HIFI PIG’S FINAL REPORT FROM ASCOT AND THE UK HIFI SHOW LIVE 2023

The third and final of Eric’s show reports from the UK Hifi Show Live Show 2023.

Decent Audio presented two systems in as many rooms – one built around the small Raidho X2t
floorstanders, which through an advanced ported enclosure construction, firing out of the rear of the
inner side panels, can move a lot of air relative to its modest cone surface area, as a blast of Depeche
Mode´s ´Welcome to my World´ proved. In the other room was a pair of Magnepan 1.7is – a lot of
speaker for the money at around three grand – supported by a cast of SPL amplification with a Dual CS
618Q direct-drive turntable. The Maggies were placed no more than a foot from the back wall and
delivered a scrumptious sound stage – giving the lie to the common perception that dipoles should be placed well into the room.

The news at Hegel was the big H600 integrated amp – well, more an all-in-one system with a built-in 24-
bit, 384 KHz DAC and a plethora of streaming functionality built into the same chassis that is home to a
dual-mono, 303 Watt per channel powerhouse. With its matching Viking CD player and playing into a
pair of Egglestone Works slim floorstanders, this proved that high performance audio doesn´t necessarily mean sacrificing a lot of real estate.

MBL had one of the single skyboxes at its disposal and wisely chose to ´right size´ their system for the
modestly sized space by settling for their standmount 126 model, supported by their own network player
and integrated amplifier. Their omnidirectional speakers are known for giving the listener a ´middle row
of the concert hall´ perspective and it was no surprise to learn that the brand was founded back in the
1980s by classical music lovers and avid concert goers.

(pics Vitus Audio, resplendent in a nice shade of satin blue. Recent developments in the regular MA lines
were, featured, too – the Platinum Series 3G and the Anthra subwoofers being prime examples.

The Vinyl Fair attracted plenty of crate diggers.

Along with Tannoy, Lowther is probably one of the very oldest HiFi brands around, being founded in 1934
but tracing its roots (Paul Voight´s Domestic Corner Horn) ten years earlier than that, even. Lowther full-
range drive units have featured in many commercial speakers as well as home builds over the past few
decades, but in recent years, the company has been introducing a range of speakers of their own – some
of them being a reimagination of classic models and others wholly new. At the show, the TP2 corner
horn and the Edilia column speaker – in essence an Almira with an additional bass speaker – were taking
turns on the end of some classic valve amplifier designs, and while you´d be hard pressed to call then
´neutral´, chances are you won´t care a bit as you´ll be too busy enjoying yourself. For a sheer sense of
scale, agility and ´wholeness´, these take some beating.

Bel Canto, Boulder and YG Acoustics shared a large space where they presented a range of set ups from
the ambitious to the er, more ambitious. Among which was a strikingly minimalist system using a Bel
Canto-built streaming front end with the active, DSP-controlled YG Vantage 3 Live. Which, according to
Bel Canto, is the future, anyway. ´People ask what their upgrade path will be – well, there is just one: a
bigger speaker…´

Audioquest, Auralic and Goldenear rocked a fairly sizeable room with these pencil-slim floorstanders and
some techno while we were there… New at Auralic are the G 2.2 and G3 series (as introduced at the
Munich High End).

Dali concentrated on their Kore and Epikore 11 flagship speakers – the latter being a UK premiere – with
a high class, almost all-Nordic supporting cast majoring on Bergmann and Gryphon. In a corner, a lonely
Tektron amp was sitting pretty…

The Royal Ascot South hall was home to Signature Audio Systems who brought an almost bewildering
array of gear – dozens of different Canton speakers and Thorens turntables, as well as PS Audio´s all-out
´reference´ system for which PS Audio´s owner Paul McGowan himself had been flown in from the USA
to present. Trying to demonstrate a lovely Canor/Canton system with some light classical music at the same time that the PS Audio rig was blasting out techno at big SPL probably wasn´t the cleverest idea,
though.

In the adjacent Parade Ring Suite, Cadence Distribution brought an even larger brand portfolio, with
names such as ATC, Burmester, Crystal Cable, Garrard, Nagra, Rockport Technologies, Siltech, SME,
Spendor and Weiss all part of the stable. An array of SME decks from 6 to 60, the relaunched Garrard 301
in two different plinths (we particularly liked the mint green one) and several systems, of which the big
SME/Nagra rig with Rockport Orions (a cool 140,000 pounds for the speakers alone) was on demo.

Exposure has built up a stellar reputation for its electronics (I had their XM HP headphone amp/DAC in
for review a couple of years ago and very nice it was, too) but apart from the 3510 Series including its
new toploading CD player and monoblock power amplifiers, imagine our surprise to also find an
Exposure-branded turntable as part of the set up… Admittedly, it did look suspiciously like the ones from
a manufacturer of which the name starts with ´R´ (and ends in ´ega´)… Speakers were Graham Audio
Chartwell LS6/f.

NH Audio Design seems to be a one-man band, specialising in ´design, manufacturing, upgrade and
service´ on all types of loudspeakers and vintage amplifiers both of the valve and solid state persuasion.
Their own speaker has an interesting shape (finish on the ones shown here was not perfect, though),
little info on them except that it looks to be a two-way with a ribbon HF unit and the reflex port shown
on the manufacturer website, was not present on the ones demonstrated. The speakers were driven by a
motley crew of an older Technics SL-1400 and a decidedly vintage Hitachi pre/power combo, while at the
same time there was a current Audio Note M3/Conquest Silver combo present, which exists in a
completely different stratosphere but wasn´t hooked up while we were there. On our brief acquaintance
with unfamiliar music, we couldn´t pick any obvious holes in the sound, but these were probably limited
by the supporting cast and the somewhat haphazard way everything was laid out, all the same.

Another interesting – or ´out there´ depending on one´s aesthetic sensibilities – shape was to be seen at
Mellow Acoustics, whose Front-Ro speakers are not only a very compact hybrid electrostatic, but also
omnidirectional – and apparently in such a way that the stereo imaging is being enhanced rather than
homogenised. Also shown were some nice looking English Electric valve amplifiers.

PMC´s double room at Level 3, was also home to German high end electronics powerhouse AVM, Bryston and Martin Logan – so in addition to PMC flagship Fact Fenestria driven by Bryston amplification, there was also the Martin Logan Renaissance ESL 15A to be enjoyed, powered by a beefy AVM Ovation CS 8.3 Black Edition all-in-one unit. On static display were PMC´s Prodigy line of speakers.

You can count on Kevin and Lynn Scott from Definitive Audio to put on a good show wherever they
appear, and Ascot didn´t disappoint. A pairing of Kuzma Stabi XL and Grand Prix Audio Monaco
turntables – visually as different as night and day, but sonically quite evenly matched – both with Kuzma
tonearms and cartridges, were playing through the big and rather lovely Consolidated Audio step up
transformers from Berlin into an all-SJS amplification system with the new Living Voice R80 speakers at
the business end of the chain. As in Munich, the sound was about as natural and musically expressive as
one is ever likely to encounter at a HiFi show.

Only two ´boxes´ – or one, if you leave the CD player out of the equation – compact speakers but still of
the very highest quality level available: the CH Precision i1 integrated amp/DAC/Streamer (33,400 UKP)
plus Stenheim Alumine 2 standmounts (15,900 UK pounds) has a lot going for it if one doesn´t want their
hifi to take over their apartment but are unwilling to compromise on both sound quality and Swiss bank-
vault construction. Nearly bang-on 50K for a complete system seems quite reasonable, a little less so
when you factor in the matching CD player which at 33,900 pounds costs virtually the same as the all-in-
one amplifier, mind… The larger, floorstanding Stenheim Alumin 3 (39,800 UK pounds) was also present
and will certainly have been put into service at some point. The big (albeit the smallest in their range),
exquisitely constructed Göbel High End Divin Marquis (from 89,000 pounds depending on customer
specified finish) however, was strictly on static display in the next room.

Totem played a recent addition to their range of loudspeakers – the Bison Towers – in the way the
Canadians always do things – play nice music that most of the audience will recognise on a well-balanced
system built from Rega separates throughout, none of which items are in cloud cuckoo land financially or
in terms of handling, in a relaxing environment. No attempts to impress with ´audiophile´ fireworks, no
marketing bull, just good honest music.

Another – separate – Audioquest/Goldenear room centered around the new Goldenear BRX (Bookshelf
Reference X, 1,699 UKP/pair).

KOG Audio had two rooms, one of which was home to a winning combination that we´re familiar with
from Munich, among others – Fink Team and Soul Note. Here the Fink Team Kim was being powered by
the Soul Note A2 (6,300 UK pounds) or A3 (price to be confirmed, but probably 19 grand) amplifier, and
D-2 D/A converter (7,700 UKP). Cabling was courtesy of Tellurium Q throughout.
In the other room, the 30 grand Taiko Audio Extreme music server delivered its bits to a suite of German
T + A (which stands for ´Technik + Anwendung´; very German, that) equipment – the PSD 3100HV media
player/DAC/streamer (14,900 UKP), A3000HV integrated amplifier (14,900 UKP) and Talis S300
loudspeakers (10,900 UK pounds/pair) – again, all cabled with Tellurium Q.

Origin Live took the old ´source first´ adage known from the old Linn/Naim days to extremes by taking
their grandest Voyager turntable (from £23,000) and the even more expensive Renown tonearm with a
16-grand Whest Titan Pro phono stage to play into a tiny, £1500 pair of AVI DM 10 active monitors,
augmented with a subwoofer. Power conditioning was courtesy of Puritan. They also had an original
vinyl copy of New Order´s underrated debut album ´Movement´ of which my favourite track ´Doubts
Even Here´ sounded extremely clean and detailed with good flow, albeit a tad lacking in scale and
weight, on the rig.

Sound Fowndations are UK distributors for Clearaudio, DS Audio, Furutech/ADL and Musical
Surroundings and built up a rather tasty system consisting of a Clearaudio Reference Jubilee turntable
with DS Audio Grand Master optical cartridge and its matching two-box phono equalizer, Kondo GE-
70line preamplifier, GamuT D200i power amp (a single-ended MOSFET device knocking out 200 Watts
per channel – go figure) and Kerr Acoustics K320floorstanding speakers. I´ve experienced it before, but
for most of the audience the real eye-opener must have been the demonstration of the DS Audio ES-001
eccentricity detection stabiliser which uses advanced laser technology to enable the user to put a record
bang in the middle of the platter (if the hole in the middle is pressed eccentrically enough so that this
can´t be achieved with the record as is, there´s a handy tool included to make it slightly bigger). The
difference between the 300 microns with the record – in this case, Kraftwerk´s ´Man Machine´ – placed
as you would normally, and 35 after adjustment using the ES-001, is stunning; not only does it sound a
lot cleaner and more detailed after adjustment, the sound is more sparkling and vibrant, more analogue´ if you will, too. Shame the part is prohibitively expensive at about five and a half grand or 6,000 euro…

The Supatrac Blackbird tonearm is apparently the result of extended thinking and experimenting during
the lockdown period, sporting a novel principle called the ´sideways (or horizontal) unipivot bearing´-
that apart, the arm does not look anything like any I know, anyway. It was installed on a Technics SL-
1210G and a Garrard 301 (we really liked the nice and compact form factor on that one) that were
playing through a modest set up consisting of a Linn (?) phono stage, a Creek passive volume control
unit, a Behringer amp and a pair of small standmount KEF speakers, so questions about the ultimate
capabilities of the arm should remain unanswered.

As expected, Monitor Audio´s room centered on its recently introduced £70 K (pair) flagship HYPHN, driven by a huge stack of Vitus Audio, resplendent in a nice shade of satin blue. Apart from the startling architecture of the things, they´re outstanding to listen to in their directness and sheer naturalism. Recent developments in the regular MA lines were, featured, too – the Platinum Series 3G and the Anthra subwoofers being prime examples.

KEF played their LS 60 and Blade Meta 2 speakers in a room that, although very nicely lit, was probably a
bit too small for the hordes that came in and wanted to have a listen. We just about managed to crawl
past a few of them on hands and feet and take a pic…

Last but not least: Absolute Sounds, probably the biggest powerhouse among UK high end distributors,
inhabited a huge space at the back of Level 5. Their brand portfolio is absolutely huge and they seemed
to have brought most if not all lines of the manufacturers they represent including some pretty rarefied
pieces of equipment – we´ll let the pictures do the talking. Despite Level 5 not directly reachable from
the escalators in the main entrance hall, the show had barely opened on Sunday morning and there
already had formed a queue for tickets to one of two demo rooms – somehow we managed to avoid that
and were whisked into a room with Irv Gross from Constellation Audio and Peter Mackay from Magico
ready to talk us through the ins and outs of the system we were about to hear; also in the room was
Mark Döhmann of the epynomous ultra-high end turntable company. The system was built around the
new Magico S3 floorstanders, only just having been launched for the UK market at KJ West One so for
pretty much anyone here, this was their first chance to get up close and personal with them. They were
powered by Constellation Audio´s Hercules Stereo, the preamp was the Constellation Altair II with the
analogue front end provided by a Döhmann Helix One with CD and streaming by dCS´ finest, with cabling
from Dutch artisan firm Ikigai. We could waffle on, but this was simply ultra-luxury audio, set up and
presented at the highest level – as Absolute Sounds´ boss alluded to, best to just sit back, relax, don´t
think about what the equipment does but instead let the music take control…

A huge thanks to the organiser Paul Miller of HiFi News and Record Review for his hospitality and here’s looking forward to The Audio Show UK 2024 at Ascot.

If you haven’t read the rest of the report…head back to the start here!

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.

Eric van Spelde

For all the UK HiFi Show Live 2023 coverage from Ascot, click here