ISE 2023 HIFI PIG REPORT

ISE Barcelona 2023, or to give it its full title Integrated Systems Europe 2023, is an annual event where “the global AV community once again descends on Barcelona for four days of exhibits, education sessions, meetings and events…”.

I’ll be absolutely honest and say that I thought that ISE was just about home cinema and smart homes, but it turns out that it’s all that and a whole lot more to boot. However, our initial interest in ISE was piqued given that a good number of the brands we deal with and associate with straight up HiFi were going to be exhibiting there… and it’s in Barcelona which is a fabulous city to visit in its own right.

I was also really interested to see that a number of pro-audio brands were going to be exhibiting and given my rekindled interest in all things sound-system and DJ, ISE looked to be shaping up to be an event I could see me really enjoying a great deal. I was also interested to see that there was a good deal of chatter before the event’s opening about the whole “content creation” side of things, and given that we are always looking for new ways to bring news and whatnot to “readers”, this too seemed like a good opportunity to see what was happening in this world too.

However, I must stress that my thoughts about the show were that it was not likely to be something that would excite me in the same way that, say, Munich, Bristol, or North West Audio Show would get my heart racing. We were also unsure of the scale of ISE Barcelona and my expectations were that it would be somewhere around the size of a large national audio show – somewhere between Cranage (NWAS) and Munich. The reality was something a bit different and, to be fair, given the highly organised nature of the event’s registration procedures, the €175 entrance fee, and the daily updates in the run-up to the show, I should have been more prepared for what greeted us at ISE 2023.

To give you an idea of the scale of Integrated Systems Europe a quick look on their website had a list of 1052 exhibitors – that’s a lot – and the downloadable guide is 140 pages…and Jean-Michel Jarre was going to be there. Yep, this was a big event, but how much of it was really going to be relevant to little old HiFi PiG given the niche in which we operate?

What we did know was that Monitor Audio was launching a new Custom Install series of speakers, McIntosh and Sonus faber are set to world debut new products, showcase their premium CI offerings, and demonstrate a 400,000€ home theatre system, L-Acoustics Creations were showcasing their Fiji 2.1 loudspeaker system, Trinnov were going to be there, Waterfall Audio were partnering with Int3 to provide visitors with acoustic and aesthetic solutions for lifestyle living rooms and private cinemas, HARMAN Luxury would have its installation-focused display, including a JBL-powered cinema room and garden area, Meridian would be showcasing a number of its audio solutions including the £75,000 flagship Meridian DSP8000 XE loudspeaker in Volcanic Red, and PMC would be using the ISE Show in Barcelona to demonstrate its ci series loudspeakers to the show visitors, exposing them to the speakers used as the reference standard in Dolby Atmos mixing studios across the world. We’d seen what PMC had been constructing specifically for ISE in the days running up to the show, and it was really at that point we sort of clicked that this was a seriously big event where huge sums of money and effort were being invested by really diverse companies to showcase what they were up to. This was all really cutting edge stuff and it sort of had me question where HiFi was going. I suppose a better way to look at HiFi in the home these days, if we move away from the traditional perspective in which many of us seem pretty entrenched, is to see music (HiFi) as just a part of the whole home entertainment (and living) experience.

Were we ready for what ISE Barcelona would present to us and had we allowed enough time at the show to properly do it justice. On arrival at the show and a quick scan of the ISE website where it said that in previous years there had been over 43 thousand visitors from 151 countries my thoughts were erring on the side of “Feck, this is a LOT bigger than we were envisaging!” and that we perhaps should have dedicated a lot more time to the event than we had done. To put this into some kind of perspective for you, High End Munich attracts about 20 000 visitors! However, we were here and we were really looking forward to a whole new experience and were ready to see what ISE Barcelona had to offer.

So, having arrived we note that it’s incredibly organised; show your pass on your phone and they print off your pass and give you a lanyard. There’s loads of free glossy guides readily available and ALL the people manning the doors and everywhere else are unbelievably nice and friendly. Oh, and with your pass you get a 4-day metro and public transport pass, which is uber-cool, though Uber isn’t included – not that you would need an Uber given the excellent Metro system in Barcelona.

The first thing you notice is the sheer scale of this thing – it makes Munich High End look like a quiet afternoon’s “stitch and bitch”. If you have been to Munich and thought that daunting (it is) then this is on a whole new level of overwhelming. You get a sense of the scale when a show/event/call-it-what-you-will has its own OS-style fold out map. Seriously, the scale of ISE is totally off the scale!

At the Metro we bumped into a small group of Asian guys and we got chatting. Turns out they make high-end digital displays. I asked where they were based, fully expecting somewhere exotic and, well, Asian. Turns out they were from Birmingham!

This seems to be a theme of the show and at every turn you are bombarded with digital displays of one sort or another and some are humungous in their scale. Is this a theme we can expect to see in audio? I sort of think it is, yes. Let’s face it, we are interacting more and more with our telephone and tablet screens when streaming from the likes of Qobuz or when using ROON, with the latter allowing for an ever more content rich experience in the way we consume our music. But do we “consume” our music, or is “consume” a word too detached from the physical and emotional experience of sitting, slowing down, and enjoying our preferred artists perform in our own living rooms. I think it is a word that will likely meet resistance from some quarters and I’ll probably be in that corner of the room, but the truth is that the mass market for music does indeed consume it, just like they consume food, and any other products. Younger folk are showing us that they use the devices that they have to hand to enjoy their music and I think that home audio will become, for many, an extension of that device and many more people will enjoy their music via “integrated” and connected systems and those systems are likely to revolve around a screen…and that screen is likely to be the phone or tablet that they already own.

Anyway, enough of tyring to be Nostradamus and on with what I’m supposed to be writing about.

SO WHAT DID WE SEE AND EXPERIENCE AT ISE 2023?

PMC

After getting our bearings we headed off to see our friends at PMC where we were treated to a listen in their Dolby Atmos booth. This booth had been especially built for ISE and showcased the British company’s ci series of loudspeakers, with the ci representing Custom Install. There’s a whole range of speakers available that are either wall-mounted or can be built into the fabric of a building. PMC say this about their ci range “The Custom Install (ci) series from PMC brings all the magic of the movies and music to the home. Since 1991, when the company was founded, we have been the speaker brand used to create hit music as well as the biggest Hollywood movie soundtracks, from Titanic to Skyfall and Iron Man to Spiderman, and have been awarded an Emmy® for our contribution to recording excellence.”

Listening to The Beatles I thought the experience of listening to music was quite wonderful, and whilst it’s very different to a two-channel listening experience there is no doubting its immersive and enveloping experience. I described it as like being within the band whilst they were playing. I remember speaking to Peter Thomas a few years ago, when we took a listen to the Miles Davis Atmos master on one of PMC’s systems at Munich High-End and him commenting that when stereo was launched it was seen by many as a gimmick and a fad but then became the norm (I’m paraphrasing, of course) and I think that for many, this more immersive surround experience will become the norm for music as well as for playing movies. After all, who can afford to spend what is a substantial outlay on an all sing an all dancing home cinema AND a dedicated two channel playback system. As I say, I enjoyed this experience a great deal, but my heart still belongs to straightforward two-channel playback…but then I’m getting on and a tad stuck in my ways but I really do get this whole Atmos experience and it is the future for some!

Whatever, the PMC booth was awarded ‘Best of Show’ at ISE 2023 awards in the Residential Systems category for the ci series and I really enjoyed it too. Room treatment in the PMC booth was by GIK, another product that we have championed over the last few years and which we use extensively in both our dedicated listening spaces. The PMC Cinema system also featured processing and amplification from French brand Trinnov and cables from Kordz.

MCINSTOSH AND SONUS FABER

Next up was drinks and nibbles with McIntosh and Sonus faber who were introducing their $400,000 home cinema system which of course was something we had to experience but that would have to wait until the next day.

As we were waiting to get into the booth we caught up with Fine Sounds UK Country Manager Andrew Oattes who had this to say about the system and the whole concept of the McIntosh Custom Instal (Ci-Fi) project and philosophy. He had this to say “ Ci-Fi is fundamentally about prioritising emotional experience at the heart of integration projects. We believe in the power of designing and engineering systems that excel in their ability to solicit an emotional response from the listener/viewer. It’s what we get out of bed every day to achieve, and it takes great engineering and knowledge from the integrator to design and install projects that provide the very best experience. We believe that the result of the Ci-Fi message for the client is something should be the goal of any company in our space: happier customers because they have an incredible system in their homes, and better profitability for the integrator – what’s not to like?”

This was a massive system with all the amps and what not on display outside the booth (and being watched over so no one inadvertently twiddled the wrong knob).

Once ushered into the room the lights dimmed and the show began. The first snippet was a bit from the film The Greatest Showman, a film I’d not seen. The scene was a solo vocal performance and it was stunning. We all talk about it in reviews and what no but what Andrew said above about the emotional response was absolutely spot on and this was a goosebumps moment for sure. Other snippets followed and we went out with a bang from Top Gun and whilst I was expecting a massive “BOOOOM” Tom Crusise’s plane exploding from Top Gun was subtle but with power.

If you have the money and the space then this has to be on your list.

HOLOPLOT

This was interesting and as they had been sending us press releases we thought we ought to check this out. We were promised a system that could beam a two channel system around a room to give the impression of a multi-speaker surround system from a two-channel system. We were also told that we would experience individual areas of a room being pinpointed for a particular sound whilst other areas would not hear the sound.

We met up with Oliver that runs PMC outside and had a natter before walking into the large space with a good few other folk. We were greeted with what I assumed were laser lines on the floor but were actually just fluorescent tape – took me back to my Roughneck Sounds days (you had to be there).

HOLOPLOT is a Berlin-based hardware and software manufacturer of 3D professional audio technology. Whilst not being home HiFi products their patented technologies have the potential for crossover into home audio and of course home cinema and AV applications.

The HOLOPLOT X1 Matrix Array range of products includes the X1 Modul 96 full-range and the X1 Modul 80-S loudspeaker and sub. The HOLOPLOT X1 is specifically built for high performance applications, in areas such as large conferences, concerts, venues, theme parks and immersive installations.

The German brand has spent the last ten years developing some very interesting technology that allows for precise sound control, over large distances, optimising the listening experience for every individual audience member and eliminating the traditional ‘sweet spot’. HOLOPLOT’s patented technology Audio-Beamforming and Wavefield Synthesis is designed to steer sound beams (vertically and horizontally) directly to the listener’s precise location.

So, we had a set of speakers above the stage and we had a listen. Nothing out of the ordinary. Then “beams” of specific sound were fired at two wooden boards to either side of the hall and this gave the impression of exaggerated stereo effects (almost surround sound) and this was further enhanced by them beaming specific sounds to boards at the back of the room too to create an even more immersive experience.

Then speakers speaking in different languages were beamed to different boxes (remember the luminous tape). This was very impressive with you hearing just one language in each box but all playing through just the front speakers and all at the same time. This is impressive stuff and you can imagine it being used at multilingual events. What was even more impressive was when they beamed a specific sound down just the middle of the hall so that when you were elsewhere in the hall you heard everything that was playing but in that “beam” of sound you heard the “hidden” sound. All quite incredible, really and a sign of where we are at and where we are going with clever DSP-based systems.

This could be seen as gimmicky but it was very impressive. I don’t know if it was HiFi in the strictest sense but in clubs, churches, and conferences I can really see this taking off in a big way. I could also see a more refined version being used in the home for a surround system using just one set of speakers.

WATERFALL

It’s always nice to see the guys from French HiFi brand Waterfall but we never seem to have the time to sit and have a natter. Given that, despite its size, ISE doesn’t currently have a whole load of HiFi-centric brands exhibiting, it was nice to be able to pass more than a few moments at this stand.

Waterfall have been doing ISE for years and were showing off their Elora Evo + Sub, as well as 2 Channel audio demos, showcasing the Waterfall Victoria Evo loudspeakers. On the home-cinema side of things they had their Pro Custom Series as a 2.2 system featuring LCR500 and SUB600S, powered by the recently launched new RS700 DSP Amplifier with 700 W per Channel.

Int3 solutions worked with Waterfall and offer bespoke cinema interiors and custom media walls, incorporating fabric walls, acoustic treatments, and dynamic lighting solutions from Light Walls. Int3 provided the exhibition stand to demonstrate Waterfall Audio technology integrated with Int3 solutions and were showcasing the fully isolated Modular Baffle Wall.

L-ACOUSTICS

L-Acoustics were showing off their Fiji 5.1 system, comprising five X4i 2-way passive coaxial loudspeakers, an SB10i infra-low frequency subwoofer, and a pair of LA2Xi amplified controllers. The discreet X4i loudspeakers are just 116 x 116 x 99mm in size and come with a colour-matched pivoting bracket and cables for easy installation. The SB10i is designed to slip near invisibly into residential décor, being easily hidden under furniture thanks to its minimal 170mm height.

For Fiji applications requiring sympathy with room décor, L-Acoustics Creations can create units RAL colour-matched to customer requirements. Several unique colour samples will be on display at ISE to show off this bespoke option.

HARMAN LUXURY AUDIO

HARMAN Luxury Audio brought along ARCAM, JBL Synthesis, Lexicon, Mark Levinson, and Revel and exhibiting under its JBL Synthesis marque.

They had a custom-built cinema room, which we didn’t get a chance to go in, but it housed both a high-end and entry-level system including the SCL-1, the £18,000 in-room/built-in loudspeaker and flagship of the JBL Synthesis SCL loudspeaker range. Bass came from the £9,000 SSW-1 subwoofer. The entry-level cinema set-up had loudspeakers from further down the Synthesis Custom Model (SCL) range including the SCL-6, which is the line’s largest traditional in-wall model. JBL Synthesis electronics included a pack of SDA-2200 power amplifiers, the SDR-38 16-channel Class G AVR, and the SDA-7120 power amplifier.

Conceal is JBL’s invisible loudspeaker range and is a flush-mount design. A Revel SA1000 rackmount amplifier and ARCAM SA30 Glass G stereo engine powered a pair of Conceal C86 invisible speakers and a C82W invisible subwoofer system. JBL designed the Stage XD Series loudspeakers to work perfectly in a variety of applications, both indoors and outdoors, and they had the XD-6 and its smaller sibling, the XD-5, both in stereo forms, both featuring an IP67 waterproof rating. The JBLs were on the end of electronics from ARCAM and Lexicon.

FOCAL AND NAIM

Sister brands Focal and Naim had a really lovely stand with a couple of dem rooms, one featuring the flagship Focal 1000 CI speakers and the other the Naim 200 series electronics, but the dreaded WiFi failure had struck so we only got to have a quick look round.

MERIDIAN

Meridian were showing off a number of its audio solutions including the £75,000 flagship Meridian DSP8000 XE loudspeaker in Volcanic Red – and yes, it looks fabulous! This is the first Meridian loudspeaker to emerge from the company’s Extreme Engineering Program which commenced more than six years ago. It is built on a brand-new audio architecture, using higher specification, more powerful components, and “Meridian’s expertise in psychoacoustics”.

On a more manageable level Meridian had the more compact DSP3200 loudspeakers in a Volcanic Orange colour. The speakers employ Meridian’s DSP technologies with two integrated amplifiers, on-board digital signal processing, and two drivers. Meridian also showed the 210 Streamer, the 218 Zone Controller, a 258 Power Amplifier, a 271 Digital Theatre Controller and the 251 Powered Zone Controller.

TRINNOV

French brand Trinnov were showing off their new technology at ISE 2023 in partnership with Krix, Sony, and Officina Acustica in an active 13.16.6 channel home cinema system. All loudspeakers and subwoofers were by the Australian manufacturer Krix. The screen channels were comprised of Krix’s MX-40 LCR modules. These 3-way, bi-amped speakers feature Krix’s patented horn design, providing a uniform, constant directivity pattern, improved frequency response and extremely low distortion. Krix’s most versatile surround speaker, the Hyperphonix 45, was used in sixteen surround and overhead positions around the room to place viewers in the middle of the action. The Double Bass Array consists of sixteen Cyclonix 18” subwoofers – eight at the front of the room and eight at the back. The whole system was being driven by four Trinnov Amplitude16 power amplifiers. Surround and overhead speakers were all powered with single-ended channels, whilst screen channels and subwoofers were all bridged.

Unfortunately, time constraints meant we weren’t able to take a listen in their booth.

MORE FROM THE SHOW…

We also spotted some more brands we know from the HiFi world

FOLLOW UP

Time constraints meant that we couldn’t spend as much time as we would have liked with the different brands we know as this was more a “what’s all this ISE malarkey thing about kind of visit” but next year we will be back and will be ready for what ISE has in store for us. In addition to this all the stands we saw were constantly busy and in some circumstances, a wave to the folk we knew and a quick shufty around the exhibits was all that was achievable.

Mike Blackman, Managing Director of Integrated Systems Events, commented: “It’s been an extraordinary week and it’s hugely gratifying for us to look back and realise we’ve delivered an exceptional show for our industry and the wonderful city of Barcelona. We’ve had unprecedented visitor levels to the show, so much inspiring content and features on display, and ground-breaking visits from the King of Spain on Tuesday and the President of Catalonia on Thursday to add both a royal and a political seal of approval to the show. This week at ISE 2023 confirms that we can safely say the global AV and systems integration industry is back with an impressive bang!” Whilst mentioning the King Of Spain, Mike didn’t mention that HiFi PiG’s Lin and Stu were at the show – we’ll have a word!

The earlier adopters from the HiFi world will be the ones that profit the most, in my opinion but I do think that in the coming years his will grow from the audio perspective and others will come on board.

ISE returns to Barcelona on Tuesday 30th January – Friday 2nd February 2024 and HiFi PiG will be there again.