World Designs and HFW at the Heathrow Show 19-21 September

[Greg.]

Yes, this week-end, World Designs and HFW are hosting a demo room at the Heathrow Audio Show.

Open to the public from 2pm Friday to 4pm Sunday.

We'll be demonstrating quality kit and also presenting lectures on audio topics.

Please log into http://www.chestergroup.org/ to obtain a £2 entrance fee discount.

Find us in the big Bleriot 2 Suite in the Business Centre of the Park Inn Heathrow Hotel, UB7 0DU

Make a point of introducing yourself and saying hello. Remember that your forum tag may be more readily recognised over your proper name. Just be sure to identifying yourself. We're very much looking forward to meeting you all.

Best wishes,

Greg

[Dave the bass]

I'll pop in.

My name is Dave the bass, I'm a short chubby veggie hippy that likes........

DTB

[Mark]

Did the Heathrow Show today, so FWIW, here’s my personal highlights.

Its probably the first hifi show I’ve been to for over 30 years. I was therefore struck perhaps more than most by the almost equal numbers of SS and valve amps, and the large number of turntables in use.

Perhaps a hotel bedroom cleared of furniture is not an ideal acoustic for most hifi, but I was most struck, quite forcibly in some cases, by what I thought was the over-tight bass and treble done to a crisp, and sometimes so sharp you could shave with it, from many of the speakers being demonstrated - even when driven by valves and vinyl. It put me off a lot of the demos. Each to his own I guess. The larger WD room showing their floor-standers was haven of peace by comparison. The WD system initially seemed almost ordinary sounding, by comparison, but after a few minutes, much less fatiguing.

Mr de Paravacini and EAR must be up for the technology for technology’s sake prize with his 500W push-pull transmitter valve monoblocs with 28kg transformers and 1500V HT. He tells me that’s about the limit of what he can suck out of 13A socket without a 3 phase supply. Price ? He wouldn’t tell me but said something about comparability with an Aston Martin. I didn’t think the flat-panel looking speakers he was using did the amp justice.

I enjoyed Peter Comeau’s talk on loudspeaker design, and in particular the comparison of his 1950’s Gilbert Briggs open baffles with a modern narrow baffle floorstander and the WD floorstanders (although I thought the bass on the vinyl Pentangle track he played wasn't the best of examples - sounded a bit woolly/muddy to me whichever way you played it). I look forward to whatever comes out of his work on open baffles, although his comments on the difficulties finding a suitable bass driver indicate it’s not going to be cheap.

The Klipsch room was also interesting. Fortunately it was large, otherwise the sound would have been overpowering ! Whilst I enjoyed the sound I think I’d prefer the WD sound in the long term.

It was also interesting to chat to the Blackburn ‘Mullard’ people. Seems like the price point is going to be between new Chinese/European current production and NOS. First production for sale in a couple of months time.

I'd be interested to hear anyone else's take on the show.

Mark

[Richard Higgins]

Well it was great to see Greg, Peter and Dr John at the show.

My comments would broadly echo Marks.
In several of the rooms my first thaught was that there was extra detail, then I realised that the sound was sharper than anything I hear when listening to live music.
The WD room was a notable exception.
The Klipsch Jubilees were disapointing in the Artisan room. Last year he had them firing down the room and was rattling the ceiling, this year they were across the room, and with the strain guage cartridge they sounded thin especially in the vocals.
I enjoyed Peters lecture, it was informative and well reasoned, I hope it resulted in some orders.
I went to the Absolute Sounds electrostatic dem, it sounded ok for Cd, but they kept well clear of Rock music, I wonder why.
All in all, an enjoyable day out.
It motivated me to change the caps in my Impulse H2 speakers today to WDs finist. Its still running in, but results are promising.

Regards Richard Higgins

[Dave the bass]

That was a very nice way to spend a Sunday.

I popped into the WD room and caught up with Greg and Peter and ended up staying for the 2 Lectures. Both REALLY good.

Peters lecture on the differences between baffle-widths/enclosure designs was great, hearing the differences one after the other was great and having the reason why explained by a designer was the icing on the cake for me. Brilliant stuff. More like that please at the next show, pretty much a full house I believe too.

The Dr Freickert Adjust+ (sp?) Stylus alignment lecture appealed to fewer folk but was good too. He started off with the basics (to others, not me... I was riveted!) of how the groove is cut and the angles and goove widths permissable and how having a missaligned cartridge can cause major problem in tracking both groove walls accuratley AND reducing crosstalk .

I'll leave Greg to name the cartridge that the designer found gave exemplary performance in channel separation....

It seems that during the cartridges construction that the force applied to the small set/grub screw to fix the cantilever to the damping mechanism can cause tiny shifts geometry. Using the measuring software he's developed he's come up with a way of aligning the Vertical (Azimuth) bias of the cartridge which MAY be out from new due to the method of construction employed by cartridge manufacturers. Visually aligning the cartridge body or vertical line (as on a 103/r) isn't the answer due to the 'built-in' error during construction. Deep, but interesting stuff. From what I understand he did say that Rega derived arms (or any arms with a fixed arm/headshell) can't be properly vertically aligned without to resorting to shims between the cartridge and the underside of the headshell which is very tricky and time consuming to get right. Vive le u/p's!

Bought £40's worth of LP's too and strolled around room to room. Aside from the lovely sounds coming from the WD room my other fave sounds come from the chap in a tiny room at the far end of the long corridor demo-ing a tweaked Fostex FE 167 driver in a small almost open baffle-esque shaped cab with a moulded cast back. They were small but very good to my ears. I'll look up his name from the programme when I get in tonight. The baffles seemed to made of PVA'd together corrugated cardboard... no really.

Worst sound? Oooh, I couldn't say but I felt happy and not delusioned when i came home to my little Fonkens and 2A3 amp to listen to my new LP's.

DTB

[Greg.]

Originally Posted by Dave the bass

I'll leave Greg to name the cartridge that the designer found gave exemplary performance in channel separation....
DTB

Hmmm, I think he mentioned something about a Denon 103
He did add that they needed the stylus converting to to an elyptical pattern to make them work properly

[Dave the bass]

Originally Posted by Greg.

Hmmm, I think he mentioned something about a Denon 103
He did add that they needed the stylus converting to to an elyptical pattern to make them work properly

Yup, thats true. The profile he raved about was the Shibata (sp?) wasn't it as well as the Geiger I believe.

Thanks for the warm welcome Greg, hope it was a successful show for all concerned.

DTB

EDIT. It's Shibata (as in Dr. Norio Shibata). A stylus profile that had an extended HF response that was developed to cope with quadraphonic vinyl playing, i just been reading up on it here.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadraphonic_sound

[slawts]

Hi

I enjoyed the show this year and in particular Peter's talk/demo.

I'm more used to ported speakers as I have Monitor Audio Studio 20's, which made me initially prefer the ported speakers to the others. However, by the end I think I preferred the WD25's although I'd need longer listening to be sure.

I went back twice to the Proteus room mainly because I'm intrigued by the new TubeTech valves. Anybody have any more info on them? One of their guys said he'd been told that they sound better than NOS Mullards.

Slawts