To be honest I feel if you did'nt make it you did not miss too much. There were some good points the Promo girls at the Shadow room
hot hot hot!!! and some bad ones, the price of coffee, the Naim room
.
Highlights for me were the Shadow Audio room and probably the Audio with vison room. Shadow had on dem the Art emotions (no intro needed) with Gamut Pre/Power and a Clearaudio TT / Wadia front end. I have heard this before at the shop and quite like the CDP but having heard the TT brifely it shows how good a source vinyl still is.
The Audio with Vison room had the Roksan xseres (correct spelling?) TT on show and it was nice! I have dealt with Robert who runs this shop before and he is a nice chap to deal with. It was a shame that the Peter Gabriel album his mate put on for me was knackered, even more so as it was brand new, poor guy
It was Just as my foot was tapping to Salsbury hill, still some nice sounds heard in there.
As usual there were some poorly put together rooms, I accept that the acoustics can be challenging but one room in particular was awfull. The Audiocraft room. Now I went in and within 10 seconds my mate and I were looking at each other thinking that a playgroup had set up a little "band" using tin pots for drums! Kinda bad when you consider the price tags on some of the kit, which buy the way I never looked at as I was running for the door!
I also find the attitude of some reps pretty poor too. A few were happy to chat and give info on kit and music whilst others must know every inch of the carpet in that hotel as all they did was stare at it!
The Loud and clearboys were constantly playing Pink floyd on DVD (now I love floyd) but it sounded terrible. I went in later and listened to the Moon electronics and Focal JmLab speakers which really did not impress at the price. They struggled to offer any imaging even slightly off center and it sounded like some one was pushing the soundstage to the floor.
The facilties here are much better than in Edinburgh having been there last year. The rooms are bigger and the corridors and comunual areas are better too. This coupled to the fact it is in a city centre next to a main railhead make it ideal to commute to if you fancy a few beers, lets face it all hi-fi sounds better after a few anyway!
All in all not a bad day out but like I say you are not missing much. Cheers
Dave