Article by Tan TE
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Let’s start with the 5 hifi systems I submitted for this year’s Best Sound of the Show, presented in the sequence that I heard them on Saturday afternoon of the Show weekend.
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1. Swedish Statement – Vitus Audio / Marten
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I heard this system playing with the Vitus CD player as the frontend instead of the turtable. This, to me, was the most balanced sounding system in the Show. It also had refinement and fine details aplenty.
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2. Centre Circle Audio – VPI / Accustic Arts / Rosso Florentino
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Big scale, dynamic, and came with a hint of the beautiful tonal colour the Italians do best (Rosso Florentino is Italian). Some more run-in on the brand new loudspeakers may help to ameliorate the occasionally hot treble region.
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3. Hifi Creations – Kronos / Absolare / Ocean Five / Skogrand Cables / Frank
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Hifi Creations pulled out all the stops to give showgoers a feast of the eyes and the ears. The huge conference room they were in was divided into a classy display area and a main demo/listening area.
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This was a grand system – a high end, high tech turntable, beautifully crafted tube amplifiers, a 4-tower loudspeaker system, all backed up by 10 pieces of Frank Power Banks. The performance was a far cry from the previous year, the bigger space allowed the sound to breathe and to bloom much better. The music selection done personally by Kronos’ designer Louis Desjardins put listeners into a relaxed and nostalgic mood for music listening (no audiophile demo tracks here). The sound was very big, very rich and absolutely non-fatiguing (this was with the Absolare monoblocks back into the chain after repair. The Magnet monoblocks, while more than competent, did not reach the same height in performance).
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And if there was an award for The Best Product Presentation, Hifi Creations would win it hands down 🙂
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4. AV Designs – Bryston / PMC
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The very new PMC Twenty5 24 loudspeakers were pumping out sound that was fast, bold and dynamic and yet with a good amount of finesse. Its ability to produce such a prodigious amount of bass was phenomenal for a relatively small and slim enclosure.
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5. High End Research – Orpheus Lab / Franco Serblin
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Matched with the Orpheus electronics, the Ktema sounded very refined, sweet, and musical. A great torch bearer for the great Franco Serblin.
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More photos from the KLIAVS 2016 to share:
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A&L – Musical Fidelity
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Absolute Sound – Esoteric / Focal
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The new Focal Sopra range showed that they had the same design DNA as the Utopias:
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Audio Art – LOIT / BMC/ Magnat / HECO
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Audio Art brought in many Magnat and HECO models seen for the first time in KLIAVS.
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The newly updated BMC integrated amplifier, now designated as CS2.5:
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AVP Soundcraft – Nagra
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Audio jewellery:
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Clarity MP – Mark Levinson / Revel
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The Revel Concerta2 F35 loudspeakers, despite being Revel’s entry level floorstanders, were producing very decent sound driven by the No.585 integrated amplifier.
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CMY
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CMY’s flagship showcase was the mighty Naim Statement with the equally mighty Dynaudio Evidence:
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More from the other CMY rooms:
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Dynaudio
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Metronome / Karan / ASI
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A rarity nowadays, a CD transport, the Calypso, from Metronome Technologie’s top Kalista range:
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Naim / ProAc
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Creative AV – Graham, Elac
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I am very interested to try out for myself all the 3 loudspeakers Creative AV displayed – the Chartwell LS3/5, the Graham LS5/9 and the Andrew Jones designed ELAC Debut B5.
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D&A Analogue Hifi – KEF
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D&A Analogue Hifi launched the latest KEF Reference Series in Malaysia.
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Perfect Hifi – Sonus Faber, Audio Research
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The latest from Sonus Faber – the Il Cremonese, a 3.5 way loudspeaker with a 5-side diamond shape cross section that stood majestically at 149cm/57in tall. My photos can’t do them justice.
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Note the side-firing pair of woofers at the bottom part of the loudspeaker.
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BenQ
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Oppo
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Living Audio – XTZ
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XTZ had a unique multi-tweeter design on their 3 front speakers, with upfiring speakers for Atmos stacked on top of the left and right channels. There was a behemoth subwoofer too.
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MAXX Audio – SVS
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MAXX Audio augmented SVS’s L+R loudspeakers with individual subwoofers and added the big cylinder-shaped PC-13 Ultra for good measure.
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MA Recordings
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The hi-res digital recording specialist MA Recordings now has an LP version of its chinese pipa artist Peiju Lien’s album – Whisper.
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That’s all from me for 2016.