North West Audio Show 2025

[Mart68]

Here's some photos I took, plus a bit of commentary:

I told them not to make any fuss but they insisted on rolling out the red carpet for me:



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Kerr Acoustic K300 2 way transmission line design. Usually 'tidy' sounding speakers, Kerr, and this was no exception, but terrible music drove us out the room



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Kudos Titan 808 - can be used active or passive, these were active with three external power amps. Good bass response but mid and top had a weird issue I find hard to describe, like the sound had no definition:



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Elac Speakers not sure which model, one of the Debut series I think. Nothing special.



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RFC Rubato - coaxial driver, heard a lot about these speakers but didn't seem to be doing anything impressive while I was in there:



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Ophidian FFion - three way with 8 inch bass driver inside firing down. Heard these before and they don't grab me



They were using an interesting looking power amp with good spec - £3.5K or you could buy the demo model with a substantial discount:



******************

ATC SCM20ASL active two way. Not bad for a small speaker, I thought vocals sounded not quite right but could have been the room or me:



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Of the speakers on display the big Elac towers were playing. Bad sound in here, they massacred Paul Simon 'Graceland' with detached bass and shouty/harsh mids. Don't think it was the speakers to blame, for some reason they were using a turntable as the source so maybe that was the issue.



*********************

Get your people back and get your heads down as this is going to be a big one - Focal Utopia with Naim Statement - over £400K of equipment here. The streamer alone was £80K (more expensive than the speakers!) and there were two add on power supplies at 8 grand each.




Naim Statement power amp ('That's not an amp, this is an amp' etc)



Although having the speakers cost less than a tenth of the total system price is an utterly stupid way to make a system, this did sound pretty good. Bass on Bozz Scaggs was rattling the fittings in the room, the rest was smooth and clean and no sign of the supposedly deadly Focal/Naim pairing.

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New QUAD 33/303 with Wharfedale Linton. Not seen these new amps in the flesh before. They're cute but a bit plastiky. Music was some tame EDM so hard to judge, that sort of thing sounds good on anything. Suspect you could listen to this system for a long time without it getting fatiguing though. They had the old and new 33/303 side by side on a static display, they also had the new integrated amp in the same styling on display.




*********************

YG speakers, not sure of model. Usually I like their speakers but they're big money. Again, tame EDM playing so hard to judge anything.



******************

Active ATC 150, despite the high stands and classical music these were pretty good with what seemed to be realistic instrumental tones:



*********************

hORNS Symphony 13 (I think) - this sort of thing not usually my cup of tea but I thought these were very good. Clean, good bass, easy to listen to.



*********************

Arke Mikros speaker with Kratos 'bass extender' - suppose I should declare an interest since I know the man (he built some speakers for me) but this was a very good sound and consistent across different types of music. Probably the best small speaker I've ever come across.



**********************

Mofi Sourcepoint 888 (the speaker on the right). Very smooth, good bass, easy to listen to. Was thinking about buying these last year but they weren't available in the UK at the time. So was interesting to hear them. A speaker for long term listening I think. No fireworks, but consistent.



************************

NEAT Momentum J6 - never been a fan of NEAT or any 'deigned by ear' speakers, these seemed okay but again it was tame EDM playing so impossible to judge




********************


Alchris TX25 Signature - heard these before and did consider buying them but in the end went bigger. Very good speakers in the old school fashion. This was the only room using vinyl that actually got a good sound from the deck but was plagued by static problems which eventually tripped the power amps and forced a return to CD.



Cartridge was the new Nagaoka MP700 - IMO Nagaoka make the best pickups at any price point. (MP700 is top of the line at around £1200).



************************

Had to go in this room because Accuphase, but terrible music and the sound quality not so good, not sure what these speakers were



**************************

NVA 'starter system' with integrated amp and their Cube semi-omni speakers. I hate to use lame-ass audiophile words like 'musical', but it just was.



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Now this was an interesting one, the sort of stuff I usually run a mile from - stupidly expensive Lampizator valve DAC, valve hybrid OSV amplifier, with panel speakers - but this was no question one of the best sounds of the day. I can't remember who makes the speakers except they had 'International' in the name so if anyone could help out there? You'd need subs if you wanted serious bass, but otherwise, stunning sound quality.



**********************

TAD Grand Evolution GE1 - if you think that over about ten grand for speakers there's really nothing more to be gained then think again. £55K will get you these superb towers that are really good in every single possible aspect. In a better room acoustic I suspect they would be devastating. It's the little things, the subtle things, they get all of those right as well as a perfect big picture. Millionaires should look no further.



*****************

That's all until next year, folks.

 

[DanielT]

Thanks Mart for the pictures and your comments about what you heard and saw. Considering they had rolled out the red carpet for you, I suspect you had a nice day at the North West Audio Show?

The bigger and "crazier" speakers, usually horns, are the most fun to listen to at Hifi fairs in my opinion. Sometimes they can even sound really good, but mainly because they are not speakers I would fill half my living room with. Takes up too much space, but at fairs I can take the opportunity to listen to them.

You said you liked the panel speakers. If you feel like tinkering with panel speaker material experiments this summer, buy and test a pair, or several pairs of:

Exciters Buyers Guide

Dayton Audio’s line of home A/V, loudspeaker design and test & measurement products are compared to similar items costing far more. Your path to great sound.

www.daytonaudio.com

 

[DaveO]

The panel speakers you are referring to are from Flag Isodynamic Audio Systems. Specifically the Flag M speakers and yes they sounded very good driven by the hybrid amp from OSV. The product blurb states you can also get active versions powered by 250w Hypex Ncore amplification.

As to the Quad 33/303 later on Sunday they hooked them up to a pair of Quad electrostatic speakers which sounded fantastic especially given the less than ideal conditions. Much better than the Wharfedale speakers which sounded dull. How you accommodate the Quad speakers in most normal houses in the UK I have no idea but they certainly sounded good.

I am surprised you did not mention a visit to the Electromod room. They are regular visitors to the show and are a dealer who pride themselves in displaying relatively cheap to buy entire systems based on Schitt amplifiers and Topping DAC’s of which they had several. They had a new Topping DAC on display which annoyingly I can’t remember the model name of. They said it was a prototype or at least the only one in the country. It had a transparent top cover showing what looked like a resistor network so it could have been an R2R DAC or maybe a discrete 1 bit design.

Funnily enough despite showing off their “cheap” system (it was £5k) they were demonstrating electrostatic headphones some of which cost over £2k.

Of the others you mention the NVA room did sound very good with their little system.

Of the others I listened to the rooms with Audio Note based systems sounded very good. These typically had a single ended valve amp based systems of about 8 watts per channel if you are lucky driving very efficient speakers often playing CD’s on an Audio Note CD player DAC combination which are the exact opposite of the DAC’s favoured on this site. The Audio Note DAC’s use Analogue Devices AD1865 chips with no oversampling, jitter reduction or noise shaping but despite this the systems sound very, very good. So there you go.

Other interesting rooms were Moor Amps mainly because the owner and chief designer was in there obsessing about power supplies and power regulation and the Vertere room where Touraj MogHaddam (the owner) was his usual enthusiastic self talking a out music as much as his turntables.

 

[sq225917]

D900 dac

 

[Mart68]

The panel speakers you are referring to are from Flag Isodynamic Audio Systems. Specifically the Flag M speakers and yes they sounded very good driven by the hybrid amp from OSV. The product blurb states you can also get active versions powered by 250w Hypex Ncore amplification.

Thanks, I thought it was something 'International' but I got that from some of the literature they had lying about so must have been referring to a different speaker.

I am surprised you did not mention a visit to the Electromod room. They are regular visitors to the show and are a dealer who pride themselves in displaying relatively cheap to buy entire systems based on Schitt amplifiers and Topping DAC’s of which they had several. They had a new Topping DAC on display which annoyingly I can’t remember the model name of. They said it was a prototype or at least the only one in the country. It had a transparent top cover showing what looked like a resistor network so it could have been an R2R DAC or maybe a discrete 1 bit design.

I never manage to get round the whole show as there's too many rooms for one day, plus time spent on a leisurely lunch and chatting to people I know. So this time I just concentrated on the rooms that I thought might interest me. I'm only interested in the loudspeakers, really, not DACs and amps.

Of the others I listened to the rooms with Audio Note based systems sounded very good. These typically had a single ended valve amp based systems of about 8 watts per channel if you are lucky driving very efficient speakers often playing CD’s on an Audio Note CD player DAC combination which are the exact opposite of the DAC’s favoured on this site. The Audio Note DAC’s use Analogue Devices AD1865 chips with no oversampling, jitter reduction or noise shaping but despite this the systems sound very, very good. So there you go.

Didn't bother with the Audionote this year. They have always had a pleasant sound on previous years too, but it's not for me. I don't rate their speakers at all.

 

[Mart68]

One room I forgot to mention as I didn't take a photo was KEF who were showing the Reference Five Meta.

First time in years that the KEF room at this show had a seriously quality sound going on - those speakers are very, very good indeed.

We had a bit of a talk from one of the KEF engineers about the Uni-Q driver and the meta material, which was interesting.

 

[DaveO]

The Flag speakers are Italian.

I also saw the KEF presentation and got hold of one of the drivers. Heavy little beasts aren't they! As you say the sound was very good. They have been in that room before and not had as good a sound on previous years. I recall some KEF R1'a sounding pretty.bad in a previous year. Maybe the massive Hegel H600 amp had something to do with it.

One of the rooms with Audio Note in is a dealer, Audio Council, and he has in the past demonstrated with Devore speakers driven by a Japanese Leben valve amp which are better very efficient speakers than Audio Note in my opinion.

Another room I enjoyed was Chord Electronics who were demonstrating the 30w Suzy per & power amp. It was having no trouble driving Kerr stand mount speakers. I really liked the sound so looked up the price of the Kerr's. Another one I can't afford!

 

[Frank Dernie]

Here's some photos I took, plus a bit of commentary:

I told them not to make any fuss but they insisted on rolling out the red carpet for me:



**************

Kerr Acoustic K300 2 way transmission line design. Usually 'tidy' sounding speakers, Kerr, and this was no exception, but terrible music drove us out the room



************

Kudos Titan 808 - can be used active or passive, these were active with three external power amps. Good bass response but mid and top had a weird issue I find hard to describe, like the sound had no definition:



*****************

Elac Speakers not sure which model, one of the Debut series I think. Nothing special.



******************

RFC Rubato - coaxial driver, heard a lot about these speakers but didn't seem to be doing anything impressive while I was in there:



****************

Ophidian FFion - three way with 8 inch bass driver inside firing down. Heard these before and they don't grab me



They were using an interesting looking power amp with good spec - £3.5K or you could buy the demo model with a substantial discount:



******************

ATC SCM20ASL active two way. Not bad for a small speaker, I thought vocals sounded not quite right but could have been the room or me:



*****************

Of the speakers on display the big Elac towers were playing. Bad sound in here, they massacred Paul Simon 'Graceland' with detached bass and shouty/harsh mids. Don't think it was the speakers to blame, for some reason they were using a turntable as the source so maybe that was the issue.



*********************

Get your people back and get your heads down as this is going to be a big one - Focal Utopia with Naim Statement - over £400K of equipment here. The streamer alone was £80K (more expensive than the speakers!) and there were two add on power supplies at 8 grand each.




Naim Statement power amp ('That's not an amp, this is an amp' etc)



Although having the speakers cost less than a tenth of the total system price is an utterly stupid way to make a system, this did sound pretty good. Bass on Bozz Scaggs was rattling the fittings in the room, the rest was smooth and clean and no sign of the supposedly deadly Focal/Naim pairing.

**********************

New QUAD 33/303 with Wharfedale Linton. Not seen these new amps in the flesh before. They're cute but a bit plastiky. Music was some tame EDM so hard to judge, that sort of thing sounds good on anything. Suspect you could listen to this system for a long time without it getting fatiguing though. They had the old and new 33/303 side by side on a static display, they also had the new integrated amp in the same styling on display.




*********************

YG speakers, not sure of model. Usually I like their speakers but they're big money. Again, tame EDM playing so hard to judge anything.



******************

Active ATC 150, despite the high stands and classical music these were pretty good with what seemed to be realistic instrumental tones:



*********************

hORNS Symphony 13 (I think) - this sort of thing not usually my cup of tea but I thought these were very good. Clean, good bass, easy to listen to.



*********************

Arke Mikros speaker with Kratos 'bass extender' - suppose I should declare an interest since I know the man (he built some speakers for me) but this was a very good sound and consistent across different types of music. Probably the best small speaker I've ever come across.



**********************

Mofi Sourcepoint 888 (the speaker on the right). Very smooth, good bass, easy to listen to. Was thinking about buying these last year but they weren't available in the UK at the time. So was interesting to hear them. A speaker for long term listening I think. No fireworks, but consistent.



************************

NEAT Momentum J6 - never been a fan of NEAT or any 'deigned by ear' speakers, these seemed okay but again it was tame EDM playing so impossible to judge




********************


Alchris TX25 Signature - heard these before and did consider buying them but in the end went bigger. Very good speakers in the old school fashion. This was the only room using vinyl that actually got a good sound from the deck but was plagued by static problems which eventually tripped the power amps and forced a return to CD.



Cartridge was the new Nagaoka MP700 - IMO Nagaoka make the best pickups at any price point. (MP700 is top of the line at around £1200).



************************

Had to go in this room because Accuphase, but terrible music and the sound quality not so good, not sure what these speakers were



**************************

NVA 'starter system' with integrated amp and their Cube semi-omni speakers. I hate to use lame-ass audiophile words like 'musical', but it just was.



************************

Now this was an interesting one, the sort of stuff I usually run a mile from - stupidly expensive Lampizator valve DAC, valve hybrid OSV amplifier, with panel speakers - but this was no question one of the best sounds of the day. I can't remember who makes the speakers except they had 'International' in the name so if anyone could help out there? You'd need subs if you wanted serious bass, but otherwise, stunning sound quality.



**********************

TAD Grand Evolution GE1 - if you think that over about ten grand for speakers there's really nothing more to be gained then think again. £55K will get you these superb towers that are really good in every single possible aspect. In a better room acoustic I suspect they would be devastating. It's the little things, the subtle things, they get all of those right as well as a perfect big picture. Millionaires should look no further.



*****************

That's all until next year, folks.

The pictures don't show fro me I'm afraid just a blue square and advice to upgrade to pro account to embed images in emails - what this forum layout has to do with emails I don't know.

 

[manisandher]

The pictures don't show fro me I'm afraid...

Same here now. They were showing perfectly earlier.

 

[AOR]

One room I forgot to mention as I didn't take a photo was KEF who were showing the Reference Five Meta.

First time in years that the KEF room at this show had a seriously quality sound going on - those speakers are very, very good indeed.

We had a bit of a talk from one of the KEF engineers about the Uni-Q driver and the meta material, which was interesting.

Here's a picture I took before we opened...
Moody!

 

[WeekendWarrior]

They had a new Topping DAC on display which annoyingly I can’t remember the model name of. They said it was a prototype or at least the only one in the country. It had a transparent top cover showing what looked like a resistor network so it could have been an R2R DAC or maybe a discrete 1 bit design.

Perhaps it was the DX9 Discrete? I know that was mentioned on their Facebook page as being part of their Topping line-up, and I can see a DX9 shaped device on their show feed.

PS, I can't see the pictures either.

 

[DaveO]

Perhaps it was the DX9 Discrete? I know that was mentioned on their Facebook page as being part of their Topping line-up, and I can see a DX9 shaped device on their show feed.

PS, I can't see the pictures either.

Might have been a D900 as someone mentioned earlier. It was certainly wider than most Topping DAC's.

The original pictures have also disappeared for me also.

 

[WeekendWarrior]

Might have been a D900 as someone mentioned earlier. It was certainly wider than most Topping DAC's.

The original pictures have also disappeared for me also.

I don't think the D900 has a transparent cover, which is why I thought the DX9 Discrete, which is also wider than other Topping DACs. That'd fit with it being a prototype and being the only one in the UK as it's not on sale yet.

I demo'd the chip version of the DX9 and liked it, but I'm really waiting for a streaming DAC otherwise I may have bought it.

Anyway, what did you think of it?

 

[Mart68]

The pictures don't show fro me I'm afraid just a blue square and advice to upgrade to pro account to embed images in emails - what this forum layout has to do with emails I don't know.

They still show for me on my newer laptop (Windows 11) but not on my old one (Windows 10) - not sure if that's the issue.

 

[Frank Dernie]

They still show for me on my newer laptop (Windows 11) but not on my old one (Windows 10) - not sure if that's the issue.

I have tried on a Mac Pro desktop, a Mac pro laptop and an iPad, all with latest OS software and all get the same blue box

 

[DanielT]

They still show for me on my newer laptop (Windows 11) but not on my old one (Windows 10) - not sure if that's the issue.

Initially I could see all the pictures but not now (blue box images). I have Android 14, latest update done.

Did you upload the pictures again via Windows 11? I'm guessing that should be the problem somehow. Some kind of incompatibility with ASR platform technology/software and Win 11 that is. Any updates on Win 11 - ASR platform that haven't been done? Note, I'm not an IT guy so it's just a guess.

 

[Count Arthur]

They still show for me on my newer laptop (Windows 11) but not on my old one (Windows 10) - not sure if that's the issue.

It's not an operating system issue, it's a restriction by imgbb.com. Presumably, you have a free account, which doesn't allow you embed images on other websites, or in E-mails etc..

 

[Mart68]

Initially I could see all the pictures but not now (blue box images). I have Android 14, latest update done.

Did you upload the pictures again via Windows 11? I'm guessing that should be the problem somehow. Some kind of incompatibility with ASR platform technology/software and Win 11 that is. Any updates on Win 11 - ASR platform that haven't been done? Note, I'm not an IT guy so it's just a guess.

View attachment 459313

I uploaded them on the Windows 11 laptop.

I suppose I could do them all again on a different image hosting service.

 

[Mart68]

It's not an operating system issue, it's a restriction by imgbb.com. Presumably, you have a free account, which doesn't allow you embed images on other websites, or in E-mails etc..

View attachment 459314

You don't even need an account for IMGBB and it's worked fine for years. Plus I can still see the images and so can others.

 

[JSmith]

restriction by imgbb.com

Yeah only happened a month or so ago... used to be able to without an account.

I find https://postimg.cc is better, works as imgbb did, hotlink or thumbnail for forums link.

Plus I can still see the images and so can others.

Nope...

JSmith