Dynaudio always have a very stylish room. Chatting to Kala, she told me that their philosophy is always to focus on the music. Their black-all-over room provided the perfect backdrop to their loudspeakers including their lovely new Special 40 anniversary speakers. Even the standmount speakers packed a punch in their huge room when we heard them at the press launch on Thursday.

I’ve been very impressed by the AVM and PMC German/British alliance. PMC are now distributing them in the UK and the two brands work well together. AVM are uber cool and produce gorgeous audiophile products that are objects of desire. Their move to all in one boxes that stream music, play cds and make your cup of tea (joking) is really delivering what modern audiophiles want and their new AVM30 range is making it more affordable too. PMC’s Pro-audio heritage just reinforces that they know what they are doing, both with their speakers and their new Cor amp. Together the two brands sound and look great.

Living Voice are very much the epitome of High End. Their room always sounds great, and so it should with them making loudspeakers that cost hundreds of thousands of pounds and matching them with electronics from the likes of Kondo which cost similar. However this year, and we were not the only ones to notice, their room was totally singing. The Vox Palladian system was visually beautiful, the sound had gone up to another level, from a level that seemed impossible to improve on from last year, it was totally captivating. Plus Kevin put on some dub for us, just showing that High End people don’t just play classical on their very expensive systems….thanks for the experience guys!

Leema Acoustics from Wales were in a playful mood at the show, their booth was nice and chilled with their stylish and affordable gear plus plenty of guitars and of course, Shadwell the sheep on guard outside!