What Hi-Fi Show 2005

One of the highly anticipated exhibition that I was looking forward, but felt slightly short-changed by my expectations, especially since going to the yearly HiFi equivalent in Singapore. Wasn't able to take pictures of a few vendors that caught my eye as I was in a rush to catch the Manyoo/Chelski match, and having the restriction of only able to go in at 1.30pm did not help at all.

As I was looking out for a pair of headphones to replace my Ipod originals, was hoping to find some bargains at the show. Tried out the Shure e series, was simply bowed by e4c, I have to say its probably the best pair of closed earphones I have ever heard before. No noise cancellation technology involved, just plain simple in-ear bud designs to isolate the noise from the music. The highs and lows are so well defined, its like listening to my old pair of Beyerdynamics headphones! Seriously AWESOME, but the price of £169(already show price) was not exactly that attractive. Searching on ebay reveals that I can get similar at HALF the price, so will probably get that as my own Xmas present closer to Santa day.


Another interesting exhibit was from Ferguson Hill Studios. They had these pairs of loudspeakers and bass that will probably take up half of your standard room, and their design is soooooo....neat! Made entirely of perpex, they are 100% see-through. The soundstage was incredible, vocals perfectly delivered and mid and highs were nice, but not perfect. As the test disc were clearly towards vocals and details. All these will set you back a cool £11,000, although you can order a set of similar but at a much smaller size to pair with you iMac for just under £500, expected to be ready by Jan 06.

Much anticipation was circled around HD TV, with most households expected to receive the signals by end 06. Certainly looked very good on the LCD screens I must say, provided I can afford to buy a screen that big. Philips LCD with Ambi-Light is pretty neat as well, with colours coming out on both sides behind the screen accordingly to the colours you see on the TV, so that you are constantly in the mood of what you watch. Sharp showcased the BIGGEST LCD screen at a monstrous 62"!

I was quite impressed with the Arcam Solo though, been a All-in-one system with CD, Amp, DAB/FM, with a good 4x75W power output for £1000. Reasonable considering that its coming from Arcam. Denon demostrated a similar all-in-one device as well, with even a connector that connects to your iPod directly so that you can select your tunes using Denon's remote, Nifty!

If you are into something minimalist, check out Audica, a new player coming from the Cambridge area of innovation. Rang into a few listening studios and still feel Cyrus is still the ones for me to get(in realistic sense). Excellent build and sound, together with high price tag of course =P Other than that, I think the Bristol HiFi show should be a better choice to really hear the best stuff out there, and that will happen sometime in Feb 06. Till then...