Have your say & ask the experts

I didn't get to attend last year as I had to go to a wedding reception so was looking forward to this year's show. I was sceptical about the move as I've never felt these kinds of shows work particularly well in an exhibition hall and, unfortunately, my apprehension was justified. I really enjoyed the '04, '05 and '06 shows at the Novotel Hammersmith and spent over 3 hours wandering around them but I couldn't find anything this year to keep me there more than an hour. The hotel room layout of the previous shows was so much better suited to demoing AV/Hi-Fi kit and there seemed to be a lot more of it to see/hear at the Novotel. Also, not only where there more manufacturers at previously shows but those who actually did turn out this year had more on display at the Novotel. For example, I remember when I was in the market for an AV Receiver in 2004 and Denon's room had every single receiver they make on display, many actually running. As a result of what I saw at that show I bought an AVR-2805. Denon had nothing like that this year.

I really hope this show returns to the Novotel as there was always so much to see there and, every time, I walked away with ideas for what I might think about buying next. There were no such feelings this year and I'm sorry to say that I will not be going again unless it returns to where it belongs.

I absolutely agree with all the other independent posters.  The format of the show simply didn't work. I went to the Novotel as a Home Cinema Newbie last year, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The individual demo rooms were far better suited to the concept of the show, and there were a much wider range of exhibitors.  This year was extremely disappointing, particularly having paid the exorbitant £20 ticket price for my son and I and £10 for parking, as we were fully expecting to spend several hours at the show. Total £50 for less than 2 hours.

Unless the show returns to the Novotel, or somewhere equivalent and the price returns to a level which doesn't feel like a total rip off, then I shall not be attending again.  I'd sooner go to a good dealer. At least they recognise that I am a customer: they don't try to charge me to see inadequate displays in a noisy environment.

Finally, why demo Blueray using CGI?  So far, even the best animations from Pixar et al do not look natural.  If I want to evaluate a screen or player then I want the video or audio to be natural.

Very, very poor.

I feel I need to add my disappointment. 

The last show I went to was 2 years ago in Hammersmith and it was very impressive, following that I purchased over £4,000 worth of equipment I saw demonstrated, if only I had the budget to add the Wilson Benesch speakers to the list.

Now being in the market to go Blu-ray I was hoping to find some useful demo's ... sadly not.  There was so much noise it was impossible to hear any of the demo's over the sound of computer games and human beat box.  (Keeps the teenagers happy I suppose)

I won't be going back again to this venue, it is very poor for this kind of show, plus as others have stated you pay for 5 hours parking based on previous years experiences, however even having two coffees find it hard to drag out to 2 hours.

The best stand was the Shure, as there headphones acted as ear plugs to drown out the human beat box ... well done Shure!

Bring back the Novotel all is forgiven!

Add another to the 'disappointed' pile.

 This was my first time to a What HiFi show, so I had nothing to compare it to. Nevertheless I have to agree with many of the other posts here that it was somewhat lacklustre. Mixing HiFi and 'gadgets' may not necessarily be the way forward....

Highlight of the show for me was the Q-Acoustics booth where they were demoing their Q-AV system. This, for the money (600 squids), was thoroughly impressive and the chap running the demo was entertaining enough and didn't ramble on too far. I think the NAD Viso 5 box driving the system from may have been running out of puff a little - it had to be driven hard to be loud enough and the was a certain amount of harshness and treble distortion - but forgivable in the show conditions. The choice of demo material was good too, Flags of our Fathers and a female singer/pianist that was very impressive.

 Lowlight of the show.... Loath as I am to admit it, was the What HiFi demo room. Apart from the awful din from the Guitar Hero stand, there were two glaring issues for me.

 Firstly the demo material. Whilst I admit the 'One Man Band'  Pixar short is a great piece of animation with good sound, I don't feel that a CGI demo was the best option to show off Blu-Ray (yes it looks fantastic but what percentage of most peoples viewing will be CGI films? Transformers or the ubiquitous Iron Man would have been a better idea). Justin Timberlake to demo sound quality? If the target audience had been 15 year old girls then fine, not however, if your audience is predominantly male and aged between 25 and 50 (ok that's an assumption). A bit of rock, or, better still, an acoustic performance would have been a far better way to demo high-def audio.

Secondly, sound quality. Now don't get me wrong, the system didn't sound bad - 80k's worth of kit should never be that - but it just wasn't as convincing as I'd expect (ok show conditions and the room can account for much I admit). The biggest problem for me was the bass. It was just too loud, overbearing and really just didn't feel mated to the rest of the system. For example, when the bag of coins hit the floor in the Pixar demo, it should sound like just that, a relatively weighty thud. Instead it sounded, and felt, like Optimus Prime had just jumped off a building and landed in front of me. Also during the orchestral parts of that demo the bass was excessive, lacked definition and frankly just sounded separate from the rest of the soundtrack. I don't blame the equipment, I'm fully aware of its high end status. Maybe it was my positioning within the room (second row from the back), but frankly it just didn't sound set-up correctly.

 Anyway enough whinging. I still enjoyed myself during the day, and saw some things that would not normally have interested me. It just didn't feel as good as it could have been.

 Oh and to the people who were missing the Arcam stand, they were there, in the small hifi shop out the front of the exhibition centre. Saw the new AVR-600 receiver and contemplated stealing it I want it so bad. Also talked shop with the Arcam chap there that was thoroughly enjoyable. Very nice man. Great setting to show off a new receiver too.

Same hear, especially with the queing system for the WHF show - every 30 mins and having to wait in the queue.
Can I make a suggestion in that a 'reservation' system is used. At least then I could go off to view the other stands and come back at the allotted time!!
BTW, I did find the people at the Shure stand very helpful, willing to demonstrate their wares and also provided some free refreshments....always welcome.

Lets go back to the Novotel (or similar) where hopefully some more of the "hifi" is on display as opposed to the "Stuff"

I agree I travelled from South Wales to the show (not the sole reason I was in London, but one of them) and I on the whole enjoyed but was a bit disappointed by the content.  I went with the intention of buying a QAV system as it suits my needs.  But as mentioned previously the noise coming into the Q acoustics booth made it impossible to judge it fairly but seemed especially for the money worthwhile.  The demo guy was great and wasnt on a hard sell and knew his stuff.  I eventually purchase the whole system for £440 which I was extremelly pleased with.  But after 45 mins I must admit I was on my 2nd circuit, the What Hi-Fi queue seemed to long especially with a 15 month baby to entertain. Highlights : Yamaha, Q acoustics Superfi discount Lows : guitar hero stand 

This years show was dissapointing to say the least.

First of all the cost of the ticket was not justified, and the lack of top level companies was also dissapointing, as for the venue for this event it was a very poor, next year back to Hammersmith.

The lack of Panasonic, Pioneer, Rotel, Sony, Arcam and Kef was a major blow.  

I would like to mention the stands i found enjoyable, Chord Company, Supra Cables, CSE Solutions & Freesat.

In regards to the demo's, I found CSE solutions demo the best in the show, The poorest demo was Super-Fi.

The what Hi Fi demo was not up to it's usual high standards of previous years.

Overall this years show was the poorest ever, I would think twice before attending another one in future, The £20 cost did not represent value for money. And more should be done to attract those company's who have been shy to attend london shows such as Rotel.

Please return to Hammersmith and keep the stuff away from the main Hi fi and Home Cinema Crowd and if the cost of next years ticket is £20 pounds or more, I am sure i will boycott the show and most likely the bristol event in the new year.

 

 

 

 

 

I drove up from Dorset, spent the night at my sister's at Worcester Park and then travelled right across London to get to the show. I had twisted my brother-in-law's arm to come with me.

When I went into the main hall, I was assuming the hifi & AV equipment would be else where in some side rooms or something. I think there was a competition going to see who could get the loudest and lowest bass......this signalled that things weren't going to be as I expected.

Went to the Humax stand. It was being manned by a Free Sat rep not a Humax employee. The bloke didn't really know anything about the new PVR and apologised for his obvious lack of knowledge. I couldn't believe this was supposed to be the UK launch of the product!

Pitched up at the Chord stand to discuss the Gem. Rude, aggressive and thoroughly unpleasant.....but that is a subject for another thread.

In terms of customer relations, things were much better at the Chord cable stand. They had three headphone amps set up (Creek) with Denon headphones. Each rig had different interconnects from freebies to the Chord premium product. Tried each in turn and struggled to actually hear the music so loud was the adjacent Guitar Hero stand. The guy from chord apologised and agreed the demo was a waste of time. Did have a nice chat with him and a technical support engineer regarding the merits of HDMI cables. Nothing new to report which hasn't been said on this website, so won't go over old ground.

Went to a Clearer Audio demo. A fancy rig with freebie power cable and interconnect was played. The power cable and interconnect were exchanged for their products and replayed. OK, there was a difference......but I suspect it was more about the interconnect than the power cable. Had to laugh when their bottom of the range kettle lead was being described. Apparently they use torque wrenches when tightening up the connectors on the plug. All made by hand too! The guy doing the demo again apologised for the noise pollution from the rest of the show.....and this stand was the furthest away from the worst offenders.

Have to say the show was a major disappointment. Relatively few manufacturers and those who were there only had a handful of products eg Denon. But worst of all was the ill concieved setup of the whole show. Someone needs a carpeting!

At the end of the show I had to apologise myself.....to my brother-in-law for wasting his money and time. There was no way a ticket price of £20 could be justified. We paid £16 (subscriber discount plus £1 booking fee) and still felt as though we had been had.

I went to the Bristol Show earlier in the year which was far, far, far superior to the Excel event. Wild horses won't get me to the Excel show next year. Bristol? Maybe....but I'm feeling a little wounded at the moment.

It is a sad reflection of the state of hifi today that this was all London and the Home Counties could come up with. The 'Haymarket' show truly did reflect the industry as it now stands - overpriced and failing to deliver. In retrospect, perhaps What HiFi? would have been a better descriptive title for the show rather than Stuff.

Maybe a big CES at, say, the NEC Birmingham every couple of years may at least keep consumers wanting for more, but I fear that, outside of computer based audio (and associated NAS units, media streamers, DAC's and active loudspeakers) that the very well organised Bristol show may well be missing a number of big Naims - pun well intended. not through lack of interest but because they will no longer exist.

I wonder if anybody will look back fondly over the past couple of decades of green marker pens, cd's in freezers, concrete slabs in the living room, amps on bricks, whole houses being rewired - there is still a company out there selling 6 way extension leads for over £300 and 1.8m mains leads for over £100 a pop! Me thinks not.

At least a very good deal struck with those very nice people at Atacama more than covered the £20. At least that was one rip off I was able to negate.

R.I.P. 

 

 

PJPro:

Went to a Clearer Audio demo. A fancy rig with freebie power cable and interconnect was played. The power cable and interconnect were exchanged for their products and replayed. OK, there was a difference......but I suspect it was more about the interconnect than the power cable. Had to laugh when their bottom of the range kettle lead was being described. Apparently they use torque wrenches when tightening up the connectors on the plug. All made by hand too! The guy doing the demo again apologised for the noise pollution from the rest of the show.....and this stand was the furthest away from the worst offenders.

Hi PJPro,

Thanks for coming to see us. There was a lot of interest in our demo and we also did power cable and interconnects in isolation for people who were interested. If you see us again at a show then we will gladly do a simple power cable demo for you.

I will be feeding back comments to the show organisers about various issues including how we can improve conditions for demonstrations.

Kind regards,

Darren

clearer_audio:

PJPro:

Went to a Clearer Audio demo. A fancy rig with freebie power cable and interconnect was played. The power cable and interconnect were exchanged for their products and replayed. OK, there was a difference......but I suspect it was more about the interconnect than the power cable. Had to laugh when their bottom of the range kettle lead was being described. Apparently they use torque wrenches when tightening up the connectors on the plug. All made by hand too! The guy doing the demo again apologised for the noise pollution from the rest of the show.....and this stand was the furthest away from the worst offenders.

Hi PJPro,

Thanks for coming to see us. There was a lot of interest in our demo and we also did power cable and interconnects in isolation for people who were interested. If you see us again at a show then we will gladly do a simple power cable demo for you.

I will be feeding back comments to the show organisers about various issues including how we can improve conditions for demonstrations.

Kind regards,

Darren

That's what I love about this forum. A fair comment and a reply from a/the top man. It's a good example of how a magazine's online presence enhances it's appeal.

May i say id like to agree with the most of the comments about this years show at Excel,i did how ever feel that the Guys on the Yamaha Stand,had the best demo and where the most helpful and friendly of all,i wont't be going to Excel again,but i will be returning to The Bristol Show Next Year as that to me was far better of a show,hope Yamaha will be there too next year.