THE NORTH WEST AUDIO SHOW, CRANAGE HALL 2022 – THE BIG REPORT

The North West Audio Show at The Cranage De Vere Estate in Holmes Chapel, Cheshire held over the weekend of the 18^th and 19^th of June 2022 was the first large-scale HiFi show post-pandemic. The chatter on social media in the run-up to the event has been somewhat excitable with grown men behaving like excitable children the night before Christmas. What a wonderful thing to see and it does go to show how much music and the kit people use to play it on means to people.

I’m going to start this show report off by thanking all of the exhibitors, the hotel staff and Kris and his team that work for ages before the show happens to make everything be the best it can be for you, the visitor. We all go to shows and we all wander around being, to a greater or lesser extent, about this detail or that without a second thought for the huge amount of effort that has been put in prior to the event to make it happen. Walking around the venue the day before the opening day is a bit of an eye-opener and there is an incredible amount of thought put into every detail.

So, from all the HiFi Pig team I would like to thank all the people working behind the scenes to make the North West Audio Show THE audio show for the UK

Let’s be fair, Kris (pictured below), the organiser of the North West Audio Show (abbreviated to The Cranage Show or more commonly just Cranage) has done a fantastic job and has got the balance between a show that is a corporate showcase for what represents the best of audio in the UK and a wonderfully friendly social event, just right. The exhibitor list is impressive, as you will see throughout this and other reports, but I think it’s fair to say that as well as going to check out their next major audio purchase, many of the attendees to Cranage see it as their annual opportunity to meet up with like-minded music lovers, have a chinwag and maybe share a beverage or two.

For our small part, we had made a load of badges, stickers and tee-shirts made to give away to readers and members of the UK Audiophile group on Facebook. It was great to see so many people wearing HiFi Pig Gives Me A Lardon and Hifi Pig Loves You tee-shirts. In addition to our madly popular merchandise we’d had a few hundred tote bags made in association with the vinyl dealer Diverse Vinyl – spend more than £100 on vinyl and you got a lovely bag to put them in. We also used a couple of dozen of these totes to make goody bags to give away to members of the UK Audiophile group – hope you all enjoy the tees, jigsaws, and other gubbins.

Kris does go the extra mile and this year there was a free shuttle bus on hand to ferry people between the local railway station and the event itself. This, and the likes of offering a complimentary drink on arrival, sets the tone for the show where everyone feels included and everyone is there to have a great time. I fully expect other shows will follow Kris’s lead in this respect! I spoke to a lot of the exhibitors at Cranage and without exception, they all said that NWAS is their favourite HiFi show and all had a great deal of praise for the team that organise it.

Needless to say, HiFi Pig is delighted to be the exclusive media partner for the North West Audio Show and we hope that this is a partnership that will continue for this and other shows down the line. Behind the scenes, we put a huge amount of effort into ensuring that there is a buzz around Cranage and that relevant social media groups are full of chatter about the event with many folk arranging meet-ups. Whilst we travel around Europe and beyond attending HiFi Shows it is this show we perhaps look forward to the most and HiFi Pig was well represented at Cranage with several of the team in attendance – thanks Dave, Ian and Heather, John, and Chris.

As well as the wonderfully warm atmosphere that Cranage has, I also really enjoy the effort that all the exhibitors put into making their rooms the best they can be, and this effort should not be underestimated. Getting to a show, getting a team to a show, ensuring that kit arrives safely, setting up the room and making sure that all the relevant promotional material is in place often goes unrecognised but I’d like to take my hat off to each and every one of the exhibitors at North West Audio Show 2022 for putting a not inconsiderable amount of effort into their rooms. I think that without exception every single exhibitor went the extra mile to ensure that their rooms were the best they could be.

Car parking at North West Audio Show is Free but the demand for space at this year’s show was, given the number of FREE tickets claimed, always going to exceed supply and so Kris and his team had secured a second site for parking a short distance away with a shuttle bus to take visitors from the parking site to the show venue. Whilst this was not ideal, it worked well and I heard no complaints about either the distance or the small fee to cover the extra expense that the show had incurred.

GENERAL THOUGHTS ABOUT NORTH WEST AUDIO SHOW 2022

The venue is ideal for this kind of event – it’s central and easy to get to, the surroundings are magnificent, and the DeVere hotel staff are brilliant in making everyone feel welcome. There are larger rooms available but, as with pretty much every show we’ve attended, many of the rooms are standard hotel bedrooms. This is not perfect but it is what it is and is pretty much unavoidable at any HiFi show!

BBC Radio 2 presenter and singer Clare Teal had been booked for the Saturday night with the evening being hosted and sponsored by Chasing The Dragon. Whilst we didn’t attend the performance I’m assured that it was a fantastic evening.

Just to give you an idea about how much people have been anticipating the North West Audio Show we asked a few people to give us thoughts about the show before they attended.

Here are a few of their comments:

“The North West Audio Show at Cranage Hall is a must-do pilgrimage for me/all who want to hear and experience music and HiFi in a respectful, real world, home-style environment. It’s not just about the fantastic HiFi you see and hear, it’s also about the tactile, approachable exhibitors and social atmosphere generated by the organisation behind the show”. David Robson. Audiophiles UK. HiFi and Music

“Why do I love Cranage? The venue and staff are impeccable and the event is very informal with no snobbery. The exhibitors treat everyone as equals and all will take time out and answer all your questions. And then there’s after-show time; it’s social time to chinwag with people who are as obsessed as each other. So Cranage is not only a HiFi show, but also a social event. For me it is the best show in Britain bar none!” Weetam. HiFi Pig SuperFan.

Peter Allison couldn’t get to the show because of prior arrangements but wanted to say “As a relatively newcomer to HiFi in 2022, I was wanting to use Cranage as a platform for my next speaker purchase, now it will have to be the odd demo in my home area. Given the buzz around the show, it seems I will be missing a cracking show”

What I don’t want to do in this report is get over-analytical in stating what particular systems sounded like over and above general comments as, despite being better than pretty much any show I’ve had the pleasure of attending, an audio show is not the place to be “reviewing” kit and I think that any report that does go into the kind of detail you would in a proper review is being a little over-enthusiastic with the regards to what is achievable in a show environment. Yes, you can make general comments, but being able to say that this or that specific component had this or that effect isn’t really possible in a show environment; you are not in front of your reference system and you are not able to compare and contrast in a meaningful way – and you are in unfamiliar spaces. What I think a commentator is able to do is give readers a broad idea of the sound achieved in a room. I also think it is grossly unfair to overly criticise exhibitors for sound that is less than perfect in these show situations! So, when you read reports saying that this DAC or that phonostage (or whatever) was making this or that specific effect on a system’s overall sound, take it with a good few grains of salt.

As well as all the rooms filled with great audio kit, the show also had Record stalls that were doing a brisk trade, static stands and the bar, as always, was a lively meeting spot.

THE BRANDS AND EXHIBITORS AT THE NORTH WEST AUDIO SHOW 2022

SOUND FOWNDATIONS 

Chris Green and Alex Denyer were hosting the Sound Fowndations, based in the excellent Babbage Room. It’s an excellent and large space that you step down into and is lined in wood with a large fireplace. The room had been nicely put together to display a few static bits and bobs and an excellent main system that consisted of a ClearAudio Master Innovation turntable with a DS Audio Grand Master cartridge on the end of the tonearm. This is an interesting cartridge that is an optical cartridge that comes with its own equalizer. This is a very cool system that still has a stylus, but differs from conventional cartridges in that is uses light to detect the vibrations coming through the stylus and cantilever from the groove on the record instead of moving magnets or coils. The pre in this system was a Kondo G70 on loan from David Brook at Brook Audio. Speakers were the excellent Kerr Acoustics K100. This was an expensive system, but what I particularly enjoyed was the enthusiasm and showmanship that Chris put into the demonstration of the system. Chris was particularly keen for us to hear a record he picked up in Tel Aviv that is based on Saturday Night Fever and what I got from this was Chris and Alex’s desire to get the concept of FUN over to the people in the room.

Chris was also keen to show us the DS Audio Eccentricity Stabilizer costing £5,500. This is a device that measures how much your vinyl is “off-centre” and then corrects it. The idea is that when records are pressed, the spindle hole is rarely exactly central and that this effect is audible, despite often being only tiny amounts “off”.

Sound Fowndations did a fantastic job, the sound was excellent and I genuinely tip my hat to them for injecting a bit of fun into proceedings. More of this kind of behaviour from others, please.

G-POINT AUDIO

Pretty much the first room you come to at Cranage after going through the entrance and reception is Appleton which has been the room G-Point Audio have taken the show since it started. Greg that runs G-Point always goes to great efforts in his room to make them look and feel professionally done but with an air of calm and conviviality – the room itself with its high ceilings and large windows goes a good way to doing this on its own.

Greg really does go to great efforts to add a little extra than the run-of-the-mill room at Cranage and this year had pulled out all of the stops by flying over Lucasz from Lampizator, Silvio from Riviera Labs, and Lucas from Lucas audio labs. Greg doesn’t “need” to do this but it goes to show just how much he thinks of this event in doing so.

G-Point represents a good number of brands and has previously exhibited the likes of Diapason, Lampizator, and other names that are synonymous with high-end audio. This year they were showing off the French loudspeaker brands AudioNec and Diptyque along with Italian brand Riviera Audio Labs’ amplifiers. We’re big fans of the Diptyque brand since we reviewed a pair of their dp77 planar loudspeakers and they punch way above their price point – we bought a pair to use none of our reference systems! Riviera Audio Labs 30W a channel (Class-A) Levante amplifier was being used on the Diptyques.

I must confess to having a bit of a speaker fetish and whilst G-Point’s Greg and his team satisfied this it was the new Horizon DAC from Lukasz at Lampizator that really drew my attention. Much in the same way as I’ve never heard a bad loudspeaker that uses Accuton drivers, I have never heard a system sound bad that has had a Lampizator DAC running in it – and we ourselves have run a BIG7 DAC of theirs for several years. Whilst the Horizon remains a far off dream, I console myself in the notion that it’s good to have dreams and aspirations.

SYSTEM ONE

Lucas Audio Labs Maximus Music Server

Lampizator Horizon DAC

Riviera Audio Labs APL 01SE Pre amp

Riviera Audio Labs AMF 50 mono blocks

PSC ( Pure Silver Connection) Monolith cables

AudioNEC Evo2 AS loudspeakers

SYSTEM TWO

Lucas Audio Labs Maximus Music Server

Lampizator Horizon DAC

Riviera Audio Labs Levante integrated amp

PSC ( Pure SIlver Connection) R50 cables

Diptyque Audio DP160 Signature/Elegance planar loudspeakers

Power management for both systems is by Gigawatt Evo 4 and room treatment by Acoustic Manufacture.

System ONE was playing whilst I was in the room and Greg kindly played Vladyslav Sendecki. Solo Piano At Schloss Elmau for me. This is a wonderful recording that Greg tells me is played on a Bösendorfer piano. I know it well and it has being part of my review list of recordings for a good few years now. In the room realism and dynamics were the order of the day and a real connection to the music. I grabbed a quick chat with Lucas (LAL) as I was leaving and he explained the thinking behind his server with him making the comment that, for him, the main criteria when he was designing his music server was first and foremost the emotional connection that a system brings to the listener. I love this attitude and completely agree with him.

Thanks for the Jessica Williams’ Trio recommendation, Greg, I will certainly be checking this out!

CHORD COMPANY

Chord Company, one of the best known and best-loved of the UK’s cable manufacturers had their products on display in the Nobel room. Their interconnects, speaker cables and mains leads were all on show as well as their GroundARAY noise-reduction devices. Also on show in the system that includes Innuos, Chord Electronics and KEF was Chord’s sister brand English Electric and their 8Switch/16Switch ethernet switch.

However, the main event for Chord Company at North West Audio Show was their all new PowerHAUS M6 and S6 power blocks. This is the first time Chord Company have ventured into power distribution and both the S6 (Studio) and the flagship M6 (Master) have six outlets to power your kit and are available in UK or Eu specs. Powerhaus M6 uses three of Chord’s hybrid MainsARAY that are fitted in parallel and both the M6 (£2000) and S6 (£1000) have a 16amp power inlet socket and selected heavy-gauge wire throughout.

Chord Company were in the main thoroughfare as you went through the reception area and it looked to be the ideal location to attract people’s attention as they started their journey through the show.

MELCO

Alan Ainslie and his team had the full selection of Melco and other products he represents. We have reviewed a good number of the products that were on show and I really must thank Alan for fully explaining to me (network numpty) the full workings of the ADOT MC-01 fibre network kit.

This was a busy area of the show and it would seem that whatever the usual social media naysayers keep banging on about this kind of thing having no effect, they are clearly in the minority!

PADOOD

Al Kells was manning the excellent Padood room when I went in and it was one of the large rooms as you go through the main avenue of the show.

As an aside, I think that having this size of rooms is brilliant and a huge boon for the show as it allows companies such as Padood to really give folk attending the show to get a feel for what they and their products are all about. In the case of Padood it’s all about the high-end with the room having static displays of Aurender, Bel Canto, Boulder, Crystal Connect, Nagra, Plinius. Siltech, SME, Weiss and more. Now that’s quite a list of brands already, but they also have Anvantgarde Acoustics.

The system playing when I was in there was the £27K YG Carmel speakers in a rather fetching shade of pink (especially for Mrs. HiFi Pig?) with a Nagra Classic Pre, Plinius 300 power amplifier, SME front end and Siltech cables.

Al played a copy of Scheherazade that originally belonged to his mum and it sounded really, really nice. The folk in the room on the Sunday afternoon were clearly enjoying the music and from my perspective, it was lovely for Al to be sharing this very personal piece of music. Thanks, Al.

It’s fabulous to see Padood at the North West Audio Show for their first time and I think that they will be back again!

CHASING THE DRAGON

Mike Valentine of Chasing The Dragon is a legend in the audio world and he is one of the great characters on the audio scene that make it such a joy to work within. Mike is tirelessly “up” and “on” and his enthusiasm for the music he produces is infectious. He also seemed to be doing a roaring trade with his records and reel to reels in his massive room.

From a kit perspective, the Chasing the Dragon room was dominated by a huge pair of ATC active speakers that I’ve heard previously and sound fab. At North West audio Show, the ATCs were accompanied by Constellation phonstage and amps, and a top of the range EAT turntable that was on loan from Absolute Sounds (though I missed Ricardo, sadly).

On the Saturday night Chasing The Dragon hosted and sponsored well known and well-loved performer and BBC Radio 2 presenter, Clare Teal

DOUG BRADY HiFi

I remember reading all about Doug Brady and their shop way back in the 80’s when I was first getting into the whole HiFi thing and I was amazed by the lavish décor in their showroom. The Warrington-based retailer, founded in 1960, brought the whole Doug Brady experience to the North West Audio Show with them bringing what I would say was the most successfully ambitious display I think I’ve seen at the event. Basically, it was the Doug Brady retail experience brought to the show – and it was fantastic. This was big-budget show display done brilliantly and despite me going in the room fairly late on the Sunday afternoon, the room was still buzzing with people.

For the North West Audio Show Doug Brady had both the Stephenson 1 room and the Stephenson 2 room and both with different kit in them and both rooms separate but one – if that makes sense.

Stephenson 1 had Naim, Rega, Chord Electronics, Sugden, Michell Engineering, Vertere, SME, ATC, Spendor, Harbeth, ProAc and they will have the new KEF Blade 2 Meta loudspeakers.

In Stephenson 2 there was a distinct whiff of the very high-end with them having the dCS APEX Rossini DAC, Gryphon Antileon EVO Monoblock amplifiers, Marten Parker Quintet Diamond speakers, Bergmann Audio Magne Turntable system and linear tracking air-bearing tonearm…plus Magico, Dan D’Agostino, Mola Mola, Auralic, Accuphase and Hegel. That’s some serious kit and it’s great to be seeing this level of kit being shown at the North West Audio Show.

Both rooms were excellent sounding, but it was the system running Gryphon and Marten amp/speakers that really caught my attention. I say this a LOT, but I have yet to hear a loudspeaker that runs Accuton drivers sound bad, but the Marten’s partnered by Gryphon was excellent. I moved around the room to get a feel for this system and from every seat I was impressed.

NUNU DISTRIBUTION / COHERENT SYSTEMS 

Tony and Anne are NWAS veterans and Tony had promised to put on a demonstration of the new measuring equipment he has invested in and how measurements would affect the overall sound. Sadly, time constraints meant that I was unable to attend any demonstrations at all during the weekend. Id catch a glimpse of all the techy gubbins that is well beyond my understanding and it did look impressive, at least!

NuNu, or Coherent Systems, had a system based around a pair of TAD E1-TX costing just shy of 24K. I criticised the TAD room at Munich (and I wasn’t alone in my criticisms) but at NWAS they sounded nice, though I’d have loved to have heard them cranked up a bit and with some tunes I knew.

Tony has obviously gone to a good deal of trouble to put this system together with the digital side, based around a Rockna WaveDream Net 2TB streamer, CD player and server running through a Rockna Wave Light R2R DAC/Pre. The “tweaking”, if you can call it that, was provided by the MUTEC MC3+USB digital to digital converter/reclocker/word-clock distribution hub that is designed to lower the noise on the signal, and a MUTEC REF 10SE-120 master clock. Now all this may seem a bit much, but to my mind a digital front end deserves as much care and attention lavished on it as we lavish on our analogue front ends.

Also in the NuNu/Coherent Systems room was a Belles Aira amplifier. However, it was the Liquid Music P2 pre and Liquid Music PA2 power amplifier that were new to me. The latter is around £10K and the former’s price is dependent on how you want it configured.

Grounding was evident in the NuNu room in the form of the END Earth solutions from MC, as were the cabling and the power supplies.

ICON AUDIO

The Icon Audio guys had a bit of a smorgasbord of valve components on show, unfortunately, they were trying to get away early so were breaking down the room and packing up when I was in there just after 4 pm on the Sunday, which is a shame because that quieter last couple of hours of the final day of the show can often provide some of the very best listening experiences. The systems are well settled in and there are less people about, with those that are there taking full advantage of the less crowded rooms.

Icon were promoting their new “Price Buster” Icon Stereo 40 6L6 amplifier which costs a smidge under £2000 and will be available in October. They are a brand that has always tried to cater for smaller budgets and the new amp strips a few non-essentials off of the Icon Stereo 40 MKIV in order to make it better value for money whilst leaving its core unchanged. The Icon Stereo 40 6L6 uses 6L6/KT66 valves which are more than 50% cheaper than those in the Stereo 40 MKIV with only a relatively small loss in power.

BRIAN AND TREVORS

Based in Manchester Brian and Trevor’s room is always a highlight and they always manage to strike just the right balance of fun with the serious business of high-end audio. I don’t think there has been a year at the Cranage where we haven’t spent a lot longer in their room than we should have. They don’t mess about at Brian and Trevors’ and as we walked past their room late into the evening on the night before the show started they were still in there getting the room set up to be the best it could be.

We went in this room early doors on the Saturday and listened to the system based around the new Moor Amp Angel 6 stereo power amplifier (it’s a big amp!) that was say atop a specially commissioned Audite Acoustics Bridj isolation platform, and a pair of Kudos Super 20A loudspeakers. The speakers were aided and abetted by a pair od REL T9/X subs which were integrated really well  – and don’t they say that the best sub is one you don’t hear? Front end was a Lin Klimax DSM/3 Network Streamer when we were in the room but there was also a Klimax LP12 in a Booplinth on hand for those wanting to hear what this system could do with an analogue front end. One of the tunes played on this system was Boris Blank out of Yello and it was a fantastic sound, particularly in a show environment, with a deep bass that you really did feel, but not at the expense of the rest of the music. This system, that was very much up my street, used a Melco N100 digital music library, a Melco N1S Network Switch with a Plixir PSU and Puritan Audio supplying the power conditioning and distribution.

A second system that I didn’t get the chance to experience was based around the first public showing of the new Aha Model A2 Loudspeakers/Linn Aktiv Exact using a Lnn Klimax DSM/2 Organik, Linn Klimax Exaktbox Organik and 3 Linn Klimax Twin Power amps. This system used Mogami loudspeaker cables, whereas the other system used Chord company cables and Linn Silver balanced cables. Sadly, I didn’t get a chance to listen to this system but really was blown away with the former.

We had meant to visit Brianandtrevors HOUSE OF LINN at some point over the last couple of years but sodding Covid got in the way of those plans.

Speaking of streets (as above) a few folk had commented on how excellent an idea they thought the naming of the different corridors after famous musicians was. Yes, this has been done before at the Munich Show, but Kris and his team refined this to have properly made metal signs made that were designed to look like the street signs you get in London. A brilliant move that really did help the flow of traffic around the show and I know at least one person (I’m talking about you, John Scott,) who found them invaluable.

There was a couple of comments about the flow of folk through the bar and onto the rooms that follow, and having spoken to Kris and his team about this I know they are on with this for the 17^th and 18^th of June 2023 – the dates for the NWAS show for next year!

AUDIO COUNSEL

Based between Manchester and Huddersfield, Audio Counsel have been coming to the NWAS since the start, I believe and they were my first real exposure to a full Audio Note set up. At this year’s show they were splitting their room between two systems. I quite like this idea as it gives visitors to experience different systems and plan their days but for us it meant that we only had the opportunity to hear one of them.

Anyway, if you went in the Audio Counsel room in the morning you would be treated to a system comprised of: Devore O/93 loudspeakers, Leben CS 300XS amplifier, Audio Note 4.1 CD Player,  and an Audio Note TT2 Turntable with an Arm1 & IQ3 moving magnet cartridge. The DeVore speakers may be a new name to the UK market but we’ve experienced them a few times and know John DeVore pretty well, though him and I mostly discuss cameras. These are excellent speakers that you should get yourself in front of if you have the opportunity.

If you went in the show after noon you would hear, as we did, the following: Audio Note AN/J-LX loudspeakers, Audio Note Oto SE Signature integrated amplifier, Audio Note CD 4.1x, and an Audio Note TT2 turntable with an Arm1 & IQ3 cartridge. As I’ve said previously, I was never overly enamoured of the Audio Note sound at shows for a number of years, however, the more I hear them, the more I really enjoy it and it was very good at NWAS with David from Audio Counsel  playing a new track to me by Hound Dog Taylor and the House Rodeo. The system really suited this blues style of music and was dynamic and detailed. Excellent!

3SQUARE AUDIO

Stuart from 3 Square Audio was carrying a pair of their Translator floorstanders into the room the night before the show started and asked me to feel their weight. They are MUCH heavier than they would appear and I believe they have a steel plate in them to help with the stiffness and weight of the cabinet.

The speakers are made of birch ply and have a very distinctive and natural Scandi look. I really like their styling and think they will fit in beautifully in the modern, more cleanly styled (read IKEA) home. This is not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination. However, I do think that at £2800 these speakers are under-priced and they do sound excellent with their stylings matching their natural sound. 3Square were playing soe Christine and The Queens for us and I really do think they sounded excellent. Regular readers will know that I’m a fan of bass, but I think my love of bass is often misconstrued – I don’t like excessive bass, I like clean and realistic bass! Now, at first listen the Translators may have appeared to be a little bass-light, but that’s really just not the case at all. What you have is a bass response that is 2real-world”, tight, and not excessive for a normal-sized room. I’d suggest that a lot of thought had gone into these speakers to fit the modern home in a realistic and sympathetic manner!

Anyway, they sounded great to my lugs being powered by NVA amplifiers (Lin will be talking more about these in her coverage).

Other speakers in the 3Square Audio room were their Liberator and AYAL standmounters that Ian reviewed here. I’d only ever seen photographs of these colourful little speakers that have a very interesting shape and I had assumed they looked a bit unfinished. I was dead wrong and they are really lovely in the flesh and only cost £1300.

I also spotted Wire on Wire cables in the 3 Square Audio Room. A very interesting concept that is very different from anything I’ve previously seen. We reviewed some of their cables here.

MUSIC WORKS

This is another room I was really looking forward to as they had the wonderful (to my ears, anyways) FINKTEAM KIM (around £9K) speakers playing about which I said the following when I reviewed them:

“A relatively compact, well-,made and good looking loudspeaker that manages to be able to pull of the trick of being subtle and refined with an ability to really rock out too. That AMT tweeter is a treat and adds so much to the character of the speakers but never feels like it is the dominant force, and leaves you with a beautifully balanced loudspeaker from top to bottom. If you have ten grand to spend on a pair of speakers, get these on your short short-list!”

I’d powered these speakers with Class D and valves but Music Works were using the Accuphase A75 amp along with the DC3900 pre, DP1000 CD and DC1000 processor. Cables were from Audiomica and they were playing us some Gregory Porter who I tend to not get on with at all. The tune was Black Night and it sounded very good in this room with me being particularly impressed with the tight and tuneful bass and well projected (and clear) vocals presentations.

AVIDHiFi

We missed Conrad and AVIDHiFi at Munich this year. Conrad normally demonstrates AVIDHiFi in the same room year in, year out but for whatever reason wasn’t there. However, he was very enthusiastic about this even and the room did seem to be doing brisk numbers.

On the from end was the truly daft value Ingenium Plug and Play turntable that has what is essentially a Rega Carbon cartridge on the end of the arm. You can read the review here but at less than £1500 it offers what is essentially a very simple but very good entry (or even upgrade) to proper vinyl playback.

Amp in the AVIDHiFi room was (I hope) their £15K SIGSUM integrated that I had a play with here.

This was an excellent system and shows what a relatively modest front end can do when partnered with excellent electronics and speakers. I am well aware that this goes beyond accepted wisdom of source before anything but get the whole thing “right” and you can make even modest playback systems sound wonderful – I’d have loved to have had an A/B comparison with one of AVIDHiFi’s pricier vinyl spinners and cartridges.

These too were playing Christine and The Queens through a pair of the new EVO 4 (£8K) and EVO 3 (£15K). These two speakers carry AVID’s much more expensive designs through to a more affordable speaker and even use the same front and back panels etc, just in a wooden box.

HENLEY AUDIO

Henley were in the Watt suite and were showing off a pair of Klipsch Cornwall IV speakers that were making their first public demonstration since the launch of the latest generation.

In addition to the 102dB sensitive Cornwall IVs (£7299), Henley had a system that used the newly released Pro-Ject X8 turntable and the HiFi Rose RS150B (£3899),  and both feeding into the Synthesis A50 Taurus valve integrated amplifier (£6190). The phonostage for the show was a Musical Fidelity M6x Vinyl, using a balanced cable. The Synthesis A50 Taurus is a fab amplifier and I have had the pleasure of reviewing it for HiFi PiG where I said that it was “A dynamic and yet subtle amplifier that has enough grunt to power difficult loudspeakers. Very low noise floor from which music just flows effortlessly. A real joy to have had in the system, whatever the music.”

I was really looking forward to hearing what this system could do and it was clear that many others were too given the flow of people in and out of the room. This was a nice sounding system with my notes telling me it was relaxed and easy-going rather tan being all bells and whistles by way of attracting interest.

Henley were also demoing a pair of the very interesting (and very good) Cabasse Pearl Akoya loudspeakers. These are an interesting speaker that will appeal to the lifestyle market. Just to sidetrack a little, I think that the phrase “Lifestyle” has negative connotations when uttered in some audio circles. It’s almost as if a product that aims to look as good as it sounds is in some way inherently inferior to more “hair-shirt” products. Personally, I couldn’t disagree more and think that it is in these kinds of products that mass-market, high-end audio will find its salvation – if it needs any saving.

Anyway, the Akoyas were being run in stereo mode from a variety of streaming services. These speakers cost about £1500 each (£3000 a pair) and have onboard WiFi connectivity as well as more conventional inputs. Control of the Akoyas is via the Cabasse StreamCONTROL ap. Onboard power has a total of 1050W a channel (300W for mid, 300W high, 450W bass) and when she reviewed them for HiFi PiG Janine said they were a lively performer with an exciting sound. Sadly, I didn’t get to have a listen at Cranage to these Breton Beauties.

CHORD ELECTRONICS

Getting its first-ever outing in the UK was Chord Electronics ULTIMA PRE 3 preamplifier. The ULTIMA PRE 3 is an all new design that is a completely ground-up design by Chord Electronics’ founder John Franks. It also looks a little different to other Chord kit and it looks great in the flesh. It was nice to see that on the right of the centre on/off sphere there is a knob marked AV/Balance  – the AV is a bypass control and the Balance is, obviously, a balance control. Balance controls seem to have fallen out of favour but I find them incredibly useful and so it’s good to see that Chord Electronics are now adding one to their latest preamplifier.

The price on the new preamplifier is £6000 and it has five inputs (2 x balanced and 3 unbalanced), balanced and unbalanced outputs, a 12V trigger, and a 5V/3A Type-A USB output that can be used to power the likes of Chord’s Qutest or Hugo 2 DACS…or you can charge your phone from it, I suppose.

Speakers in the room were from NEAT and other Chord Electronics included the ULTIMA 5 power amp and the wonderful Chord DAVE DAC.  Moz that was running the room told me that there’s been a number of folk asking when the new DAVE DAC but that there is no desire for Chord to introduce anything to replace it yet as they just haven’t found anything to better it – given the price increase that have been necessary (and this is across the board for most HiFi brands) I do wish I’d bought the review unit of DAVE when I had the chance!

MUSIC FIRST AUDIO

Jonathan Billington is one of my favourite people involved in the UK audio scene and he has been responsible in previous years for getting me a bit tipsy in his room and we now have an annual outing with him to the Vicarage for Sunday lunch with our kids (The Piglets*) and my mum (Grandma HiFi Pig*)  – it’s always a treat.

This year at North West Audio Show Jonathan was showing off his REF2 preamplifier at £6600 and using a Lampizator Baltic DAC. Speakers were from Jordan Acoustics in the form of their £4434 speakers with dual full range drivers. If I recall their name is Greenwich and my apologies to the guys at E J Jordan if this is not correct.

Whether I have the name correct or not, the sound in this room was much bigger than the modest speakers would have had you think and Malcolm McClaren’s “I Like You in Velvet” sounded fab. Also sounding rather splendid was a recording made in a chapel/church with this system (using LongDog Audio amps) presenting the captured atmospherics wonderfully.

*names given to them by readers and folk at the show.

BROOK AUDIO, VINYL ADVENTURE, AND MCRU

David Brook and his team from Brook Audio and MCRU had copies of The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Are You Experienced on Analogue Productions UHQR Vinyl. This is limited to just 20,000 copies globally and obviously, demand is high. One of my first chats at the North West Audio Show was with David to ask him to put a copy aside for me. As well as this collectable, there was a whole load of other vinyl and other media for the music junkie to sate their musical cravings.

David had a fabulous looking system set up based around a FiDATA HFAS-1 music server, SOULUTION 560 DAC and Pre, PassLabs XA-25 power amp, Kerr Acoustics K100 MK 2 speakers, Townshend Audio seismic podiums and Blue Horizon rack.

I passed the Vinyl Adventure room a lot and it was always buzzing with people listening to tunes (and clearly enjoying it) and a lot of folk buying things for their systems records. David did have another room dedicated to sales for his Vinyl Adventure business that seemed to be doing a brisk trade, particularly in the audiophile recordings that they specialise in.

However, when I went in the main room properly there was the chap from Wally Tools doing a talk on different stylus shapes and their effect on getting the information out the groove. I had a chat with him later and he is a very interesting chap – expect to hear more as I hope to interview him soon.

MA RECORDINGS

These are interesting recordings made with just two microphones in churches and the like – I mentioned them above in the Music First room. I only got to listen briefly in Jonathan’s room but MA Recordings seemed to be doing good trade when I went in there.

CONNECTED DISTRIBUTION

Connected Distribution, headed up by Phil Hanson, were showing off an analogue front-ended system based around the John Curl (maker of the well-known Vendetta Research phonostage) Parasound JC3+ phonostage,  JC2BP preamplifier and their A23 power amplifier. The latter is a beast of an amp for around £2000 and is quoted as having an output of 125W+ into 8Ohms and can be bridged to give over 400W(4Ohms). The turntable was the Roksan Xerxes with the PUG tonearm that actually belonged to Phil himself. Connected were playing us some MOBY on vinyl and it did sound very nice, though it was just nice to catch up with old friends face to face after so long.

In addition to the analogue fronted system, Connected distribution were also showing off the Heed Audio Thesis system with Alpha pre and Omega monobloc amplifiers.

For those that may not be aware, Phil is the drummer for a band called Darklight Horizon who seem destined for good things and I’m looking forward to them getting their album out soon. We reviewed them in this copy of HiFi Pig Magazine.

AUDIO DREAMS AND KERR ACOUSTICS

This was another room featuring Jes Kerr’s loudspeakers and this time it was the K320s at £7500 in the walnut finish. These sit atop custom-made Townshend Podiums and sounded very nice playing John Mayal and the Blues Breakers. The system was aided and abetted by a Lampizator TRP DAC. What I got from this system was great imaging with a balanced feel to the sound and somewhat forward vocal. I’m really looking forward to getting the opportunity to review these soon – something that has eluded us so far.

Also on show was the new K200 speakers that are due for release in the Autumn when they will cost around £16K.

 

WILLOW TREE AUDIO

Willow Tree are a regular at Cranage and the room is always a treat. The brands they carry are a bit esoteric but everyone loves a bit of esoterica in their lives, me included. This may well have been kit that is known by those that know, but that didn’t mean that the room was stuffy or elitist in any way. In fact, this room had some of the best music at the show – when I say best music, I of course mean music that I liked.

The speakers in the room were the £9750 Horning Hybrids with Lowther drivers on the front and Beymers around the back I love this concept of loudspeaker. A tweeter and a Lowther midrange on the front and then a pair of 8” Beymers around the back. This does seem to be a lot of speaker for the money and it is beautifully finished.

Amps on the day were a pair of Audio Music AM833S with an Audio Music DAC1 and a Jays Audio CDP.

One of my favourite rooms.

ELECTROMOD

Mark Dolbear from Electromod is a Cranage veteran and I believe he’s exhibited at all the shows. Electromod brought Head-Fi to Cranage and it appears that headphones and headphone amps are highly popular items given the interest in his room.

Mark brought along a range of Dan Clark Audio cans from America including the entry-level Aeon 2 headphones to the range-topping Stealth model headonhones that we reviewed here.

As well as headphones there were the Topping Audio products that seem to be getting a whole lot of attention, not just at this show, but also on the various social media groups that discuss such things.

Dekoni make replacement earpads and cables and both were on show and available for dem so you can judge for yourself the difference different materials make to the overall sound of a headphone.

Electromod also had MS HD mains accessories on show.

Mark was keen to tell me about the new Topping A90 D headphone amp and preamplifier that looked very nice, indeed. This is pitched as a headphone amplifier and preamplifier but comes with Extender boxes to allow you to add more inputs and expand the number of inputs. I really loved this concept and flexibility – only need it to have basic input, then just pay your standard (and wholly surprising) £500ish (it looks to be a LOT more pricey than this would suggest) or add an X90 box or more to make it a fully fledged pre. I love this concept as it means you don’t need to spend on features you will never use. Very clever Topping and very clever Mark for spotting this brand!

WORLD DESIGNS

This room was full of valve amps, pres and phonostages that looked very nicely made in a traditional and no-nonsense kind of way. I think it was The Nutcracker that was playing in the room whilst I was in there but it was really a bit noisy with chatter to get a real feel for the system –  one of the downsides of a show being so popular and perhaps it would be a cool idea for the show to have an area where sales discussions could take place without interfering with the rooms at the show.

Anyway, World Designs sell kit amps of the valve variety and the prices are very reasonable having taken the trouble to go look at their website. For example, the basic version of their flagship 35W KT88 integrated is less than £1500 and comes in a Class A push-pull ultra-linear configuration. For an extra couple of hundred quid you can go for the XL version that uses more boutique components in its make-up.

World Design integrated amps start at less than £900 and their power amps at less than £850.

I’m hopeless at anything DIY but I’d really love to have a go at one of these at some point in the future.

THE FUNK FIRM 

Funk Firm is a firm favourite with music lovers and Arthur that runs the company is a bit of a legend in the audio game – you will be very aware of the legendary Pink Triangle turntable that was THE Linn LP12 rival back in the day. However, Arthur has not rested on his laurels and continues to produce fabulous turntables to suit most pockets as well as excellent accessories, including the Acromat which I think a good percentage of vinyl lovers will have had a play with at one time or another.

GOLDEN EAR

Golden Ear are a bit of bargain in HiFi in my opinion. The Triton 3 speakers you see in the picture are £3K and have active subs in each speaker. The amplifier in this room was from Sugden and the streamer was from Stack Audio which we use in one of our own reference systems.

This room had a sensible volume and sensible component choice for the size of the room.

COPPICE AUDIO

I love the concept behind Coppice Audio, with Ryan and Mal having started Coppice Audio around three years ago as a project to use a technique called Arborsculpture to grow speaker stands using saplings which are shaped and grafted into specific shapes at their woodland in Malvern. How cool is that? Of course, a speaker stand needs a speaker to stand on it and they set about building the X1 standmount (naturally) but rather than using MDF they chose to use solid wood – which brings its own challenges.

Loudspeaker building has taken over their concept of trying to grow a pair of speaker stands but it is great to see craftspeople using their skills to create such beautiful loudspeakers and they have now added the floorstanding X2 to their range. For Cranage they brought along and launched their X3 flagship floorstanding. This particular pair of speakers are made from spalted Beech that was felled in Queens Park, London.

Coppice Audio really delivered on the look and feel of the room as well as the sound. They had not just brought their fab hardwood speakers, but also their own room treatment, racks and stands and even CD storage, all celebrating their natural wood theme. The room had a cosy and natural feel to it and had been well thought out, making the most of every inch the small bedroom on Jimi Hendrix street. We listened to ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Kate Bush on their smaller X1 stand mount speakers which worked wonderfully in the room. They were also using a Gekko DAC with a lovely wooden front panel and Ming Da amp with large, glowing VU meters. Ryan and Mal were really friendly and it was hard to believe that this was their first time exhibiting, I am sure it won’t be their last.

MIAN DISTRIBUTON

Andy at MIAN represents a good few brands that we have a great deal of respect for here at HiFi Pig Towers with us using Italian rack and speaker stand designer, SolidSteel, to support out main rig and stand-mount speakers, as well as Leema Acoustics’ Libra DAC having been in permanent residence as our reference for a few years now. MIAN also distribute the excellent Sehran and Swift loudspeakers from Australia and we reviewed their MU2 speakers here.

MIAN were showing off the new QUANTUM range products by LEEMA,  the Welsh company headed up by a couple of ex-BBC sound engineers, in the form of their Neutron and Graviton pre/power combo. The Neutron is actually a fully fledged DAC and Pre that benefits from an onboard MM/MC phonostage, multi input DAC,  and balanced/unbalanced inputs. The Graviton power amp is an A/B design pumping out 150W a channel. The final piece in the LEEMA jigsaw is their new Electron CD player that has an onboard DAC based around the SABRE ES9018 chip and has a headphone output.

The new LEEMA kit looks like HiFi looked when I first go into it and I thin this is no bad thing at all. Prices are expected to be around £1600 a box when they are fully launched.

I said I’d not comment too much on the sound in the rooms at Cranage but I just have to say what a fantastic sounding room this was. Andy played us Personal Jesus and it sounded really fabulous – loud but not distorted and with a bass response that went very low considering the size of the speakers. This bass response for me was just what I love – tight and fast! I knew this track was going to really test the system, and, particularly, the room, but it just sounded brilliant with my notes saying that it was definitely one of the sounds of the show and not unlike the presentation I heard in the BrianandTrevors room earlier in the day. I was a bit gutted when we walked in and Andy cut The Jam’s Mr Clean as it remains one of my favourite tunes of all time and the system really got across Bruce Foxton’s underrated bass playing superbly. Anyway, once the Depeche Mode track got going I was a happy bunny!

AUDIO NOTE

Daniel Qvortrup, son of Audio Note founder Peter, was running the brand’s room at Cranage this year. I like Audio Note’s attitude towards shows, they always play a really eclectic mix of music, and despite being one of the most well-revered names in British HiFi, they are not afraid to chuck in a curveball or two. I remember a Cranage show a few years back where Peter was playing Slayer and at very loud volume…which is the way metal should be played really! Good to see that Daniel is continuing this tradition, I came into the room as ‘Feel Like Making Love’ by Gene Lawrence was playing, a real laid back and funky cover. This was followed by a track to really wake up the chilled afternoon crowds, ‘Kernkraft 400’ by Zombie Nation…an absolute banger of a tune which totally blew you away. This was a real in-your-face power system with this track and certainly cleared the cobwebs away.

The system was comprised of AN E/D speakers on E stands, TT Two Deluxe turntable with Arm Two/ii tonearm and IQ3 MM cartridge. The M2 RIAA phonostage, CD 1.1 integrated CD player and Audio Note speaker, interconnect and power cables. The amplifier was the Audio Note Cobra Integrated PP Line Amplifier.

WILKINSONS AUDIO

One of the most popular stories we have run so far this year on HiFi Pig has been the launch of the new the new HiFi Rose RA180 amplifier, (£5,449) on show at Cranage with a Stack Audio upgraded LP12 with Goldring Ethos cartridge, HiFi Rose RS150B streamer, Fyne Audio F1.8 speakers and Atlas Cables. In addition to this system Wilskinsons HiFi also had a second system that had a Roksan Attessa Streaming amp, CD transport and Turntable, Fyne Audio F500SP and using Atlas Cables.

The HiFi Rose RA180 Integrated Amplifier consists of four mono amplifiers and has a multi-output configuration using modules. Each channel of the RA180 amplifier is equipped with an AMP module specialised for bass and balance and one module specialised for treble and super tweeter. Each AMP module supports 200W (8 Ohms) and can output up to 400W per channel. The two independent modules per channel divide the high and low frequencies respectively so that the speaker is bi-amped.

The Wilkinsons team had visited as exhibitors several times before and were very excited to be actually exhibiting this time. The big draw in their very fine (Fyne) sounding room was, of course, the first UK HiFi Show appearance of the new HiFi Rose RA180 integrated amplifier.

We listened to ‘Gaia’ by James Taylor on the HiFi Rose system and, even though we were in a small listening space the music was airy and expansive rather than constrained, with vocals and guitar coming across beautifully.

NVA

This was the first NWAS for NVA under their new ownership as it had been taken over by Paul and Tom two years ago, following the death of NVA founder Richard Dunn. The pair has upped the component quality of NVA products and are retaining the direct sales policy which keeps costs down for customers. Paul was talking one of those customers through the new NVA INT400 70watt integrated amplifier that was being demonstrated at the show with their omnidirectional The Cube stand mount loudspeakers. The amp costs £3500 and comes in a satin-matt acrylic case. The speakers are also now available in a birch ply finish too as well as the glossy black acrylic finish. They cost from £3500 in black to £4500 in birch and the sealed box design features a lightweight, treated pulp driver with a first order crossover and they have 86db efficiency. Cables were NVA and they also used the NVA Balanced Mains Unit. I didn’t get a proper listen as classical music was playing quietly as Paul talked the customer through the system but first impressions were that even at low volume the system sounded better than when I have heard NVA before.

CYRUS

Cyrus were exhibiting in one of the bedrooms on Jimi Hendrix Street with Spendor and were using the Spendor D7.2 floorstanding speakers. This was a great room, a nice looking and simple system with a professional feel to the room, the Cyrus backdrop, potted palms and good lighting finished it off very nicely. Cyrus products have a very distinctive and instantly recognisable look, and the system was pretty ‘real world’ with the Cyrus components ranging from just over £2000 to just over £4000. The system brought together Cyrus’ latest XR series of components with a legacy amplifier. The Cyrus XR series was launched back in 2020 and features the familiar die-cast case with new ‘ground-up’ engineering inside and a new phantom black paint finish. This series was announced to be Roon Tested a little earlier this year. The Cyrus Pre-XR pre amp, CDi-XR reference integrated CD player and Cyrus i9-XR amplifier were in the system along with a Cyrus Mono X 300 amp, a 300 watt amp that they manufactured between 2010 and 2013.

Other kit in the system, other than the Spendor speakers were a Bluesound Node and Chord Epic cables. Cyrus were streaming using Qobuz. This nicely put together system also sounded really good too, you could imagine sitting and listening at home, it worked well with the size of the room. We got an acoustic version of ‘Crazy’ by Seal along with a tune I hadn’t heard before ‘Blackbird’ by Tash Sultana, which was a kind of psychedelic guitar piece, the intricate guitar work came across well on the Cyrus system.

MOOR AMPS AND GRAHAM AUDIO

Moor Amps were a wholly new name to me and were using the North West Audio show to launch their new range of amplifiers. It’s great to see a new British brand and their amps certainly look the part.

We were very excited about hearing the Moor Amps system. This was another of the bedroom sized rooms on Jimi Hendrix Street. We had already heard their flagship Angel-6 amplifier in the Brian & Trevor room and had been very impressed. Brian & Trevor are one of the brand’s dealers and having the seal of approval from such a long standing and respected HiFi dealer has to be a good indication of what a brand will be like. Moor Amps have been around for four years, but the challenges of covid have meant that their planned show debut was put off for three years and this was their first show.

In their own room the system features the Moor Amps Angel-6 amplifier with Angel-Pre Amp fed by an Auralic Aries G1 streamer and Ifi Pro iDSD DAC into Graham Audio LS5/9f speakers.

This was the kind of room that you walked into and immediately felt calm and relaxed. The system was well put together and delivered an enjoyable and easy to listen to sound, we listened to Simon & Garfunkel ‘The Only Living Boy in New York’ which added to the laid-back vibe.

The Angel-6 power output is 150W into 8 Ohms and doubles up to 300W ito 4 Ohms. Price is £8495. The Angel-4 Power Amplifier, on static display, delivers a healthy 150W RMS per channel into 4 ohms and uses the same high current and low-feedback design Moor Amps design as the Angel-6, in a smaller, more room-friendly package. RRP: £4995. Finally from Moor Amps there is the Angel Pre costing £2795. This pre with buffered outputs has 4 line-level inputs. A G=1 (unity gain) input for AV systems, a motorised ALPS volume pot and both single ended RCA and balanced XLR outputs. The buffered outputs have independent power feeds and low feedback analogue regulation circuits.  Usefully the preamplifier has a tape loop out (whatever happened to these being standard) and a line level output for adding a headphone amp should you wish.

All the Moor Amps products look well made and quite traditional in their styling and I really like this whole HiFi looking like HiFi styling.

EMILEN AUDIO

I must confess that Northamptonshire-based Emilen Audio seem to have flown under my radio and the name was wholly new to me, though it seems that they were founded by John Standen and their designs are developments of the Equinox Audio products of the early nineties that were reviewed really well. I knew they’d be at Cranage and had a look at their website to see what was what. On their website, Emilen say that “We do not tailor the sound of our equipment to have a particular sound, rather it allows the listener to hear the sound which the artist and production team intended.”

The kit line up for the North West Audio Show was:

Equinox Moving Coil Phono Stage.

The Emilen Audio Equinox Audio Pre-Amplifier – a dual-mono affair that, interestingly, has a digital attenuator which they say offers a “cleaner” method of attenuation than allowed by a pot’.

ES-1 Reference active speakers – these too are an interesting design where crossovers are DSP driven. The bass enclosure is a combination od solid walnut and walnut veneered MDF which is lined with carbon fibre to increase stiffness. The high-frequency drive units have their own loading cavities that are mounted in a curved front panel that’s made from 30mm thick solid walnut which is backed up by 50mm MDF, with the intention being to eliminate resonances and get rid of straight edges and sharp corners that could affect imaging.

Emilen Audio Filtered Mains Distribution and power cables.

Emilen Audio Interconnect cables.

Lin covered the room properly below but I did get into the room the night before for a listen to the ES-1 speakers and despite them thinking they were going to be a bit much for the room, I really enjoyed them. I’d read about these speakers and really wasn’t expecting to like their aesthetics at all but in the flesh they were really rather lovely.

I would describe the Emilen room as a ‘little bubble of calm’, this was lovely and chilled out. Even though there was all the hustle and bustle of the HiFi Show outside the room the Emilen system just drew you in and all you focused on was the music…the sign of a very engaging system. I listened to ‘Caravan’ by Van Morrison followed by ‘Ballad Of The Runaway Horse ‘by Jennifer Warnes and Rob Wasserman. Surprisingly the quite large speakers worked well in the room and I could have spent much longer than two tracks in there. Really lovely.

ACOUSTICA

Acoustica are based in Chester and so the run to Cranage wasn’t a huge one, though I guess, given the amount of kit they brought to the NWAS that they had a few vans and a few folk to set up the room. Acoustica could be found in the lounge just through the reception area, past Melco and Chord Company and on your right. The room is a really nice sitting room space with a large window, panelling, and a very comfortable sofa. It was an oasis of calm and cool sounds and very high end audio.

I’ve seen on social media that a number of people thought this was the best sound of the show.

SJS ELECTROACOUSTICS AND LIVING VOICE

SJS Electroacoustics make rather splendid valve amplifiers and were partnering at the North West Audio Show with Definitive Audio who brought along their Living Voice speakers and Kuzma turntables. It’s a bit of a treat to see this kind of gear at Cranage and the last time we encountered this set up was in the hallowed halls of the MOC for Munich High End.

The Munich system was in a much bigger room than the bedroom on Jimi Hendrix street, but they still managed to convey that amazingly high-end vibe. The system was a slimmed down version of what we heard at the MOC last month. We had the same orange Kuzma R turntable (with a different arm and cartridge) and Living Voice OBX-RW4 speakers in Santos wood. Kevin from Living Voice was spinning ‘Domination’ by Peace Orchestra, a fantastic electronic track that suited both the room and the system.

STRICTLY STEREO 

Stockport HiFi Dealer Strictly Stereo had Dutch & Dutch 8C speakers running in a Roon streaming system with an Innuos ZENith MK3 music server and Innuos PhoenixNET network switch. We listened to ‘One Day Like This’ by Elbow, the soaring strings sounding divine, a lovely and simple system, made for enjoying music.

NEAT ACOUSTICS 

Bob and Stephen from Neat are big fans of exhibiting at Cranage, telling us “Always a pleasure to do the NWAS. Nice relaxed atmosphere, not too difficult to set up and always well-attended”.

This was the first UK showing of the new Neat Petite Classic, which is available in September at a retail price of £1995. The Neat Petite Classic were perched on the distinctive tripod Solidsteel speaker stands and the system also featured an Atoll ST200 streamer, Atoll IN300 amplifier and Audiomica cables. This was a really nice, simple but effective system (the turntable was not in use whilst I was in the room) and would suit a home listening space very well. The speakers are great value for money and I did have to check the price, I thought they were a much more expensive pair. They were very dynamic to listen to with a beautiful midrange, and the bass was just right, I was impressed with such a complete sound from these standmounts.

Bob from Neat always comes up with an eclectic mix of music, we listened to ‘All The Pretty Little Horses’ by Barbara Dickson, which I had never heard before and apparently is a cover of an old American folk tune.

VERTERE

I popped into the Vertere room quite late on Sunday afternoon and there was just one person in there enjoying a personal tour of Vertere’s turntables. We listened to the band Caezar who are a band on Touraj’s Vertere Records label (top tip, check out this label as they have some really great musicians and bands on the label, all wonderfully recorded as you would expect).  The band were playing that weekend at Blenheim Palace with Simple Minds and Deacon Blue which Touraj was understandably excited about. By this point of the show, it was fantastic to just chill out and listen to some really good music. Vertere were using ATC SCM40A (I think) active speakers with FM Acoustics. A lovely natural-sounding room that was all about the music, with record players that just happen to be as eye-catchingly beautiful as the sound.

ALCHRIS AUDIO

Alan and Christine at Alchris Audio, previously of the now-defunct (I think) Kralk Audio really deserve to do well as they have triumphed magnificently in the face of adversity to come up with a new range of loudspeakers (and now a small range of cables) that are proving to be highly popular amongst the UK audio groups. It’s not surprising to be honest given that what you are getting with Alchris are hand-built loudspeakers that are designed and put together by someone who is absolutely passionate about what he is offering to the market. This kind of approach to HiFi can produce some gems that become classics – and it can produce some dross. Fortunately for those wanting tremendous bang for your buck, Alchris Audio fall into the former category with their standmount AR6 speakers that were playing when I went in the room costing just £799. The big floorstanders, the AR66, are a modern interpretation by Alan of the legendary Celestion Ditton 66 and cost £4500.

Given the sound I was hearing at NWAS on the eight hundred quid AR6s Alan is going to be kept very busy and I do hope he keeps his energy levels high with a good supply of Strongbow Dark Fruit and the odd kebab – those that know Alan will know what I’m banging on about. On this performance, it’s really hard to knock the sound of these speakers for the money they are asking and I strongly suspect they would be double that if it wasn’t Alan that was doing these.

Worth mentioning here is Matt McNulty and his Townshend Rock turntables, one of which was in the Alchris Audio room and looking rather splendid. Matt has launched a company called Rock Doc involved in rebuilding tired copies of the legendary turntable made famous by the late Max Townshend. He’s also making a range of cartridges based on existing models with new wooden bodies.

It was also good to bump into Paul Knipe who supplied the Solid Sounds who made the racks in the room. I’ve known Paul for a good while online and it was great to finally put a face to a name. His LadderRack design is influenced by older designs but it works and offers a whole load of flexibility in that the height of shelves is adjustable for when you buy taler or shorter components. Paul’s kit seems to be getting good recognition and traction with Linn having used one of his racks at the recent Munich High End.

FALCON AUDIO

Jerry and the Falcon team were showing off their Complete@Home kit speaker models Q7, IMF 100 and IMF 200, although Jerry himself couldn’t make it.

We built and reviewed Falcon’s IMF 100 Complete@Home speakers a while ago and really enjoyed both the process of finishing them off (easy to do) and the finished product, which was excellent.

Sadly head-honcho at Falcon was hit by the dreaded Covid and so couldn’t attend but we did get to listen to their IMF 200 speakers that arrive ready for you to finish at home. These are big floorstander costing £2895.

They are a 1/4 wave folded transmission line speaker based around an Italian manufactured plywood cabinet in 18mm and 12mm graded Birch Ply available in natural Walnut, Light Oak, or Rosewood Veneer. They come complete with magnetically attached cloth grilles and with the Falcon B139 woofer, Falcon B110 (5”) Bextrene Cone bass unit; 19mm ( ¾ ”) Falcon T27 Mylar dome tweeter – all of which are matched pairs. They are an 8Ohm load and have a frequency response that goes down to a claimed 23Hz (-3dB) and are 86dB sensitive.

It was pretty difficult to get a feel for these speakers as they were playing pretty quietly in a room with an open door that was obviously getting a lot of bleed-through from other rooms. One of those things at shows that you can do nothing about and it happens at every single show wherever it is held.

Jerry, if you are reading this, we’d love to get a pair of these to finish at home and have a listen to so we can get a proper feel for them in familiar surroundings!

KUDOS AND AUDIOQUEST

Kudos Audio and Audioquest were in the Banting Room where Mark Benson and Nick Allen were taking charge of proceedings.

Speakers on demonstration were the Kudos Audio Titan 707 that are a British-made loudspeaker using drive units made by SEAS, especially for the Titan range of speakers. The tweeter in these speakers is also a SEAS unit in the form of the K3 tweeter. It’s a large, floorstanding speaker that is a two-way design with twin mid/bass drivers with the drivers being carefully matched and aligned. The crossover in the 707s is a low-order affair that makes use of Mundorf MResist Supreme resistors and air-core inductors, along with Clarity Caps’ CopperConnect capacitors. Bass loading in the 707s is isobaric with fixed boundary reflex loading. You can get these in an active set up too.

I’ve never heard the £17,000 707s sound anything less than spectacularly good and they were a “must-see” on my list of things I knew would be at Cranage as I knew they were going to be driven by an Accuphase E5000 integrated amplifier with DAC module and a Innuos Statement server front end.

Needless to say the wiring in this room was all by AudioQuest including AudioQuest ThunderBird ZERO Loudspeaker cable, AudioQuest Diamond USB cable, AudioQuest Hurricane power cables and an AudioQuest Niagara 5000 power conditioner.

I thought these were an excellent loudspeaker that not only looked beautiful but also delivered sonically and I stayed in this room for a good old while – something of a luxury at shows like this. Music playing was Jennifer Warnes’ Ballad of the Runaway Horse and it was a real treat for the ears. Not my usual fodder (see what I did there) but it gave a good me a good idea of the speakers and what they are about – detail through the mids and incredibly tight and accurate bass response. Lovely sounding speakers as Kudos always are.

OPHIDIAN

British brand Ophidian were in the Faraday room and were using the North West Audio Show to demonstrate their latest speakers, the Ophidian Voodoo along with an Atoll ST300 streamer, Atoll IN400se integrated amplifier, and Chord Company cables and interconnects.

The Ophidian Voodoo is a 1.3m tall 3-way floorstanding loudspeaker featuring Ophidian’s own Aeroflex bass loading system.

The Voodoo speakers have dual 265mm (10″) drivers that feature thick black anodised aluminium cones, dual voice coils and triple shorting rings to reduce distortion to an absolute minimum. They are capable of displacing over an inch of movement and, say Ophidian, will produce bass extension down to 26hz, which is a bold claim and one I was keen to put to the test.

As well as the bass drivers there’s also a 7” mid-bass driver that have a solid aluminium phase plug and is loaded in its own damped sub-enclosure to isolate it from the colouring effects of the external walls of the cabinet.

Tops on the Voodoo are dealt with by a 22mm fabric soft dome tweeter and the crossover uses Mundorf, whilst the binding posts are by WBT. Price for all of this is £14,000.

Now, when I first saw the press release about these speakers I thought that Gareth was going nuts expecting folk to pay £14,000 for a speaker that looked like it did in the pics – it looked smaller by a considerable margin than it is in real life. And herein lies the benefit of going to shows such as the wonderful North West Audio Show – your preconceived prejudices are put to the test. Anyway, long story short is that these are a stonkingly good loudspeakers judging by my short time with them.

The Voodoos go low (down to 26Hz) and they really do have a fantastic and prodigious bass – quality and quantity! However, these are not all about…I’ll stop there as I was going to paraphrase Meghan Trainor’s All About the Bass song from a few years back but fear getting a severe telling off from Mrs HiFi Pig. Anyway, these not only do spectacularly well but they also do the whole frequency range in a really nicely integrated package.

Well done Gareth and I apologise for wrongly pre-judging the Voodoos.

AURALIC AND ATC

ATC SCM 40 active speakers and an Auralic Altair G2.1. That was it. 3 boxes, three cables (power to the speakers to the Auralic) and that was the system.

What a sound, though. Terrifically detailed and what I would call accurate, with a bass response that had everyone in the room tapping their feet or nodding their heads to the sounds to Astrix’s Shamanic Tales. Utterly fantastic sounding room as far as I was concerned and really well set up to get the best from it.

Now, this kind of set-up will not satisfy the fiddlers out there that want a hundred and one boxes and I believe perversely sort of want a load of hassle with their music. No, this was a music system that was streamlined and effortlessly splendid across the board. One of my favourite of the whole show and I think I did make mumbling noises about this being a potential retirement system…if that ever becomes a reality.

What I also like about the guys from Auralic is that they play good music that appeals to me. No noodly or plinky plonky jazz from whatever I’ve encountered and just crowd-pleasers all the way. I know it’s a difficult one for exhibitors to try and please everyone, but one of the questions that often comes up at shows and elsewhere is “How do we attract a younger audience?”. My response would be to pack up the Brothers in Arms and Keith Don’t Go records (both excellent tracks before you reach for the virtual pen of death) and play music that is likely to appeal to a younger audience.

FANTHORPES HiFi

It took me a while to “get” PMC speakers but once I did I really “get” them. I suppose that given that a lot of recording studios use PMC speakers they area pretty obvious choice if what you are looking to do is recreate the studio recording of the record you are playing.

The PMC FACT 12 Signatures costing £15,495 sounded a class act to me and the supporting act of Innuos statement with a Shaun Jacobs’ PSU, Luxman M10X power amplifier (making its debut at the show) and costing £15,955, the Luxman C900 preamplifier and then Chord Electronics’ M Scaler and DAVE.

The Luxman M-10x Power Amplifier is the brand’s new flagship stereo/mono power amplifier designed to replace the long-running Luxman M-900u. Luxman reckon that the amp has been years in development and is one of the first models in their next-generation line-up to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Luxman’s founding in 1925, the year that radio broadcasting commenced in Japan. Original Luxman amplifier design hallmarks, such as ODNF circuitry have been analysed and then further evolved through extensive computer simulations to achieve an improvement in audio performance. The brand tells us that only after repeated new circuit components auditioning and prototype listening tests were the results judged suitable for adoption as “LIFES1.0” in Luxman’s new M-10x. LIFES1.0 is the Luxman Integrated Feedback Engine System. The Luxman M-10x has a three-dimensional chassis housing design, in common with the D-10x . Improved LED backlit analogue level (VU) meters are employed with the left channel meter exactly centred for BTL-mono use priority. It is equipped with 12 volt trigger input/output connections to daisy chain multiple amplifiers in a home theatre or enable integration into automated systems.

AUDEN DISTRIBUTION

Bill Leigh from Auden Distribution always puts on a great room at the show, he was in the Bell suite off the bar (next door to Karma AV) which is a very big room and perfect for the system that he brought. He also had a smaller more ‘real world’ room upstairs which we have covered below.

Central to the big system and making their UK show debut were the new made-in-Memphis EgglestonWorks Viginti loudspeakers. Auden took on the UK distribution of this brand just before the pandemic, so it was fantastic to see them out and about at the show. Now these are speakers that really make an impact, both sonically and visually, being very large, angular floorstanders with two 10” bass drivers, two 6” mid-range drivers and a 1” HF unit and weighing in at 115kgs each.

This was a real statement system driven by the Hegel H590 and fed by a four-piece Auralic source, connected by Audiomica cables with power and isolation products from MusicWorks, and HiFi furniture from Lateral Audio Stands.

This was truly powerful to listen to and I had the Sunday afternoon pleasure of the room to myself and plonked myself right in the sweet spot. I listened to ‘This Is’ by Grace Jones which had a huge amount of energy but with the bass being fast and controlled…it matched the system being powerful and all encompassing and really filled the large room. A taste of what the big rooms are like at the large international shows, brought to the us in the UK by Bill and the Auden team. Smashing stuff.

Also on display in the Bell suite were the Hegel range of integrated amplifiers and the V10 phono stage, Argon models and Krypton from Amphion, the new Artisan models from EgglestonWorks, and the CAAS Audio pre and mono amplifiers. A really nice selection of gear and representation of some of the well-matched brands that Auden carries.

AUDEN DISTRIBUTION (SMALL ROOM)

The smaller Auden room was also very impressive, this was a more ‘real life’ system with Amphion Argon 1 speakers perched on Solidsteel stands.

We listened to ‘Tied Up In Gear’ by Yello, playing on the Rega P8 with the Hegel phonostage and Hegel H120 integrated amp/DAC. There was a real energy from this little system and it would be perfect in a small lounge.

KARMA AV

Distributor Karma AV had one of the two large rooms just off the bar on the lower ground floor, which they used to very good effect. I passed both this and the Auden room next door many times as they were on my short cut up to our bedroom, each time they seemed busy, particularly on the Saturday, so I was pleased that it had got a little quieter on the Sunday afternoon.

Karma had two systems and both Ian from Karma and Terry Medalen from Primare of Sweden were running the room.

The main system, which we listened to comprised of a MoFi Ultra Deck plus M turntable with Master Tracker MM cartridge, Primare PRE35 Prisma preamp and network player, CD35 CD player, R35 MM/MC phono preamp and A35.8 eight channel fully bridgeable amp (here bridged to four channels for biamping the speakers) which were the new Perlisten S7t Special Edition speakers. interconnect and speaker cables were Inakustik.

I sat down and listened to ‘Noah’ by the The Fairfield Four, right in the middle in the best seat. This was a very immersive system and the broad spectrum of vocals sounded wonderful, I had never heard the track before but was soon tapping my feet along to it.

They also had a second system of System Audio Legend 60.2 Silverback powered WiSA high resolution wireless connected speakers with Primare SC15 Prisma WiSA enabled network player, DAC and preamp, DD15 CD transport and R15 MM/MC phono preamp plus MoFi Studio Deck + with Studio Tracker MM cartridge and Inakustik interconnects.

LOWTHER LOUDSPEAKERS

It was great to see Lowther at the North West Audio Show and making big noises on the audio scene, despite having started making loudspeakers in 1934. Janine Elliot reviewed the Lowther Almira loudspeakers earlier in the year and had this to say about them:

“Having heard Lowther speakers at HiFi shows in the ’90s, I was sceptical about doing this review; I had always found them hard, grainy and a bit boxy. But under new management I was in for a big, big surprise. This is not what I expected. Not only was the build quality superb, but it played all types of music with equal passion and power. The top-end now includes a supertweeter to take the sound further than even my Townshend could go and that DX3 driver, combined with the ¼ wave horn loading, was enough to wake up my neighbours.

A few people were talking about the big corner horns that were in the room but it was the Almiras playing when I went in their room and they are very nice. However, this was a case of getting so engrossed in the music and conversation that I totally neglected to take any photographs. Sorry guys.

MALVERN AUDIO RESEARCH

Mark Manwaring-White from Malvern Audio Research in the Wright room always puts on a great show at Cranage and this year was no exception according to the . In past years Mark’s room has definitely been up there with the very best but sadly by the time I got there they had packed down which is a shame as I was very much looking forward to their new amp mentioned below and it was on my radar as a potential purchase at the show.

New for the North West Audio Show were the GM70 SE mono block amps, 300B Push Pull Stereo power amp and DHT 101D Phono stage.

Mark was running the 300B and GM70 alternately, mornings/afternoons, along with the DHT Phono stage, Audio Detail Chela DAC2, fed by the Lucas Audio Lab server. Speakers were the hORNS “Universums” which Mark told us had been improved further by himself.

All fed with the cotton/silver Gekko cables.

Kii AUDIO

Kii speakers are really a fantastic concept and given that they have a foot in the pro-audio market and the home market, it’s not surprising that they get a lot of things very right. Now the whole “it’s pro-audio” thing may suggest that a speaker with this heritage might be a bit on the plain-Jane side of things, but the Kii Audio kit is funky as hell and I think they look fantastic.

I’ve written lots about the Kii speakers in the past and I’m not going to repeat myself but they are an active design controlled by DSP and modular. Buy the tops and add the bass units later, if you like.

Anyway, the guys played me Daft Punk’s Contact off Random Access Memories and it sounded incredible…in fact, I enjoyed this room so much I forgot to take any photographs and so here is a library photo or three of ours.  Sorry guys!!!

Now, £27,540 may sound like a lot of money for a loudspeaker but the truth is that when you add it up this actually is a fairly reasonably priced system. Obviously, you get the speakers, but you also get the subs and the amps to drive everything…not to mention the DSP control. That £27K is starting to look a lot more attractive, isn’t it!

 

PHONOSTAGE AUDIO

Phonostage Audio are a Lancashire-based HiFi and vinyl record retailer and this is their first time exhibiting at the North West Audio Show.

Tony Hesketh that runs Phonostage Audio had two systems, one with both a vinyl and streaming front end and one purely streaming. The first system was a Nottingham Analogue Hyperspace Turntable with Hana MH Cartridge along with a Graham Slee Majestic DAC, Graham Slee Reflex PhonoStage, Graham Audio LS6f Loudspeakers,  Graham Slee Cables all supported by a HiFi Racks Podium Reference Rack.

Tony’s second system was made up of Exposure 3510 Integrated Amplifier, Exposure 5010 Pre-Amplifier, Exposure 5010 Mono Power Amplifiers, Graham Audio LS8/1 Derek Hughes Signature Edition Loudspeakers, Chord Co. Epic and Clearway Cables on a Apollo Storm HiFi Rack

We listened to ‘Oxytocin’ by Billie Eilish and were very impressed by what good systems he had put together and, having spoken to Tony both at the show and prior it is clear that he has a real passion for the kit and presenting it in its best light – and this enthusiasm shines out.

AUDITE ACOUSTICS AND AF AUDIO

Andrew Foster of AF Audio is only a few years in the cable-making game but is already getting his followers and a growing reputation. At Cranage he was in a room with Audite Acoustics whose Pilare loudspeakers were making quite the splash at Cranage. I lost count of the times people asked me if I’d heard them and so hot-footed it (limped casually) to their room to see what all the palaver was about. When I got there I was quite honestly wholly underwhelmed…for about five seconds after the speakers were fed with some music. My notes from the show have the word NUTS! Printed big and bold at the top of the page and I thought these speakers were one of the highlights of the North West Audio Show.

Now, I love high-end audio and I love mid-fi but come on, a £350 a pair speaker system surely has to be crap, doesn’t it? Well the resounding response to that particular question would be NO! Pilare is a floorstander that you put together at home and require only glue and clamps. I’m told the assembly is a doddle and you are helped by the bases having slots in them to help you in placing each side of the cabinets. They are made of 18mm MDF and are a quarter-wave transmission line that uses a 4” wideband driver of unknown origin. I’m guessing the driver is something unexpected and likely not very flash as I wasn’t told what it was when I enquired. Be aware also that they come unfinished and so you will need to factor in a few rattle cans or whatever you use to paint speakers.

They surely sound like a car speaker whacked into a box, was my first thought before the music started playing? Well, shut the front door!  These were a great little speaker that was detailed and with a very nice presentation throughout the bands. I’m going to say it again £350! NUTS!

There was also the Brij platforms in here that are a novel way to support and isolate your precious kit. One was being used in Brianadntrevors to support the Moor Amps Angel amplifier.

And then there’s the upgrade kit for the IKEA Poang chair…yep, you heard me right!

INNUOS

Innuos had brought a four-strong team to NWAS, including one of the founders Nuno Vitorino who is responsible for R&D, Tiago Lopes, Head of Software Development, and Stephen Healy, UK Sales Manager. Innuos have created a range of products, not just immensely popular with the punters, but also with the HiFi Industry. You often find at HiFi Shows, and NWAS was no different, that many rooms will be using Innuos products for streaming.

Innuos are also well known for their rather excellent demonstrations, and I was lucky enough to have the room to myself for 10 minutes on Sunday afternoon to hear the new Innuos Pulse range. These new products had been on display in Munich but this was one of the very first chances at a show to listen to them.

As always this was a very professionally put together room from Innuos. The system used the new PULSE connected with the Innuos ZEN mk3 Music Server, and PhoenixNET Re-clocker. They also used Kudos Super10A speakers, Hegel H390 amplifier and DAC with Epic range cables from the Chord Company, rack by SolidSteel, mains distribution by Puritan Audio Labs PSM156 with Ultimate power cables and GIK Acoustics panels for room treatment.

For the dem that I heard we were switching between the new Innuos PULSEmini and PULSE Network players, these fall into two different price backets with the Mini being just under £900 and the PULSE just under £2300.

We listened to ‘Nemesis’ by Benjamin Clementine for the dem, whilst the PULSEmini was really excellent (you would most definitely not be disappointed if you bought it) the more expensive PULSE gave a much more full and rounded sound with details in the strings, piano and vocal that were not as apparent with the mini, the track was overall more enveloping with the PULSE.

AUDIO PINNACLE

Audio Pinnacle had a really high-end room featuring Gershman Acoustics Avant Garde loudspeakers along with electronics from Gold Note of Italy and a Voyd turntable, they also had some lovely looking Audel Malika Plus speakers. I would have loved to have had more time in here to listen to both pairs of speakers. The Gershmans were sounding special playing ‘Aja’ by Steely Dan.

ULTIMATE STREAM

Steve Helliker of Ultimate Stream had a gazebo outside and just off the main drag of the main entrance floor. Here he had a range of high-quality wireless, rechargeable, weatherproof loudspeakers from Escape™,  which I thought were a very cool concept and they certainly sounded very good.

Escape™ P6 & P9 Portable Loudspeakers are weatherproof portable loudspeakers to use both outdoors and indoors with a built-in rechargeable battery for over 8 hours of listening. They have Bluetooth connectivity so you can stream from your favourite music services and give 360 sound or you can pair two speakers for wireless stereo. They have 60-watt (P6) and 100-watt (P9) digital amplifiers with active subwoofer and are available in Black, White and Tan finishes.

I can see these being very popular in lots of situations where people want to enjoy music but don’t want to go to the hassle of dragging out their main HiFi. Take one or two (they can connect in a stereo pairing mode) out to wherever you need them, stream to them however you wish and Robert’s your Mother’s Brother. Think BBQs, picnics, birthday parties in the garden – you get the picture!

Dufus that I am, I failed miserably to take a picture of Steve’s set up at the show despite having had a chat and so here are a few images of the speakers I’ve nicked from his website. Sincerest apologies. Steve.

RUSS ANDREWS

Russ Andrews are another long-time exhibitor at North West Audio Show and always seem to be doing a roaring trade. This year they were using the occasion to debut the new 4PR and 8PR speaker cables from Kimber Cables and the all-new Russ Andrews SuperRouter grounding system.

It was the latter that really caught my attention at Cranage and it’s said to provide efficient grounding for your system and to deal with RF interference and works on the principle that the best way to ground your kit is to connect the casework to a ground point via an RFI shunt device that routes RF noise to ground too.

The guys at Russ Andrews are always helpful and friendly and talked us through how the SuperRouter is connected. Essentially your pre or integrated amp acts as the hub to which each other component is grounded via grounding cables and the pre/integrated is then itself connected to the SuperRouter and connected to an earth rod…or if that’s not possible Russ Andrews’ mains sockets. However, if you use separate power amps they are connected directly to the SuperRouter. Price of this is £699 with nickel binding posts and £1199 for the Signature Edition that has WBT-0710 binding posts.

I’m a big believer in grounding and whilst it sounds like voodoo and I don’t pretend to know what it does or why, it does work sonically on the other units I’ve tried/heard. The Russ Andrews unit certainly looks the part and I don’t expect it will work any less effectively than other grounding devices I’ve heard, though it does look well made and pretty flexible in the way it’s put together and conceived.

AMMONITE AUDIO

Ammonite had a whole range of accessories on the static stand opposite Russ Andrews’ stand. Take a look at the images for an idea of what this company stocks.

TOWNSHEND AUDIO

Really great to see the whole of the Townshend family out as they are always such good company, over and above the great products they produce. Their stand seemed to be constantly busy with people checking out their isolation platforms, bars and other isolation.

COMPUTER AUDIO DESIGN 

The speakers in the CAD room were provided by Cameron Jenkins who is the award-winning producer with Lana del Ray who is on his Stranger Records label. The speakers in question are the MBL Rdialstrahler Model 126 which are an omni-directional design. I’ve heard MBLs a good few times and I don’t think I’ve ever been as impressed as I was at the North West Audio Show. Step up to the plate Computer Audio Design.

CAD provided the Audio Streaming Source with an additional PSU, their 1533 DAC, and, of course, their grounding products. Scott and Isabel were keen to tell me about the concept behind their grounding products which I’m sure many will suggest are voodoo. However, having been on the listening side of systems that use grounding products, when done well, they work exceptionally well.

In layman’s terms what the grounding boxes aim to do is remove high-frequency “noise” from the ground of a system. Whatever, the system sounded really good!

DIVERSE VINYL

Diverse Vinyl have been coming to Cranage since the very first show and this year, continuing our collaboration with the Welsh-based bricks-and-mortar and online vinyl vendors were giving away  HiFi PiG x Diverse Vinyl tote bags to everyone that spent over £100.

The stall for Diverse is always massively popular and this year was no exception with them being busy pretty much every time I passed them.

As well as doing many of the audio shows in the UK, Diverse also have retail premises and offers online sales worldwide.

I was particular impressed to learn from Paul at Diverse that his partner in the business is a member of the band Goldie Looking Chain whose “Fabrese on the seat for the stain where my Nan sits” line from one of their songs had, for whatever odd reason my brain had decided, had been rattling around my head by way of an earworm for a few days in the run-up to the show  – how bizarre!!

KIRMUSS

Kirmuss were showing off their Patented  KA-RC-1 Ultrasonic Record Restoration System and Charles Kirmuss also did a couple of talks about the best way to clean your records and make sure they are pristine. The process of cleaning your records using the KA-RC-1 is an involved one but it is effective.

This was a very, very busy stand in the main corridor and I caught up with the guys to ask them their thoughts on the show. It seems they were suitably impressed and had been doing a brisk trade. They were telling me of people coming to them with what they thought were clean records and then being shown the filth that had come off using the Kirmuss machine. They also told me about one chap who had just had one side of a record cleaned on a traditional machine. Surreptitiously they cleaned the already and just cleaned side for them and then showed them the gunk that had come off – I believe the guy bought a machine there and then.

LATERAL AUDIO STANDS

Lateral Audio were at the bottom of the stairs that led into the bar. This is an excellent position and seemed to be atracting a LOT of attention from visitors.

LONGDOG AUDIO

Longdog Audio provided one of the surprise highlights of the North West Audio Show for me. The open baffle speakers they had on show – “£9K if anyone wants to buy them”  – sounded effortless in this room. They are 98dB sensitive and use a Lowther Silver PM6A along with a Supravox 12″ and super-bullet tweeter.

The Longdog room also had a Rock Doc Townshend Rock turntable in there along with Long Dog amps and Music First Audio rpe.

ORIGIN LIVE

Mark at Origin Live has been attending Cranage as far back as I can remember and never fail to put on an excellent show. I am well aware of the excellence of their products as I use one of their Resolution turntables in one of our reference systems.

At Cranage Origin Live were using Falcon LS3/5a loudspeakers along with a turntable that uses a lot of the trickle-down tech from their Voyager turntable at a more affordable £8,300. The tonearm playing was an Origin Live Agile costing £10,500.

I will be absolutely straight up here and say that I didn’t really take much notice of the sound in this room as I know the Origin Live products well and really just wanted to natter…I did get some pics though.

PURITAN AUDIO LABS 

PAL are one of those companies that launched relatively quietly a few years ago and are now absolutely everywhere. They make power purifiers that aim to remove the unwanted noise on our mains supply that is injected by all manner of white goods, lighting and even solar power installations.

SOURCE SOUNDS

Source Sounds are from Sheffield and they do in-car audio. I’ve had a few half decent cars in my time but apart from looking in the ICE magazines and dreaming about something a bit more advanced than a pair of 6x9s on the back shelf, I never really pursued this as something serious.

It looks that I may be in a minority and whether it was the beautiful motorcars that Source Sound had fetched or their incredibly neat installs of the best in in-car audio, they were certainly attracting a good deal of attention.

Whether my passion or not is wholly irrelevant! What having companies like Source Sounds at a show like Cranage shows is that Kris is willing to take chances, he is willing to show things that challenge what punters expect to see at a HiFi show, and it helps us look beyond our living room.

SUPER NATURAL AUDIO

Danny Baty from Super Natural Audio (or SNA as they are also called) had what seemed to be one of the most popular rooms at the show, even on Sunday afternoon the small room on Jimi Hendrix street was packed with music lovers, eager to hear what this new brand had brought to the show. I had reports of HiFi Pig’s eldest piglet Billy leaping around to Drum and Bass tunes in there earlier on in the show so was looking forward to checking it out myself.

Danny had brought Super Natural Audio, Clipaudio, Curvi Hifi, Etude Loudspeakers, Audio Detail, MingDa UK, McIntosh and Missing Link for his system and was using Cranage to launch the first two products from SNA, a valve preamp and valve DAC.

The SNA Preamp (£2500) is a line stage preamp with four pairs of inputs and 2 pairs or outputs and uses two triode wired E80f pentodes for input duties followed by a 6SN7 for output.

The SNA DAC (£5000) utilises a Philips TDA1543 multi bit DAC chip with AKM AK4113 spdif receiver and a CMedia USB board. Both the USB and Spdif are fed into an ECC88 spdif buffer stage which allows 24bit 192KHz HD music capabilities, the audio section is handled by Sowter transformers feeding into a valve rectified all valve output stage using a Russian 6H13C output valve which can be swapped for any number of different output valves should you fancy rolling them. Danny tells us that what makes the DAC really special is the dual EL34 valves used as an active anode load for the output valve. The unit has four independent power supplies, one for each section.

This was a room of both new products and new companies with Curvi Hifi launching the new updated Curvi BMR MkII loudspeakers, I didn’t get to hear them but we did get to hear the new Etude loudspeakers from Chris Liauw at CML Music who is the creator of both of these speakers. Still in its prototype stages, the Etude5 features a transmission line design with a line array of four full range BMR drivers complimented on either side of the frequency ranges with a ring radiator tweeter at the top end and for the bass duties two side-firing bass drivers. These were the speakers that we listened to when I was in the room, and I think the ones responsible for the Drum and Bass mayhem I mentioned earlier. While I was in there we listened to ‘Quadrant 4’ by Billy Cobham… a fast, energetic track from 1973 with speeding guitar and frantic drumming. The system managed to convey the pure, raw energy of the track, it sounded fantastic and had everyone on the edge of their seat.

Clipaudio, who supplied the turntables in the room, are another new company. The Y Bone TT and Clipaudio arm were in the system but we were listening by streaming rather than vinyl. I was impressed with the build quality.

The full system was the Super Natural Audio Preamp and Super Natural Audio DAC, Curvi BMR MKII speakers or Etude Loudspeakers UK Etude5 speakers. Clipaudio Y-Bone TT with Clipaudio arm, fitted with a Matt McNulty Little Treasure SH cartridge. Audio Detail NV-06 Phonostage, MingDa UK Dynasty Potente MD150 monobloc power amplifiers and a McIntosh MA6900 running as a power amplifier only. Missing Link cables were used throughout the system.

Danny told us: “The North West Audio Show is the best show in the UK, it is in a lovely place with lots of lovely people and the show has a kinda relaxed vibe about it which is why I chose this event for my product launch”.

It was fantastic to see these new brands working together, the guys were obviously thrilled to be exhibiting and that energy and passion were passed on to the crowd, HiFi is fun and it should be enjoyed by the exhibitors as well as the visitors…if they are having a great time, then you will too.

WALLY TOOLS

I’d caught the end of the Wally Tools talk in David Brooks MCRU/Brook Audio room but spent a good deal of chatting at their stall about the effects of this and that on how a stylus is best served in getting the most detail out of a groove in a record. This was all pretty in-depth science stuff but it was very interesting and I’m hoping to bring you an in-depth interview in due course!

MIGHT MEDIA DISCS

Mighty Media Discs were exhibiting for the first time and had brought some interesting platter mats for your record players. Their ‘Made in the UK’ Goldmark Vinyl Platter Mat works on the principle that turntable manufacturers themselves strive to make the inert platters with vinyl-like properties, so they decided it was logical that having an actual vinyl platter surface would give playback benefits. The mats are made from high-grade virgin vinyl with a static neutral finish.

KEF

Legendary brand KEF were in the Wren room and were showing off their two latest loudspeaker models featuring their Metamaterial Absorption Technology in the form of the KEF BLADE TWO META and the KEF REFERENCE 1 META.

However, the star of the show for KEF and one I’d been longing to hear since we ran the news of it’s introduction was the new  LS60 wireless floorstanders that celebrate 60 years of KEF. I really loved the look of the new LS60 and it’s a speaker that is clearly aimed at those wanting a great-looking and sounding sound-system without all the hassles of a million and one boxes.

The LS60 is said to be developed from the brand’s BLADE speakers and us KEF’s Uni-Q driver array which is designed so that all the frequencies seem to come from one point source. This tech’ is named Single Apparent Source. In the LS60 the Uni-Q has been refined to include a tweeter gap damper and a new Z-Flex surround.

The Metamaterial Absorption Technology (catchy) and the other design features mentioned are said to absorb 99% of the unwanted sound that comes from the back of the tweeter.

The bass for the LS60 is provided by two pairs of Uni-Core driver arrays with drivers being mounted back to back by way of “force-cancelling”. There’s onboard DSP that KEF call the Music Integrity Engine and a total of 1400Watts of amplifiers and connectivity is great with all the usual suspects being catered for and with Roon readiness being expected in Autumn. However, if you prefer to lug in your CD player, games console or turntable then that’s all possible, as is connection of your television by HDMI (eARC).

The KEF connect app is used to set up the speakers and you can fanny about with the settings until you get the sound that suits you and your listening space. The app will also help you connect to your home network and give you control over the speakers. Designer Michael Young worked with the KEF team on the LS60 and there is no doubting that it will be a massive hit, in my opinion and based on this weekend’s performance.

The LS60 seems to me to be a lot of speaker for the £6000 asking price and sounded great at Cranage.

I purposefully left this room until the very last at NWAS but I was quite pleased I did. I was genuinely excited to hear these new speakers given all the interest they caused when we ran the news about their launch. They seem to be an awful lot of speaker for the asking price and that pseudo-pointsource driver aided by the extra bass drivers really does really deliver to give the aural appearance of a much bigger loudspeaker. Well worth the wait in my opinion.

REPLAY DISTRIBUTION

We were really looking forward to hearing the Atoll Electronique and Westbrook Loudspeakers system that Replay Distribution were exhibiting. I had been communicating with Jonty since he took over the French brand recently. However, we were covering the lower ground floor on Sunday afternoon and the room was closed. But, there was a seriously good excuse for this as Jonty Egan and his wife just had a new arrival in the family literally a day before the show, and babies take precedence over HiFi Shows.

It would have been the first UK show of the Atoll SDA200 streaming amplifier and latest “Signature” versions of the IN100 and IN200, and the first showing of the MKII version of the Westbrook Aurical loudspeakers.

We would like to wish Jonty and his family the very best and we will enjoy listening to the Replay room at next year’s show. Congratulations and see you next year! Here are a couple of photos supplied by Jonty.

MORE GENERAL THOUGHTS ABOUT THE NORTH WEST AUDIO SHOW 2022

The North West Audio Show gets widely called Cranage but whatever you call it there is no doubt in my mind that it is the very best audio show for the UK market. What sets it apart for me is the sheer level of enthusiasm for the show that is demonstrated by the organisers (Kris and his team), the fantastic staff at De Vere Cranage Estate (Tony pictured below is incredibly helpful and cannot do enough for anyone that asks for help in any way), and the exhibitors at the show who work so hard to get their kit sounding the best it can in less than ideal conditions.

However, it is YOU the visitors to the show that make the atmosphere so wonderful and welcoming and without YOU the North West Audio Show would be just another wannabe HiFi show. From the bottom of our hearts, I’d like to extend a huge thank you to every one of you that turned up, got into the spirit of the show and helped to make it THE UK audio show!

If we missed your room then we sincerely apologise but you may well get covered in one of our other reports!

I’m going to give the last word on the North West Audio Show to Andy Percival who is a member of the Audiophiles UK. Hi-Fi and Music group on Facebook as I think it sums up mine and many others thoughts:

“Another absolutely stellar show. I’m gonna say it, the UK’s best. To see the improvements each year the show runs all down to forward-thinking and a progressive attitude by the staff and event organisers! A credit to the industry and very much needed. Great vibe, my top show thumbs up! Bravo”

Until next year when we will see you again; stay healthy, stay happy and keep on making the North West Audio Show THE audio show to beat.

The North West Audio Show 2023 will take place on the weekend of the 17th and 18th of June at Cranage Hall…we look forward to seeing you there!

Further reports from Linette, Ian Ringstead, and John Scott will follow shortly but in the meantime here are some more images from the North West Audio Show 2022 at Cranage.

 

 

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

Please note, all content and photos are the copyright of HiFi Pig Magazine/Big Pig Media LLP and must not be copied or reproduced in any way without the prior, written consent of HiFi Pig/Big Pig Media.

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

 

 

 

 

 

Stuart Smith

 

 

 

 

 

Linette Smith