HIFI PIG’S JANINE ELLIOT BRINGS YOU HER AUDIO SHOW DELUXE 2024 HIGHLIGHTS

I couldn’t believe that a year had gone by since the first Audio Show Deluxe when I turned up at Whittlebury Hall on March 23rd 2024.

RACING BREAKFAST

On a very pleasant but cold morning, I walked into the very familiar hotel, which has hosted a number of British HiFi shows over the years. The noise of F3 cars running around Silverstone racecourse nearby was a sound I was getting well used to by now. After free orange juice, a pastry and a coffee it was time to start visiting the rooms on the ground and first floor.

NO ORDINARY HIFI SHOW

This is no ordinary show, not least because of the free coffee and even beer fizz and wine, but it also just shows the top-end HiFi for sale. No hotel room is perfect but the sound from most rooms was very good. Set up by Stuart Smith from Hifipig.com and Kris Sawicki who also organises the fabulous North West Audio Show in the Summer, this was also going to be a very entertaining weekend with live performances from the Bowfiddle Trio (who also appeared in the very first Deluxe show), The Sweethearts (a female vocal trio), The Lily Dior Band (Lily is one of Australia’s greatest singers) and my favourite acoustic guitarist Antonio Forcione. His guitar playing is not only mind-boggling but the entertainment provided makes everyone smile, using the guitar as a percussion instrument as well as stringed! So much so, that there were two performances on the Sunday.

AUDIO SHOW DELUXE 2024

I was to be equally entertained by the manufacturers and distributors at the show. Only in one room did I have to make a quick exit as the sound was just too bright for my taste. Many of the rooms were excellent.

VERTERE AND STRATTON ACOUSTICS

One such room was housing Vertere’s excellent range of turntables, phono-stages, cables, Pulse HB power distributor and arms, and with amplification from FM Acoustics and the new Stratton Acoustics Elypsis 12 loudspeaker from the North London manufacturer, coming in at £35k.

The bottom of the speaker is an unusual angled shape necessitating them being held in the distinctive wired metal crate speaker stand. Last year they introduced their much larger (than my house) Elypsis 1512. Vertere also had their three LPs on sale from Caezar (Joe Donnelly and JJ Gilmour) and Dutch singer Elles Springs. Joe was there to sign copies.

Additionally, Miles Showell, mastering and cutting engineer who specialises in half-speed LP mastering on the legendary but modified Neumann VMS 80 lathe, and whose work includes at the iconic Abbey Road Studios, was there to talk about his work and how he creates the very best masters, with lots of excellent musical examples, such as Wings “Band on the Run” re-release.

KEF AND SOULUTION

KEF were there to show off their £180k Muon speakers powered by Soulution pre/monos (500 series). This was a surprisingly good performance in the room. The tweeter is the same as on their cheaper Blade with the tangerine waveguide front design. Looks lovely, but again too big for my house.

INNUOS AND WILSON BENESCH

Similarly, Wilson Benesch’s beautiful Omnium £98k loudspeakers with IGx infrasonic generator and powered by Audio Research monoblocks sounded great, but again very large.

CONNECTING MUSIC DISTRIBUTION

Of course, there were lots of speakers that are much smaller and don’t require taking out a mortgage. The Sonus Faber Minima AmatorII standmounts (pictured are the floorstanding Maxima version which were also used in the room) at £4250 worked well with the aged Mastersound Evolution 845 55W dual mono class A integrated and excellent Bricasti M19 CD and M1S2 DAC. This was in the Connecting Music Distribution room.

CYRUS AND AUDIO PHYSIC

 The Audio Physic Codex loudspeaker, from Brilon, Germany, with Cyrus amplification from the UK had exceptional bass and good detail.

BLACKWOOD

My favourite room included an active loudspeaker that I initially referred to as the ugliest at the show until I realised that it was pre-production design from Blackwood. The sound was absolutely amazing and I really look forward to when the production model hits the internet and shops. Their speakers are amazing to look at, especially their “One”, which does look like a Vivid on steroids and the Artanis which was on demonstration at the show.

TECHNICS

It was good to see Technics at the show, not only with their iconic SL-1200 series turntables but also with their very tasty SU-R1000 amplifier coming in black or silver at £8000. This is supplied with a calibration record which, through the amplifier, eliminates crosstalk of the cartridge so you don’t get feedback between the channels. This is essentially a digital amp (but not Class D) with FET output stage. There is so much one could talk about this amplifier in terms of features, design, plugs, connections. It is very clever and looks typically Japanese 1980s. It sounds pretty good, too, through Technics speakers.

CONNECTED FIDELITY

Connected Fidelity were at the show with their new bamboo-ply TT Hub turntable. This looked really interesting, especially with the separate speed controller offering a constant and smooth speed regardless of variations in mains voltage, frequency, and condition. Look out for a review soon.

AUDEN DISTRIBUTION

Egglestoneworks with Hegel amplification was another good big room to visit, though again the speakers were too big for my house I very much enjoyed what Bill had done in the big Auden Room.

SYMMETRY SYSTEMS

Similarly large were the iconic Sonus Faber Stradivari speakers with Brinkman electronics in the room run by Symmetry featuring the effervescent Mike Valentine from Chasing the Dragon. He presented lectures on how he recorded his excellent albums. As an owner of the “Vivaldi in Venice” double LP, which is my favourite Baroque album for sound engineering quality as well as the music, I was pleased to find out about the sequel direct cut “Vivaldi in London” 2LP set which was recorded in December at Air Studios, and featuring the same orchestra. As well as direct-cut recording onto the Neumann lathe, this was also recorded onto Mike’s renovated 1” Studer A80 8-channel tape recorder; each microphone to a different channel and then remixed to reel-to-reel sales copies. Look out for a performance of the 8-track tape recorder at the Cranage HiFi show in June!

ORANGE

My highlight of the show, though, was not speakers or amplifiers, but from a company more at home on the stage at a rock concert who normally build large valve guitar amps and speakers. Orange Amps, started by Cliff Cooper in 1968, are easily recognizable by their orange colour, but many won’t know they once had their own record label and even manufactured Amity Schroeder studio cart and multitrack machines in the ‘70s.

At Deluxe they were showing off their unique “Orange Valve Tester MkII”. This clever device should be in the home of all tube audiophiles. By simply inserting the valve in the top of the unit and selecting the correct valve from the list and pressing “OK”, the status of the valve will soon be displayed by a series of lights; the more lights the better the valve. It comes in at £850, and if your valve is not on the list – such as the GZ34 rectifier valve or 300B, then expansion modules costing £195 can be purchased and connected.

MAKING THE MAGIC HAPPEN

Everyone arriving at the show was very impressed by the standard of the rooms, but there is so much hard work that goes into setting up a HiFi Show…to get an idea, here is what some of the rooms looked like on Friday morning, just as everyone was getting started with set-up.

Now check out the full coverage of Audio Show Deluxe 2024 here

Janine Elliot