Now this was an interesting room and a big room to boot, but the diminutive loudspeakers filling the room with a huge sound were a complete surprise to me! The speakers in question were the out of the ordinary looking Leedh E loudspeakers and they are nothing if not unusual. Both me and my wife had to do double take on walking into the Avance Audio room. Electronics were equally interesting and supplied by Van Medevoort from Holland.  Kit was Van Medevoort CT460 CD Transport, DA468 DAC, CA460 Pre amplifier, PA462 amplifier and of course the Leedh E loudspeakers. The whole kit and caboodle came in at around €28,000.

Project audio were well represented with a whole load of their turntables and electronics. The turntables were brilliantly coloured and would look funky as you like with the Skandya loudspeakers we pictured in Part one of the Paris show report.

We pictured some Martin Logan Electrostatic loudspeakers in the first part of the report – the ones being protected from the cold weather if you remember – and in the same room were playing some Sonus Faber floorstanders allied with Primare electronics. I stayed for a track or two and have to say I was very impressed with the music that this combo was delivering. Nice and unforced. Particularly nice was the vocal on a Shirley Horn album that was getting played.

Everything But the Box look like very nice and colourful little loudspeakers and the Exposure amplification that was paired with them I know to be great, but the sound was so quiet when the very helpful sales guy played a tune for me that it was a pretty much pointless demonstration. To be fair the room was busy with a good few people milling about and being spoken to and perhaps they wanted to keep the music quiet for this reason. However, this leaves me little to say other than the combo looked nice and were completely inoffensive on the ear. I would really like to get a proper listen to these little speakers as it happens and see if they are form over function or if they deliver on sonics as well as aesthetics.

On to the Atohm and Atoll  room . The little GT 1.0 loudspeakers were being fed by the Atoll amplifiers and compact disc player and I had to make sure the guy hadn’t marked up incorrectly the loudspeakers that were playing. For such a small loudspeaker they produce a fabulously spacious and detailed picture of the music being played. I liked this room a lot and could happily live with the set up they had playing in my home. Well worth an audition if you are in the market for a stylish looking loudspeaker and electronics package!

If you are going to sell high end audio equipment then I think that it’s in your interest to have a salesperson in the room that has a little knowledge about the kit he is demonstrating…he didn’t and that did him and his products no favours at all – he could have been covering on a loo break but there you go. The room in question was a tiny affair and the kit in there was wholly inappropriate for its size. Anyway, a pair of JBL K2 S9900 were shoehorned in there along with Audia Flight electronics and an EAT (Euro audio Team) Forte Turntable. There was a sign to let us know that Van den Hul cables were being used…very helpful. In the right room I imagine this high end system would have sounded wonderful, as it was it was completely underwhelming I’m afraid.

You can read more about the show in Part 1 here  and Part 3 here