Hong Kong High End Audio visual Show 2014 Part I
This year my reporting shall take a slightly different path. This Blog you are reading is free, and editing tools are limited. My coverage of the 2014 show is a little more comprehensive than before, and there are more pics. In Part I, I am posting the pics and brief comments.
Selected detailed comments are in Part II
Last revised August 10, 2014
Click pics to enlarge. In order, comments below on the pics. To save your time, they are color-coded for sonic merit (Excellent, good to ok, bad to dreadful):
1. Mini Esoteric, Cyrus Lyric and Cabasse do a reasonable job.
2. I'd have loved to hear the truly innovative and reasonably priced Townsend Rock 7.
3. Kharma, as driven by Orpheus. Still no karma for me after all these years.
4. Martens Coltrane is dreadful. John is turning in his grave.
5. Harbeth and Sugden are pretty bad.
6. Eclipse setup driven by Luxman are dreadful.
7. Passable Wilson Alexia driven by EMM Labs electronics.
8. Passable rossofiorentino partnered with MSB and PiGreco.
9. Hit and Miss Audio 1 - ATC100 + drumming = disaster.
10. Hit and Miss Audio 2 - Dynaudio slightly better with Line Magnetic.
11. Revel driven by Moon. HK Lumin CAS. Excellent.
12. Revel driven by Mark Levinson. Excellent. 11 + 12 = Revel is the star.
13. German Physiks underperforms yet again with Plinius. Dreadful.
14. Tim de Paravicini of EAR is my hero.
15. As usual, awful demo of JBL Everest DD67000, driven by Chinese electronics that should remain a Secret.
16. A full system of Electrocompaniet is quite listenable.
17. Audio Note UK system. Nothing bad, nothing of note.
18. McIntosh. The further you get away from the girl, the better the sound.
19. Pedestrian Burmester, as usual. But I like the cyber feel of the Acoustic Signature Novum.
20. Wisdom. Not heard.
21. Audio Extreme did a good job (see Part II).
22. Dynaudio was capably served by simple Musical Fidelity (see Part II).
23. Avalon (Isis) disappoints yet again being driven by Audia.
24. Avalon Tesseract silent but evil (hifi excess). This planet needs to defend against it.
25. As usual, dreadful Eventus as driven by Luxman.
26. In the same room, YG + Soulution is a bit better, but...
27. Steinheim + CH Precision (see Part II).
28. NS Audio optical cartridge (see Part II).
29. Cabasse Baltic Evolution + Santorin represents Dah Cheong's best effort to date. It puts similar satellite system (pic 6) to shame.
30. Avantegarde driven by Kondo, better than last year, but sound is small and not room filling.
31. Highly artificial Siltech and Crystal. Excel excels no more.
32. As usual respectable Vivid Giya.
33. This room is always good. This round, Wilson and T+A.
34. Raidho + Ampzilla was not well controlled.
35. Rockport + VTL + Spiral Groove. Excellent (see Part II).
36. Salesman trys to sell material science, not audio! :-(
37. MBL. Worst sound in years.
Selected detailed comments are in Part II
Last revised August 10, 2014
Click pics to enlarge. In order, comments below on the pics. To save your time, they are color-coded for sonic merit (Excellent, good to ok, bad to dreadful):
1. Mini Esoteric, Cyrus Lyric and Cabasse do a reasonable job.
2. I'd have loved to hear the truly innovative and reasonably priced Townsend Rock 7.
3. Kharma, as driven by Orpheus. Still no karma for me after all these years.
4. Martens Coltrane is dreadful. John is turning in his grave.
5. Harbeth and Sugden are pretty bad.
6. Eclipse setup driven by Luxman are dreadful.
7. Passable Wilson Alexia driven by EMM Labs electronics.
8. Passable rossofiorentino partnered with MSB and PiGreco.
9. Hit and Miss Audio 1 - ATC100 + drumming = disaster.
10. Hit and Miss Audio 2 - Dynaudio slightly better with Line Magnetic.
11. Revel driven by Moon. HK Lumin CAS. Excellent.
12. Revel driven by Mark Levinson. Excellent. 11 + 12 = Revel is the star.
13. German Physiks underperforms yet again with Plinius. Dreadful.
14. Tim de Paravicini of EAR is my hero.
15. As usual, awful demo of JBL Everest DD67000, driven by Chinese electronics that should remain a Secret.
16. A full system of Electrocompaniet is quite listenable.
17. Audio Note UK system. Nothing bad, nothing of note.
18. McIntosh. The further you get away from the girl, the better the sound.
19. Pedestrian Burmester, as usual. But I like the cyber feel of the Acoustic Signature Novum.
20. Wisdom. Not heard.
21. Audio Extreme did a good job (see Part II).
22. Dynaudio was capably served by simple Musical Fidelity (see Part II).
23. Avalon (Isis) disappoints yet again being driven by Audia.
24. Avalon Tesseract silent but evil (hifi excess). This planet needs to defend against it.
25. As usual, dreadful Eventus as driven by Luxman.
26. In the same room, YG + Soulution is a bit better, but...
27. Steinheim + CH Precision (see Part II).
28. NS Audio optical cartridge (see Part II).
29. Cabasse Baltic Evolution + Santorin represents Dah Cheong's best effort to date. It puts similar satellite system (pic 6) to shame.
30. Avantegarde driven by Kondo, better than last year, but sound is small and not room filling.
31. Highly artificial Siltech and Crystal. Excel excels no more.
32. As usual respectable Vivid Giya.
33. This room is always good. This round, Wilson and T+A.
34. Raidho + Ampzilla was not well controlled.
35. Rockport + VTL + Spiral Groove. Excellent (see Part II).
36. Salesman trys to sell material science, not audio! :-(
37. MBL. Worst sound in years.
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Glorious photo of the mighty Harbeth Monitor 40.1 reference loudspeakers - the absolute zenith of professional monitoring quality
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