built “Predator” speakers. Such is the uniqueness of the latter that by Sunday afternoon, Alan had fixed a hastily -scribbled note to one of the pair reading: “YES, these are speakers” so that no one else had to ask that question. Sadly, I didn’t get the opportunity to hear the Predators, nor the AR6s but the AR66s were magnificent with a sound and presence to match their size. Spear Of Destiny’s Liberator rattled around my head for quite a while afterwards. Many people I chatted to rated the Alchris room as one of the best in the show and I can only imagine that Alan is going to be a very busy boy in the immediate future.

On Saturday night, Chasing The Dragon hosted an evening of music by Clare Teal. I’m not sure what amplification or speakers were used but with my eyes closed, I could easily imagine that Claire was actually standing fifteen feet in front of me. [She was, you idiot. It was a live show -Ed] Oh, that explains that. Clare and her excellent accompanist, Jason Rebello, performed a set of jazz standards such as Just The Way You Look Tonight and It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing) along with a couple of Paul McCartney numbers – fittingly, as it was his birthday that day – and a lovely version of Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars from Clare’s Hey Ho album. I particularly enjoyed Clare’s sardonic between-song banter: “Have you been buying wires?” she inquired, with the air of someone addressing an audience at St Olaf’s Home For The Terminally Bewildered. This led to an interesting discussion on the potential costs involved in purchasing a “needle” for a record player. The addition of live music to the show was very welcome and is something I hope we see again in future shows. Maybe a contemporary singer/songwriter next time, Kris?

Finally, I’d like to mention a room that may not get featured in any of the other reports: The Bar. The bar is an important part of The North West Audio Show, not (just) for the reasons you might imagine but because the show is a huge social event for many people and the bar is where experiences are shared and recommendations exchanged both during and at the end of the day.

Ultimately, HiFi is, or should be, all about music, and inevitably some of the chat in the bar centred around the music that was being played in the various rooms during the show. I’m guessing that music choice is something that exhibitors take pretty seriously. They want to make their products sound at their best and have no doubt taken the time to pick a selection of music that does just that. I’m also guessing that exhibitors know from years of experience that they cannot please everyone with what they choose to play. Whether it was for these particular reasons or not, I found that there was a lot of what I came to think of as “plinky-plonky jazz” on the go. Don’t get me wrong, I like jazz, particularly if it is by John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Thelonious Monk or Billie Holliday;  I even have a reasonably high tolerance of Diana Krall (I only encountered her being played once) but at one point on Saturday afternoon it seemed like every room I went into was playing anonymous piano and double bass-led stuff that sounded great but was totally non-engaging. Fortunately, not all rooms were guilty of this; Ophidian was blasting out AC/DC when I visited and Alchris had a highly entertaining rock hour each day between noon and 1:00 pm. Before you accuse me of going in the huff because my personal tastes weren’t being catered for, I’m mainly bringing this up because the chat in the bar suggested that too much plinky-plonk was not a good thing. Maybe some feedback that exhibitors could consider for next year?

While on the subject of exhibitor feedback, I found all of the dealers and distributors that I spoke to were friendly and keen to engage me in conversation about their products. But (you knew there was going to be a but, didn’t you?) I lost count of the number of rooms in which no one spoke to me, or any other visitors to the room, at all. Perhaps they were happy just to let the music do the talking although one particular room seemed to specialise in playing John Cage’s 4’ 33 every time I came near. A simple “How are you?” or “Are you having a good time?” makes all the difference. Maybe ask me if I’d like one of the boiled sweets that you’ve put out for me to look at. Or even, and I realise I’m being a bit radical here, ask me if there is any music I would particularly like to hear; unbelievably, only one room in the entire show did this. Just a little bit of engagement goes a long, long way and I know that in six months the rooms I will still remember and will still be talking about will be the ones where I was actively made to feel welcome.

So, that was a flavour of my time at The North West Audio Show 2022. if you were there, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I I did. If you didn’t make it along this year, maybe I’ll see you there next time.

Here are the links to all of the North West Audio Show 2022 Reports:

North West Audio Show 2022 – The Big Report

Bird’s Eye View Of The North West Audio Show 2022

North West Audio Show 2022 – John Scott’s Report

North West Audio Show 2022 Report – Ian Ringstead

North West Audio Show Playlist

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For all the coverage of the North West Audio Show 2022, click here!

John Scott