PARIS AUDIO VIDEO SHOW 2021

Words and photographs from this weekend’s Audio Video Show in Paris, France.

Well, it seems like an age since we got up in the wee hours of the morning to take the train from Lorient to Paris, and that’s largely because it’s been an age since we got up in the wee hours of the morning to take the train from Lorient to Paris and did anything like this. I’ll not lie, I’m a little nervous about this whole enterprise and my nerves aren’t helped any by the early morning coughing and spluttering by our fellow travellers, about which I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid at eighteen months ago. However, Dylan was right and the times have changed somewhat, though I think he put it a little better than that. Shows have been organised and cancelled and our diary page entries have been up and down like the proverbial bride’s nightie. We fell back into the preparation like a duck falls into water, and it all seems like second nature again. We know there’s going to be people from all over the world at the Audio Video Paris event and to say we are looking forward to meeting friends old and new is a bit of an understatement.

Many people asked why Lin and I chose not to attend the recent National Audio Show, or as it seems to be called now The UK Audio Show, and the reasons for our decision were pretty simple really – we didn’t think that it was safe to travel to the UK, and the requirements of the show to put in place strict Covid protocols were somewhat lacking on the part of the UK government. In France, it is a regulation for all people wishing to travel on long distance public transport to have a “pass sanitaire” showing that they are double jabbed, and the wearing of masks in public spaces is obligatory. These rules extend to the show too, and everyone attending will have to show their pass sanitaire, or a foreign equivalent, and people will be required by law to wear masks at all times – though the reality of this was that whilst the vast majority did wear masks properly, there was one or two how seem not have grasped the concept of how to wear a mask. This, for the most part, put me at ease a fair old bit and I feel it is a sensible, if somewhat Draconian (at first sight) measure. However, if we are to move forward, and beyond shows being organised only to be cancelled in the weeks and days running up to the event itself, I think measures such as this are going to be commonplace throughout the world – and if it means big shows can once again start to happen then I’m all for it, although I fully understand why people are against vaccine passports and the like.

Anyway, we arrived safe and sound in Paris, grab the Metro and we’re at the show – not forgetting to have a look at the Metro bridge that’s in the film Inception and that we’ve passed a hundred times and never really clicked it’s that bridge until the last time we watched the film…which we’ve also seen a hundred times.

The show’s always very well organised with good signposting to the different areas and this year is no different. It’s over two venues, the New CAP Event Center and a Novotel. The New CAP is where you go to register, pick up tickets and the like and there are a couple of large rooms on the ground floor being hosted by Elipson and Klipsch, whilst on the next level there’s the “Espace Casques” for headphones and the like, plus rooms by Focal, Yamaha and a space for live events by Inside Son-Video.

As anyone who has attended any HiFi show will be aware, it’s not the greatest environment in which to critically assess a system’s capabilities and so most of my comments aren’t going to be about that kind of thing…though who can resist making comments when something is particularly good sounding, whatever the circumstances.

PARIS AUDIO VIDEO SHOW 2021 – NEW CAP EVENT CENTER

This is a great way to start the event and it was busy from the very off and there are free rickshaws to transfer passengers from one venue to another, though it’s only a five-minute walk between the two.

In through the entrance and to the right we had Elipson who had a massive space full of static stands displaying their wares and then a couple of rooms where demonstrations were taking place. The first room had Legacy 3230 speakers playing along with Epsilon’s own electronics consisting of the A2700 amp and P1 preamplifier.

The second room again had Epsilon electronics but this time a pair of their Heritage XLS15 speakers that come in at less than €1000. This looking back to older style designs of loudspeakers seems to be a bit of t a thing at the moment with Epsilon following others such as Klipsch, Wharfedale and LBL.

Klipsch’s display was, as usual, fantastic with a couple singing and playing guitars, a barber (yes, a barber) and old motorbikes on show. This is to my mind excellent branding and shows the effort put into HiFi shows by many these days to transform a common or garden HiFi show into something of a spectacle  – I approve of this…a lot! Of course, Klipsch did have a system here but it wasn’t playing when we were in the space, but I did have a little drool over the Jadis valve amplifier.

As well as being well known around the world for their loudspeakers for HiFi, French brand Focal also specialise in audio for cars and they had a couple of systems on show here. Anyone who has driven with me in our cars will know that I’m not a great fan of music in cars and it’s likely the systems in the two cars at the show will have been a tad overkill for Radio 4 Long Wave – Test Match special permitting.

Yamaha had a massive space and in previous years this has been made to look like different living spaces. This year was sort of similar but mainly consisting of AV systems and the like.

PARIS AUDIO VIDEO SHOW 2021 – ESPACE CASQUES

Headphones and music on the go are absolutely huge everywhere and it seems that France is no exception. The space was busy with people of all ages and everyone looked to be very busy showing off their wares.

And that was the first part of the show over and now a hop and a skip to the Novotel a few hundred metres down the road. For those of a less athletic bent than I, the organisers of the show had put on rickshaws to take visitors between the two venues.

PARIS AUDIO VIDEO SHOW 2021 – NOVOTEL PARIS TOUR EIFFEL

Ana Mighty Sound are a well-known distributor in France and for the Paris show they had pulled out all the stops showing off the Diptyque DP107 speakers with creators Gilles Douziech and Eric Poix of Diptyque Audio on hand to introduce the speakers and to answer any questions. The DP107 are the big sister of the Dp77 speakers we reviewed here.  Electronics providing the juice were by DarTZeel and the whole lot sounded great. The French really do get behind brands that are made in their own country and the room was packed with people from the very beginning, though obviously DarTZeel are made in Switzerland  -you have to love any brand that calls their volume control the “Pleasure Control”.

Pier Audio put on a good show. I was particularly impressed with their Filante 21 loudspeakers costing €3690 and being 93dB sensitive.

MBL were up next and it was nice to be able to actually get in their room, it’s usually rammed beyond rammed at most shows, though we didn’t get a seat. The sound from their own electronics and the huge Radialstrahler speakers (Mrs HiFi Pig size comparison) for was impressive even sat on the floor. These are an omni-directional speaker and so you would expect to sound good wherever you were sat… you’d also expect them to sound great given their prices. You can read our review of the 116F Radialstrahler loudspeakers here.

The next room we went in was genuinely one of the absolute stars of the Paris Audio Video Show with a precise and tight performance that defied the less than ideal acoustics in the hotel. The Danish brands Aavik electronics, Borresen loudspeakers and Ansuz always play together and always sound fantastic. Now, they really should sound good given the system in this room costs in the region of €400 000, but, hey, if you have the money this would be a good place to start spending it, We have one of the Aavik amps that are more affordable in for review and so watch this space.

Perennial brand Technics were close by and it has to be said that I absolutely love the look of their electronics. Those VU meters are absolutely gorgeous! The turntables are, and this goes without saying, stunningly good whatever any naysayers may tell you and we use one of their 1200G turntables in our reference system.

French loudspeaker brand JM Reynaud used fellow countrymen 3D LAbs amplifiers to power their speakers, and, despite the (to my taste) questionable vocal music being played, were making a nice sound. The room was again rammed! The speakers in this room were the ORFEO GRANDE and the transport being used was the V768 that was making its world premiere at the Paris Audio Visual Show. Good stuff!

Next up were Martin Logan and their monolithic Neolith speakers partnered with Roksan and Trinnov electronics. I have heard these speakers in the past along with Constellation (IIRC) electronics and they have sounded wonderful. Alas, today wasn’t their day and despite their frankly fantastic looks the sound was somewhat lack-lustre – this is allowed at shows, of course, but I really was looking forward to hearing these again in all their glory. Never mind, the audience were lapping it up.

Walking through the corridors there were some real fantasy bits of HiFi on static display. I’ll pop a few pictures up for you to drool over.

I make no excuses when I say that our favourite streaming service is Qobuz and it was good to see them here at the show where I first became aware of them many years ago. Back then I paid little attention to them as their service was primarily focused on Jazz and classical music. Time moves on and so do Qobuz with them now offering a very wide range of music to suit all tastes. David Solomon of Qobuz in the States had flown over especially for the event.

Triangle and Primare partnered at the show and this is a good partnership as it sounded excellent. Needless to say, the room was absolutely packed with people supporting the french brand of Triangle but I’m sure they were equally impressed with Swedish Primare.

HiFi giant’s McIntosh had a freaking HUGE system powering Sonus faber loudspeakers. JUST LOOK AT IT!!!

Next up was very much one of my favourite rooms and was very French – in the very best way. Davis and Jadis are both very well known in France and whilst Jadis are known around the world Davis seem to be less well known. This is a shame as this system was a killer and sounded fantastic. In honesty, I walked in, looked at how the system was set up (the Courbet no8 loudspeakers were far too close together to get any kind of soundstage…surely) and almost laughed. However, I sat down and listened and was gobsmacked with what I heard. There was power and soul to this system and I don’t know if I’ve heard Keith Don’t Go sound better at a show…and I’ve heard it a LOT at shows. The system was the Davis Courbet No8 speakers, Jadis JS2 MIV DAC and DA88 tube amplifier. Definitely up there with my very favourite sounds of the show.

Sound and Colour had a big room and a good sound with Magico loudspeakers taking stage left and right, whilst Constellation took care of the power and pre-amplification.

Bowers and Wilkins had an incredibly good sounding room and I could have stayed in here much longer than we did. My notes tell me it was lifelike and effortless, detailed and rich sounding. Rotel’s high-end arm took care of the amplification with their MICHI range. Another one of my favourite rooms.

Gautier Audio was up next and they certainly added a bit of fun to proceedings. Small and yet sounding very nice their speakers come in at €2900. The exception to this rule is their Evasion speakers (The one that looks like the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter to me) cost £18200.

PMC and Bryston’s room came next and these are natural bed-fellows. The system looks pretty unassuming but my notes just say “what’s not to like?”. I was drawn to the turntable in here too as I’ve long lusted after a Thorens TD124 ad this one had an Ortofon SPU cartridge on it. Really, what is there not to like about this system.

Devialet and Focal partnered in the next room with Devialet’s Expert Pro and Focal’s Sopra loudspeakers. Dire Straits were playing and whilst the system was in no way offensive it really didn’t blow me away, though this could have been any number of factors at play. Certainly, the room was very busy and so they must have been doing something right.

Atoll and Atohm are two French brands that always exhibit together at HiFi shows and they do play very nicely together. Atoll deal with the electronics and Atohm supply the speakers. I don’t really understand why these two brands aren’t much more widely known in the UK, they certainly deserve to be.

The next room was a from L’Audio De France and I was suitably impressed. A Totaldac d1-core DAC, amplification from Audioanalyse, loudspeakers from Mac Voice Audio and cables from Esprit. The speakers are completely new to me and were single driver, though their sound belied this!

GoldenEar speakers had to wait until Monday morning for us to show up but I thought their system was rather splendid sounding. The smaller of the speakers, the Bookshelf Reference X, come in at less than €1600, have an AMT tweeter and sound great. However, the bigger floorstanders, the Triton Reference costing €11999 sounded much better. Actually, for this kind of money I was well impressed with the speakers. The latter have a built-in 1800 Watt subwoofer and the sound was very good indeed. It was good to see the LAB12 DAC being used (we use it in our second system as a reference) and the amp being used was from Octave.

Cabasse also had to wait until Monday morning but I was blown away by their little Keshi loudspeaker system. It’s absolutely tiny but sounds MUCH bigger. It costs €2490 and consists of two tiny satellite speakers that can sit on a shelf or can be wall-mounted along with a sub that contains a streamer, DAC and amplifier. There’s onboard room correction and the woofer has 450 W going into it whilst the speakers have 300 W. Very cool.

The final room of the show for us was another french brand in the shape of Waterfall who partnered with Sony for AV duties and Roche Bobois who provided furnishings. This is a really great concept and brings together all you need in a home. I liked this a lot. I’m not a huge fan of big screens and bells and whistle AV systems but this Dolby Atmos system sounded balanced and damned impressive.

And that was all, folks from the Paris Audio Visual show 2021. This is a very enjoyable and relaxed show and well worth making the effort to visit – and Paris is awesome anyway. I’d personally like to thank Vincent Brient, his wife and his team for sponsoring our coverage of the Paris Audio Show and for the wonderful trip up and down the Seine on Saturday night (read all about it here) whilst listening to the new D100 loudspeakers which we reviewed here.

Here’s the rest of the photographs taken at the show for you to enjoy. If you exhibited and we missed you then we apologise, but we think we covered everything in one shape or form.

All the best, Stu.

Totaldac D100 Loudspeaker Launch Paris 2021