Oslo HiFi Show 2025

[Tell]

I've been into audio since before my I was a teenager, but I've actually never been to a audiophile show before, so this weekend I went to Oslo HiFi Show (which wasn't in Oslo for some unclear reason). It was just as I expected, lots of expensive gear, lots of jazz and lots of old men
Personally I don't really care about all those fancy expensive snakeoily electronics at all and was mostly there to listen to some interesting speakers. Was hoping to hear maybe some line arrays or something therealike, but unfortunately there was none. Of what was there I like Sigberg Audio's Saranna and Hamrammr's cinema line speakers the most. The later mostly because they where the only ones that played something that I actually listen to, some Infected Mushroom and other electronic music, and they also played it loud. So of course I was probably "fooled" by that, but nevertheless it's hard to make actual judgement about stuff at shows like this.
But in the end I think most stuff sounded good, with a few things that sounded a bit boring. The only name I could remember that I though sounded bad was the room with a full Mcintosh setup.

Anyways, I brought my camera and got some photos. The lighting mostly sucked though, with ugly hard spotlight or just to little of it. Had to crank my shutter speed a bit, but did it too much and got some blurry photos. Ah well!
Can't really tell you any names of most of the stuff since I really didn't care, I just took pictures of what I though looked interesting somehow

 

[whereisbrian]

Very nice pictures.

 

[sigbergaudio]

So the two you liked best are both Norwegian brands. Not bad!

 

[Tell]

So the two you liked best are both Norwegian brands. Not bad!

Hah didn't even think about it, but yeah it makes sense, as a swede I automagically really like what my viking brothers does

 

[sigbergaudio]

Hah didn't even think about it, but yeah it makes sense, as a swede I automagically really like what my viking brothers does

Hehe. Hamrammr is pretty cool. Obviously very different from what we are doing, but really good value products for dedicated home cinemas. The guys behind the brand are great and down to earth as well.

https://hamrammr.com/

 

[DanielT]

Great pictures. Thanks for posting them. Did you have a good time?

I've been into audio since before my I was a teenager, but I've actually never been to a audiophile show before, so this weekend I went to Oslo HiFi Show (which wasn't in Oslo for some unclear reason). It was just as I expected, lots of expensive gear, lots of jazz and lots of old men
Personally I don't really care about all those fancy expensive snakeoily electronics at all and was mostly there to listen to some interesting speakers. Was hoping to hear maybe some line arrays or something therealike, but unfortunately there was none. Of what was there I like Sigberg Audio's Saranna and Hamrammr's cinema line speakers the most. The later mostly because they where the only ones that played something that I actually listen to, some Infected Mushroom and other electronic music, and they also played it loud. So of course I was probably "fooled" by that, but nevertheless it's hard to make actual judgement about stuff at shows like this.
But in the end I think most stuff sounded good, with a few things that sounded a bit boring. The only name I could remember that I though sounded bad was the room with a full Mcintosh setup.

Anyways, I brought my camera and got some photos. The lighting mostly sucked though, with ugly hard spotlight or just to little of it. Had to crank my shutter speed a bit, but did it too much and got some blurry photos. Ah well!
Can't really tell you any names of most of the stuff since I really didn't care, I just took pictures of what I though looked interesting somehow
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It was just as I expected, lots of expensive gear, lots of jazz and lots of old men ..plus what I can see and expect, a lot of tube amps and turntables. But despite that, it can still sound good.

Was there "HiFi fair music" played? Like, I picked up some songs, these:

Good songs. Some maybe overused at HiFi fairs though.
(sounds good on whatever you play them on, as they say)

 

[sigbergaudio]

We make a point of allowing the audience to select both music and volume. People are literally handed the remote + an ipad to choose whatever they like. Unfortunately that still means there's a lot of "hifi music" as many people want to hear those tracks to compare to what they've heard elsewhere I guess. But people play a lot of good stuff too when given the chance.

 

[DanielT]

We make a point of allowing the audience to select both music and volume. People are literally handed the remote + an ipad to choose whatever they like.

That takes cojones to do so.

 

[sigbergaudio]

That takes cojones to do so.
View attachment 439373

Once in a while someone chooses something so both weird and poorly recorded that I imagine anyone passing the room goes "Okay, these guys are clearly on acid, and has been for some time, and those speakers are 150USD tops." - but most of the time it works out just fine.

The thinking is that for someone to properly evaluate our speakers, of course they must be allowed to listen to something they are familiar with.

 

[Tell]

Hehe. Hamrammr is pretty cool. Obviously very different from what we are doing, but really good value products for dedicated home cinemas. The guys behind the brand are great and down to earth as well.

https://hamrammr.com/

Yeah did have a little talk with them and it was quite obvious what they where doing in that small room where quite overkill, having TWO 18" that apparently played down below 20Hz. Didn't think of it then but instead after I left the show that I had a couple of tracks with really deep bass I really wanted to hear on that kind of system, just hope I get another chance next year!

Great pictures. Thanks for posting them. Did you have a good time?

It was just as I expected, lots of expensive gear, lots of jazz and lots of old men ..plus what I can see and expect, a lot of tube amps and turntables. But despite that, it can still sound good.

Was there "HiFi fair music" played? Like, I picked up some songs, these:

Good songs. Some maybe overused at HiFi fairs though.
(sounds good on whatever you play them on, as they say)

Thanks! Yeah I had an okay time, was there alone and was a bit in an introvert mode when I was there, so I mostly sneaked in to rooms, listen for a while, took a few shots and left. Still quite nice, my only regret is that I didn't ask to pick some tracks of my own that I knew exactly how they should sound.

Yeah of course they can still sound good! I'm the kind of guy that don't think electronics matter that much, I mean up to a point of course but the point of diminishing returns starts quite early, so if anyone managed to build tube amps or turntables that costs five figures that actually sounds audibly bad I'd be impressed!

The only decent track I Shazammed was this one, incredibly short though for some weird reason.

 

[sigbergaudio]

As I said I think the majority of the time someone else picked the music, but here is the main playlist we used. Some hifi muzak but lots of other stuff too, including some tracks with pretty deep bass.

 

[DanielT]

Yeah of course they can still sound good! I'm the kind of guy that don't think electronics matter that much, I mean up to a point of course but the point of diminishing returns starts quite early, so if anyone managed to build tube amps or turntables that costs five figures that actually sounds audibly bad I'd be impressed!

Different speakers, different recordings/songs, different types of rooms are what I would attribute if I thought it sounded better in room X vs room Y. I don't think I would even reflect on the electronics as a decisive factor then.

As I said I think the majority of the time someone else picked the music, but here is the main playlist we used. Some hifi muzak but lots of other stuff too, including some tracks with pretty deep bass.

That was a nice playlist, I must say. I ask you the same question that I asked Tell: Did you have a good time?

Are you happy with the demo room you were assigned? In Tell's pictures it looks like some rooms were very small. It can't be the most fun or optimal for an exhibitor to demo their HiFi in such a room.There's hardly any time to work on room acoustics at such events, is there?

I see that you, like me, also have Dominique Fils-Aimé in your playlist. She is an artist I discovered about six months ago. I like her music.

Dominique Fils-Aimé - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[sigbergaudio]

That was a nice playlist, I must say. I ask you the same question that I asked Tell: Did you have a good time?

I had a very good time. As an exhibitor these events are very much social as well. We were three people doing the show, and we meet and talk to a lot of people attending the show of course, but also others in the industry, both new people and people we already know, going out to dinner in the evening etc. So it's like a weekend trip with friends, except with lots of work as well.

We also often keep the room open after the formal show closes, and then the exhibitors walk around listening to each others systems, talking and having a beer. It wasn't so much of that at this particular event, but that is often the case.

Are you happy with the demo room you were assigned? In Tell's pictures it looks like some rooms were very small. It can't be the most fun or optimal for an exhibitor to demo their HiFi in such a room.There's hardly any time to work on room acoustics at such events, is there?

Yes it was small, around 20m^2. It worked surprisingly well actually. It had a "false" or double ceiling with acoustic treatment covering the entire ceiling (similar to what you will find in meeting rooms, offices, and, yes, some hotels). The outside of the hotel isn't straight, so one of the walls were not parallel with the others. In addition to that we brought two large rugs covering roughly 5m^2 of the floor under the main listening area, and we also brought two large acoustic panels (10cm thick) that we sat in front of the windows behind the speakers.

The measurements showed a room that was still nowhere near linear, but still sounded pretty good. Less linear below 100hz than I would have wished, and also the soundstage and width of the sound was nowhere near as wide as I have in my dedicated listening room at home, but that's not to expected. Both Saranna and the Manta sound pretty good at shows, the cardioid showing its usefulness, and with the Manta and SBS.1 we have the added benefit of multiple subs to even out the bass as well.

In my humble opinion we routinely have some of the best sound in these types of events, due to a combination of setup skill and designing speakers meant to work in normal rooms. I of course have a vast benefit of actually having constructed the speakers as well, so I know them intimately. Most of the exhibitors are after all just retailers of the product, and don't necessarily have a lot of knowledge of either system setup or acoustics. So it's much harder for them to show the true potential of the product. Some unfortunately spend more time carefully placing their 10,000USD cables on display than work on the acoustics as well, so..

With regards to time to set stuff up, we usually come the day before. So you have a few hours to get it as good as it can get. So it is of course somewhat unfair to have visitors who have spent literally years to fine tune their system complain about lack of soundstage or uneven bass.

I see that you, like me, also have Dominique Fils-Aimé in your playlist. She is an artist I discovered about six months ago. I like her music.

Dominique Fils-Aimé - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Yes, it's pretty good. And at least extremely well recorded. I must confess I use it mostly for "work", I don't put on her stuff just to relax and listen to music. But it's certainly not the worst when it comes to "hifi music".

 

[Tell]

I had a very good time. As an exhibitor these events are very much social as well. We were three people doing the show, and we meet and talk to a lot of people attending the show of course, but also others in the industry, both new people and people we already know, going out to dinner in the evening etc. So it's like a weekend trip with friends, except with lots of work as well.

We also often keep the room open after the formal show closes, and then the exhibitors walk around listening to each others systems, talking and having a beer. It wasn't so much of that at this particular event, but that is often the case.



Yes it was small, around 20m^2. It worked surprisingly well actually. It had a "false" or double ceiling with acoustic treatment covering the entire ceiling (similar to what you will find in meeting rooms, offices, and, yes, some hotels). The outside of the hotel isn't straight, so one of the walls were not parallel with the others. In addition to that we brought two large rugs covering roughly 5m^2 of the floor under the main listening area, and we also brought two large acoustic panels (10cm thick) that we sat in front of the windows behind the speakers.

The measurements showed a room that was still nowhere near linear, but still sounded pretty good. Less linear below 100hz than I would have wished, and also the soundstage and width of the sound was nowhere near as wide as I have in my dedicated listening room at home, but that's not to expected. Both Saranna and the Manta sounds pretty good at shows, the cardioid showing its usefulness, and with the Manta we have the added benefit of multiple subs to even out the bass as well.

In my humble opinion we routinely have some of the best sound in these types of events, due to a combination of setup skill and designing speakers meant to work in normal rooms. I of course have a vast benefit of actually having constructed the speakers as well, so I know them intimately. Most of the exhibitors are after all just retailers of the product, and don't necessarily have a lot of knowledge of either system setup or acoustics. So it's much harder for them to show the true potential of the product. Some unfortunately spend more time carefully placing their 10,000USD cables on display than work on the acoustics as well, so..

With regards to time to set stuff up, we usually come the day before. So you have a few hours to get it as good as it can get. So it is of course somewhat unfair to have visitors who have spent literally years to fine tune their system complain about lack of soundstage or uneven bass.



Yes, it's pretty good. And at least extremely well recorded. I must confess I use it mostly for "work", I don't put on her stuff just to relax and listen to music. But it's certainly not the worst when it comes to "hifi music".

Your type of thinking and setup was exactly what I was looking for going to this show, but I got mostly what I was expecting, ie those guys with 10kUSD cables floating on cable lifters, turntables that costs more than I make in a year and speakers built without a measurement mic.
I find it a bit sad that we are in 2025 and we still have all this bling bling, but I guess that's what sells these shows, but I'm still glad that there are some people like you, so thank you for that!
Next time I hope I won't be so introverted and instead talk some more

 

[DanielT]

I had a very good time. As an exhibitor these events are very much social as well. We were three people doing the show, and we meet and talk to a lot of people attending the show of course, but also others in the industry, both new people and people we already know, going out to dinner in the evening etc. So it's like a weekend trip with friends, except with lots of work as well.

We also often keep the room open after the formal show closes, and then the exhibitors walk around listening to each others systems, talking and having a beer. It wasn't so much of that at this particular event, but that is often the case.



Yes it was small, around 20m^2. It worked surprisingly well actually. It had a "false" or double ceiling with acoustic treatment covering the entire ceiling (similar to what you will find in meeting rooms, offices, and, yes, some hotels). The outside of the hotel isn't straight, so one of the walls were not parallel with the others. In addition to that we brought two large rugs covering roughly 5m^2 of the floor under the main listening area, and we also brought two large acoustic panels (10cm thick) that we sat in front of the windows behind the speakers.

The measurements showed a room that was still nowhere near linear, but still sounded pretty good. Less linear below 100hz than I would have wished, and also the soundstage and width of the sound was nowhere near as wide as I have in my dedicated listening room at home, but that's not to expected. Both Saranna and the Manta sound pretty good at shows, the cardioid showing its usefulness, and with the Manta and SBS.1 we have the added benefit of multiple subs to even out the bass as well.

In my humble opinion we routinely have some of the best sound in these types of events, due to a combination of setup skill and designing speakers meant to work in normal rooms. I of course have a vast benefit of actually having constructed the speakers as well, so I know them intimately. Most of the exhibitors are after all just retailers of the product, and don't necessarily have a lot of knowledge of either system setup or acoustics. So it's much harder for them to show the true potential of the product. Some unfortunately spend more time carefully placing their 10,000USD cables on display than work on the acoustics as well, so..

With regards to time to set stuff up, we usually come the day before. So you have a few hours to get it as good as it can get. So it is of course somewhat unfair to have visitors who have spent literally years to fine tune their system complain about lack of soundstage or uneven bass.



Yes, it's pretty good. And at least extremely well recorded. I must confess I use it mostly for "work", I don't put on her stuff just to relax and listen to music. But it's certainly not the worst when it comes to "hifi music".

Speaking of large rooms or not at HiFi fairs. What I remember as the thing that stood out the most, for the better, at a HiFi trade show in 2008 was Bo Hansson's large Ukko dipole speakers. I managed to find a picture of them from someone who visited that trade show. In each speaker; twelve pieces of ten-inch bass drivers plus five pieces of four-inch full-range drivers. In a big room with those big Ukko speakers it sounded..well.. .BIG.

Bilder från Stockholms Hifimässa 08 i Kista

Precis hemkommen från VIP-kvällen före det officiella öppnandet i Kista Science Tower och Kista Entré Följ med på en preview mässan

www.euphonia-audioforum.se

Your type of thinking and setup was exactly what I was looking for going to this show, but I got mostly what I was expecting, ie those guys with 10kUSD cables floating on cable lifters, turntables that costs more than I make in a year and speakers built without a measurement mic.
I find it a bit sad that we are in 2025 and we still have all this bling bling, but I guess that's what sells these shows, but I'm still glad that there are some people like you, so thank you for that!
Next time I hope I won't be so introverted and instead talk some more

Bling bling or eye candy. That's why I appreciated your pictures. Fun to look at. That's to roll your eyes at 10kUSD cables floating on cable lifters, ...or just look at expensive turntables/tube amplifiers. Most interesting are the speakers, I think. It's the same when you look at pictures as experiencing IRL. Of course it's nicer to experience it IRL, but you get what I mean.

 

[Tell]

Speaking of large rooms or not at HiFi fairs. What I remember as the thing that stood out the most, for the better, at a HiFi trade show in 2008 was Bo Hansson's large Ukko dipole speakers. I managed to find a picture of them from someone who visited that trade show. In each speaker; twelve pieces of ten-inch bass drivers plus five pieces of four-inch full-range drivers. In a big room with those big Ukko speakers it sounded..well.. .BIG.

View attachment 439468

Bilder från Stockholms Hifimässa 08 i Kista

Precis hemkommen från VIP-kvällen före det officiella öppnandet i Kista Science Tower och Kista Entré Följ med på en preview mässan

www.euphonia-audioforum.se

Bling bling or eye candy. That's why I appreciated your pictures. Fun to look at. That's to roll your eyes at 10kUSD cables floating on cable lifters, ...or just look at expensive turntables/tube amplifiers. Most interesting are the speakers, I think. It's the same when you look at pictures as experiencing IRL. Of course it's nicer to experience it IRL, but you get what I mean.

Yeah speakers is definitely the most interesting, those really do the most heavy lifting. And those dipoles do look quite menacing, would love to hear them!
It's speakers like that I want to see at audio shows, different kinds of speakers that does some fun things with the sound waves nd not just another version of the same old point source speakers that we've seen a billion times before. There where a pair of dipoles at this show (seen in the first picture) but they never played them the two times I was in there, so the only speakers I saw doing something else was Sigbergs cardioids.

 

[Winemaker]

Move over...... I want it all!!!!

 

[DanielT]

Yeah speakers is definitely the most interesting, those really do the most heavy lifting. And those dipoles do look quite menacing, would love to hear them!
It's speakers like that I want to see at audio shows, different kinds of speakers that does some fun things with the sound waves nd not just another version of the same old point source speakers that we've seen a billion times before. There where a pair of dipoles at this show (seen in the first picture) but they never played them the two times I was in there, so the only speakers I saw doing something else was Sigbergs cardioids.

Then there is the question of whether you would get tired of listening to let's say, to use a diplomatic term, deviant speaker in the long run?

But okay IF you were to listen to a number of speakers with basically the same and nice FR. Traditionally built speakers regarding speaker boxes (seald/reflex) where they all sounded very good and fairly similar. Then you listen to a couple of dipole savages like Ukko speakers who may have had a completely crazy FR but "filled the room with sound" and sounded really big. Of course they would stand out in the crowd as odd, funny and quirky but would you want to listen to a couple of those in the long run? Have them as home HiFi speakers?

For the sake of discussion, let's ignore the Ukko's size. For most people that they would not be home HiFi speakers because of that, let alone if the WAF factor were to be weighed in.

 

[MKR]

As I said I think the majority of the time someone else picked the music, but here is the main playlist we used. Some hifi muzak but lots of other stuff too, including some tracks with pretty deep bass.

Great playlist, thanks for sharing

 

[Sangthip]

Really nice pictures @Tell .

Nice playlist @sigbergaudio and thanks for making me find my way back to #79 Oscar Danielsson. I listened to him a lot and the slightly more depressing but oh so cool and funny Kjell Höglund when I was working in Norway early 2000.