I only went on Friday since I was busy on the other two days. I managed to get in at 10am before the crowd arrived, and was able to listen to a few systems. The Franco Serblin room shared with ISO Acoustics was interesting. They were comparing two identical pairs of the Ktêma speakers, one with the original spikes and the other with the GAIA isolators installed. The effect was very obvious. Solo female voice showed more focus and presence, with better image definition with the isolators. However, on a string quartet recording, the ambiance became less and the space between the instruments lost some airiness. I suspect the isolators will have less influence on speakers with well-damped enclosures, since the Franco Serblin (and Sonus Faber) speakers are designed to have resonant enclosures and hence are more affected. I am not sure whether the late signor Serblin would approve of this mod....
I found only the proper meeting rooms were able to get a decent sound, all the constructed "booths" on the main exhibit area had compromises. I always enjoy the Avantgarde room each year. This year, they had a pair of Zellaton Ultra Reference driven by these huge YS Audio amps. These speakers sounded much bigger than their physical size, with good tonal balance and dynamics. However, they were totally eclipsed when the Oceanway HRA, biamped with Halcro Eclipse amps, made their appearance. These beasts just had that much more presence, with an enormous scale and unrestricted dynamics. Size matters ! The source was the huge Acoustical System Astella turntable system, which no doubt also contributed. Very impressive indeed.
The Esoteric room was also quite impressive, with their magnetic drive TT as source. The system featured the Tannoy GRF Reference and the sound was actually pretty musical. I have often found the Esoteric electronics rather cold and soulless, and the large Tannoys usually sound "lazy". Last year's set up with the Westminster Royal was not impressive at all. I liked it much better this year. At risk of repeating a cliché, the TT did make the LPs sound like tape, with rock solid stability, very low distortion and low noise floor.
I also liked the room with the big Focals. It made music, not just sound, and had impressive scale and dynamics for speakers with congenital horn deficiency.
It was hard to properly audition in most of the rooms, with lots of people going in and out, and many broadcasting their unsolicited opinions to the whole world while the music was playing. I think they should expand the show since they are only renting a fraction of the available space at the Convention Centre.
