Guangzhou 2023 II Atmasphere Sound Lab Classic Sound Matrix Audio Genelec Fyne Horns Lampizator Canor Sikora Lowther Audiovector Thoress

Click all Pics to Enlarge. Top, BEST of SHOW. Atmasphere Flagship Preamp and their Solid State Amp (foreground) driving Sound Lab ESL (white panels; note the integrated subwoofer at bottom). Forefront are a pair of Classic Audio Field Coil Fullrange loudspeakers. At the lower right corner you can see a bit of the power supply for the right Field Coil. More below.

Guangzhou Hi End Show (AV Fair), Part II (of V)

Editor: 1) As the show was big, this shall be a multi-part effort; 2) If you haven't, I'd urge you to first read Part I for Basic Info.

Note: Since this is going to have many parts, I have given it a new tag, Show report - Guangzhou 2023. Click to view Part I, III, IV, V (the last is a very personal Overview, Summary and Postscript).

Some of the equipment have featured in the Shenzhen Audio Show that I reported on. Although I did not do the China Hotel segment of this GZ show and missed some big rooms, many of the brands can be found in my coverage of the SZ show (e.g., Raido CH Precision, Analog Source, Line Magnetic, Hanowa, Eizz, Pilium, Simaudio, Scansonic, rossofiorentino, Hegel, Gold Note, Franco Serblin, Prima Luna, Audes, Audio Analogue, Quested, Mymei, Ologe, Triangle, and more)

Coverage of the show follows no particular logic. As before, I’m going to grade the sound. Best is simply Bold Black, in a category by themselves. Others are shaded: Very good is Green; Good is Yellow; and Average is Red. Believe me, I'm very lenient! More so towards others than myself!

Aurum Cantus Like a lot of others, this old brand is into Active Loudspeakers now. In 2 rooms they showcased a floorstander and a bookshelf. The latter setup used the ubiquitous Matrix Audio Streamer; I'm not sure what the former used. I still have their ribbon supertweeters (which haven't changed much).

Linlai Tubes Full Line on Silent Display. My cheap APPL amp came with a pair of Linlai 300B and they have been very good. Based on that, I endorse them.

Musicnote Puremusic Full electronic line and loudspeakers (the bookshelves were what I heard). The ridiculous thing is, flanking the rack are a pair of old Klipsch Heresy. The back has Kilpsch stickers, but the front logo says "Musicnote". I asked the man why, but he didn't answer me. For that, I should demote them to red.

Fyne Accuphase One of the Best Sounds at the show. Fyne is run by ex-Tannoy engineers and staff. Many now regard them as the more authentic! Judging by the very decent sound (the big one whose finish is almost exactly the same as Tannoy Prestige series) I'd totally agree. The smaller Vintage series look very nice too! Accuphase is in smaller fonts because the excellent sound has more to do with Fyne than Accuphase. In the past, Accuphase + Tannoy = Mediocre, so this came as a surprise.

Fyne Accuphase This small Fyne F1-8 was more than decent driven by Accuphase.

Blumenhofer Octtavio AudioOnes All German. Average.

TPI True to its professional origins, setup was no fuss. Not cheap. The speakers are RN1.

Atmasphere Sound Lab Classic Audio All American and to me the best sound of the show. See too caption under Top Pic. All these are distinctive companies that have been around for a long time.  I asked the sales whether there are problems encountered by the ESL in humid China (like Quads), and he said none whatsoever. The Atmasphere solid sate amp was surprisingly refined though I'd have loved to hear the 6C33 OTL. If I had more time, I'd have returned to ask to hear the Classic Audio Field Coils!

易恒通信 EFE Easy For Everyone Dr Strangelove of the show. I walked into the room and looked at the stuff. A pair of Quad ESL (looks like 29xx), and old Accuphase amp (looks cool), and a Theta Transport! Under the Theta is a Goldmund like case with EFE brand (I presume DAC)! I asked the young man what is selling? He laughed, and said he is in satellite business. Only then did I notice that the glass enclosure near the door had a portable satellite antenna. He said this is KU Wave (a kind of microwave used in satellites) technology. He also said he discovered some of the technology can be used in audio and all of the stuff you see have been modified. I asked him about the ladder, which he said (with the board) is used to temper the boomy acoustics of the room. What I heard was not boomy. Now, this kind of crazy thing checks my box, to make it worthwhile to skip the big dealers!

KEF Nagra Air Tight The KEF Blade again puts in a reliable performance with Airtight 211 monos. I think the Nagra preamp was used rather than Air Tight.

KEF Michi Transrotor The KEF R11 loudspeakers performed just as well with mid-price Michi (Rotel's new line) electronics, thanks to analog playback via a Transrotor TT. My friend Andy the Cayin man said to me that if he were to buy a pair of loudspeakers for daily use (he's into headphones now) he'd consider a smaller R series. I told him I was not that into LS50 and he agreed.

Shengya ATC I was surprised that Shengya is still around. Back ages ago, in their early days, they made very cheap solid state amps (and I think a preamp with tubes) that I the tube man nonetheless found neutral and acceptable and good value (never owned one but have recommended them to friends at the low end). Looks like they have moved upmarket some.

Shanling Diapason OK but kinda sterile, just as in SZ show.

Horns Lampizator, Sikora, Canor All Eastern European. 3 Polish and 1 Czech (Streamer excepted). One of the best in the show. The sound was even better than at SZ previously. Why? Because this time the Sikora TT was playing! The flagship overkill Lampizator DAC was a different unit and with somewhat different tubes. Several "cheaper" Lampizator models were on silent display. Aurender not heard. Very satisfying! See above SZ show link if you like.

Sugden Harbeth The usual combo were also seen in HK shows, but frequently silent. This time, sound was decent. Forgot what CDP was.

Best Sound Huge Monitors from China, and there were several like this at the show. Reasonable finish and chunk for the price. Despite the name, not best sound, BUT not bad at all.

iFi room was jam packed by earphone listeners auditioning. No, Thorsten Loesch was not there. Nothing tested.

Genelec Matrix Sound 矩声 We have always liked Genelec Active Loudspeakers. But in HK, they are not popular really outside professional circles, and are consigned to silent display (if they show up at all). Not in GZ! Not 1 but 3 setups (I could have missed others)! All were the best in the show. Yesterday, my friend the JBL 66000 user (you shall have a Home Report after I put the GZ show away) rated the smaller white one in a room as best of show. I can totally understand. What amazes us even more is that the little Matrix Sound Streamer can deliver such pristine sound. It's not cheap, at over RMB 20k, but I'd gladly pick it over Auralic/Aurender/Lumin etc, all those big faceless aluminum boxes. The kid's left hand shows a pile of 3 Matrix Sound products. Only the top Streamer was used! Many other sellers used this Streamer! Concision, Precision, Satisfaction. As my friend icefox would say, 正经 (Proper)!

Soundidea Room Treatment display. No sound.

JL Audio Subwoofers Silent Display.

Lowther Thoress Never say Die, as in the case of Lowther! Or, Cat has Nine Lives, as the Lowther dealer in China is called Catclawaudio. The net address on the banner does not work. If u use Chinese media, like Bilibili etc, search "猫爪Hifi". Has many videos. The new Audiovector is stunning. Apparently, the Chinese company has acquired cabinet manufacturing license from Lowther, which still makes the drivers. The Chinese company makes the cabinets, but apparently the upper, "Vector", part is from a German party. Yes, the exact same cabinet had been featured in monostereo. Sound was nice, as driven by the expensive (and exquisite looking) Swiss electronics. To be honest, the sound was nice, but I wasn't really listening, as I was talking to the friendly boss about my old TP1, now sold to a friend. Apparently, Lowther is making PM3 again! Perhaps this should be green, but I up it for the Herculean effort! Look at the up-firing unit! Fun! behind you can see the well-regarded Polish Cube Full Range. Digital was playing, and the Polish Muarah TT was idle.

LALS Sound was a lot better than in SZ. Previously the amp did not seem adequate for the larger room. This round, the amp (Melody?) has double the number of transmitter tubes and drove the speakers with more panache. Still somewhat tight though. Just now I noticed just below the CDP should be the excellent and ubiquitous Matrix Audio Streamer heard in the Genelec rooms and elsewhere. the Preamp looks like Taiwanese ESTI (more in Part III).

EverSolo This is yet another digital company. I'm not sure what models I heard (surely streaming stuff and DAC) nor what amps were used. Decent is all I can say.

Shenzhen Audio Show II

Letter from Shenzhen (23-5): SIAV Audio Show, Part II

For Part I and Part III, roll up or down or click link.

Note: Coverage of the show follows no particular logic: Very good is Green; Good is Yellow; and Average is Red. Believe me, I'm very lenient! More so towards others than myself!

***

Horns Canor LampizatOr Sikora This can be termed the East European Tube Room. Slovakian Canor drove the Polish Horns loudspeaker. Horns is a new company to me, but I’ve heard of the others. Despite my reservation in general about plastic round horns, sound was surprisingly decent, smooth and musical (if you ask me, it sounds better than the similar looking Avantgarde). Looking at the size of the amps, I asked if they employed KT150. The sales took a while to remember and replied yes. Now, the most interesting thing to me was the tube thing on top of the rack. No, it’s not an amp, but it has as many tubes. It is Polish LampizatOr DAC! Many readers will be familiar with the name. Writing this article, I researched that this was the flagship Horizon DAC, selling in North America for USD 49,000. Wow, do you spend this kind of money by clicking buy and checking out your cart? Surely, though, it has contributed to the good sound. As I don’t see a CDP (rare for this show) I think files were played through Aurender. I didn’t get to hear the handsome Polish Sikora TT. This is one of the rare cases where 2 Poles managed to screw on the light bulb in my head (with assists from neighbors). Well, to clarify, this is a paraphrase on the old “Polish Jokes” that used to be prevalent in the US (haven’t heard them in a long time). Mind you, I love all things Polish (including Kielbasa) and would love to visit the country, especially to visit the sites that are in Kieslowski’s Ten Commandments and Double Life of Veronika.

Perlisten Canor Given my good impressions of the Canor’s, I was a bit surprised that they had failed to warm up the Perlisten. Indeed, as with so many things, this loudspeaker shows up what is wrong with the US (vs the old world above). Probably some would like the “accuracy” and “neutrality” but music should not sound frigid. Worse, there was also some grain on the top, which I’m sure did not come from the Canor’s. I do reckon the choice of an Esoteric CDP (usually kinda cold) is a mistake here. Doing some research, I see the loudspeaker company is into materials like Beryllium and carbon, both of which in my experience usually do more harm than good right (but when done right, as in the use of beryllium in the immortal vintageYamaha NS-1000). I also read that their loudspeakers have complicated crossovers, another minus in my book. So, Perlisten gets a red flag but Canor not responsible!

ATC Playback KR Audio When I walked in, I noticed the Special Edition of the ATC 100, much taller. Unfortunately, it was not playing, rather a smaller pair was on duty (I prefer the early ATCs; I loved my first gen 20). Digital duties were performed by US Playback Designs (which I suspect is defunct, as there is no recent news and their website is down). The Preamp is interesting. KR Audio P135 uses J-FET input, followed by 45 tube buffer and then transformer output. Not cheap (as with anything KR) at Euro 5800 for just a Line Preamp (ss phono board is optional). Amps were ATC’s own. Sound was decent enough, but small speakers don’t usually light my fire (a few exceptions exist, like LS3/5A or this show’s Ensemble Reference).

Tecsun I have long heard of this company because of their LS3/5A clone (model SP80A). The company is the pre-eminent radio manufacturer in China and possibly the world, though for a long time they have developed a full line of digital products and amps. The boss is a fan of the LS3/5A and he later collaborated with loudspeaker manufacturer Ho (何氏) to develop the SP80A. Most HK readers would have heard of Ho, as he had earlier developed a version of the LS3/5A himself. Well, now the loudspeaker line has fleshed out to include the large horn 1501. When I walked in, they were playing their newest SP60A (despite the name, about twice the volume of the SP80A) with their own electronics. This has a titanium dome tweeter seated in a wave guide, and the woofer is paper come with hard-edged corrugated surrounds (I totally approve). Sound was not bad at all. I asked to play the SP80A (front pair on wooden pedestals which are open in the back) and listened for a while until an irritating fellow sat down behind me and leveled all kinds of critical opinions at the manager, who was trying to ignore him. So I couldn’t say I really got an handle on their stuff. So the rating is provisional.

Impeto Boaacoustic This room is dominated by a white pair of the weird Impeto lacquered loudspeakers, driven by Impeto electronics.  Sound was alright. There is a booklet but the only thing I learned is it’s called Warrior-1 and is 8 ohm and 92db in sensitivity. The website only has a front page. The only Impeto products I could find were a few cables on Amazon. Nada, Nothing else. Searching “Impeto” returns a lot of “Impetigo”, a skin disease. Boaacoustic is a German cable brand that is at least honest in admission that high end cables are basically boa constrictors in look as well as sound effect.

KEF D’Agostino Simaudio Finally I got to hear the LS60. When I walked in, the Blade 2 was playing. Sound was decent driven by D’Agostino integrated. Source was Simaudio CDP. When there was no one else, I asked for the LS60, which they fed not by Bluetooth but by coaxial digital cable from the CDP. Sound was in the same vein, though necessarily proportionately smaller in scale. Nonetheless, not bad. I’d have liked to test out the BT (the raison d'etre of this product really), but I didn’t insist. Should have been yellow but I upped it for its simplicity and decency.

Weeput 小沛知音 This product puzzled me. Supposed to be for AV and Karaoke. It is too clumsy in size to be used on a desktop, and the screen is too small to be used on its own. Didn't really evaluate.

legendsound Pylon Falcon Lab legendsound is is the kind of company I detest. Its glossy booklet has "Canada" prominently featured, and it reprints many articles from Chinese press, of course all waxing lyrics. The inner page, like its website, is a joke in terms of English. You must read and you will laugh, Guaranteed! Just one example: "Fantasy CD drive plus DAC is a combination of a separate set." Now, that's jitter and oversampling in language, which I hope does not extend to its somewhat pricey digital products. Tell you what, these companies (registered or not in a western country) are almost certainly run by Chinese. That may not be a problem, but if you are proud of your products, why not show your face or name somewhere? One will not find any details on the owner, sales and designers of these companies. That said, sound with Polish Pylon loudspeakers (black) was not bad. I'd have loved to also hear the Japanese FalconLab (wood). No relationship to UK Falcon Acoustics. Small Italian Atomica bookshelves were also on silent display. So! Red for the cowards legendsound, and yellow for the innocent bystanders.

Ologe Unusual and small multi-national loudspeaker maker Ologe comes with flight case. Sound was pretty good. Equipment used was ad hoc: vintage TT, Lyngdorf, etc. And they were featuring Wonder Audio Labs phonoamp (not played), said to be designed by HK legend William Tam, but I'm sorry to say I don't know who he is! The sales was waxing lyrics, and so I asked him what this WT had designed before and he just could not answer me, but that maybe just his limitation. Maybe someone can educate me. I suddenly recall I have previously seen Ologe in HK shows on display. For the small size, a bonus upgrade from yellow.

Shanling Triangle Veteran Shanling still has a tube-buffered CDP, except it has gone from the first gen's WE2C51/396A/5670 to 12AX7. That brings back memories. I had one of those, and even after rolling in WE 2C51 I concluded that bypassing the tube buffer was the best sound! LOL! Sold it! Now, Shanling has branched into amps and other digi products. Sound with Triangle was not bad. Incidentally, Shanling had acquired French YBA long ago, and there's one on display, but it seems nothing much is happening on that front.