In line with previous years, those who register in advance and come along will be entitled to a free entry into our raffle.
Prizes this time were :
Good : QED Reference Ethernet cable 2m worth £159 – winner was Duncan Faitweather
Better : Meze Classic 99 headphones worth £279 – winner was Mark Dowling
Even better : Chord Mojo II worth £495 – winner was Peter Moodie
Best : Naim Mu-so QB 2nd generation worth £799 – winner was Kieran Caulfield
Dynaudio Evoke 10 loudspeaker draw – winner was John King
Congratulations to all.
Along with being in a lovely, open and green space, Trinity Park provided almost limitless free parking.
There is an admittedly fairly modest number of large airy demonstration rooms along with a very convivial cafe area. This is usually a very sociable event and people have been known to ‘need’ to come back on the second day to cover everything!
Here’s a rather impressive video shot by Leo at My Hi End
Here’s a link to our very own Kevin’s show highlights.
Cracking review by Jonathan Gorse in Soundstage Magazine
You want pictures? here they are
Starting with the premise that no-one actually wants to come to these things, we have a history of offering some rather good prizes in a free draw for those who do make the trip.
Manufacturers often ‘chip in’ with products that we can give away. With this year celebrating thirty years of Signals hifi, we felt old and ugly enough to raid our own stock cupboard and do this ourselves but we’ve been touched by some suppliers offering items without us even asking. If you registered in advance andcheck-in at reception, you were automatically be entered into our free draw for a prize.
First was the Naim mu-so QB 2 worth £799
Next, a Chord Mojo 2 DAC / headphone amp worth £499
The rather wonderful Meze Classic 99s worth £279 came next in the line-up.
Final prize, for the main draw, was is a QED Reference Ethernet cable (2m) worth £159
But there was more! Indeed, the best had yet to come.
Go into the Dynaudio room, click on the QR code and you could win a pair of their stunning Evoke 10 loudspeakers, worth £1300, in the finish of your choice.
You could even upgrade to something better from their ranges for the difference in the price.
This is where things went a little awry. iPhones have QR reader built in as standard. Other devices seem to require that you download an ‘app’. I lent a few people my phone to fill ion the form but, from the relatively low number of entrants, it’s likely that this was a significant hurdle for many. Oh dear!
It’s ten years since we celebrated Signals hi-fi’s 20th birthday with our first mini hi-fi show at Trinity Park.
Our last Trinity Park Show was in 2018 and a combination of trying new, smaller, events at our St Cecilia’s House HQ and the restrictions brought by Covid led to a sizeable break.
Our business has grown considerably in recent years and now, even more than ever, this event can only show some of what we have available. Far more products are held in Trimley so, if something catches your interest, please do get in touch.
Here is a plan of the site. As you can see, we used two buildings, the main one, where you will have entered, and the Suffolk Rooms on the other side of the courtyard.
Explosive new Hi Fi industry Double Act Kevin Fulcher (DittonWorks on Youtube) and Russell Kauffman, the nose behind Russell K, invite you to join them in an open discussion on speaker design.
It is intended to be very informal, just like a group of friends chatting in the pub. Except in this case it’s bring a coffee and join the conversation.
Russell will be talking about some of the decisions designers have to make developing loudspeaker systems, notably how he chooses woofers and tweeters whilst demonstrating how ‘raw’ drive units with no crossover or cabinet can differ in perceived sound quality.
He will also demonstrate a comparison of a speaker cabinet with and then without damping This will be the centre section of the Trinity Rooms over the courtyard from main building.
This was surprisingly well attended, with far more than the booked audience at all but one of the scheduled slots. In this case, the solitary attendee chose to come later. Had he waited another few minutes hw would have had company. Never mind, lessons learned.
Over in the first of the Trinity Rooms, representing Audioquest, Toby and Rob were demonstrating Audioquest cables with some yet to be released Golden Ear loudspeakers. Californian based Golden Ear have now been acquired by the Quest Group and I think we might have been impressed.
Source component was a Linn Selekt DSM with latest Organik DAC connected to Accuphase C-2150 preamp and A48 class A power amp. Pretty near the entry point in the Accuphase range but it all sounded very good indeed.
“Let’s address the proverbial Elephant in the room, and get straight to the point, all cables are bad…there aren’t any cables from any manufacturer any-where in the world that can make a system better. Impossible. There you go, we said it.
However, the actual challenge is to make cables that do as little sonic damage to our systems music replay as possible; it doesn’t take anything medical, or military grade, or the inclusion of rare earth metals to make a cable that honours the signal it needs to carry.
If you commit to understanding the context of what the cable needs to do, be that a speaker cable, power cable or interconnect cable, you can design and build products that do a better job of connecting from point a to point b with minimal loss and disruption.
But you shouldn’t take our, or anyone else’s word for it, you should take a listen and judge for yourself.
We’ll have a system set-up featuring a brand-new model from GoldenEar, prior to its world-wide launch at the Munich High End Audio Show in May Accuphase and Linn electronics that’ll be perfect to check out AudioQuest, power, speaker and interconnects for yourself
One of several brands celebrating 50 years this year are Rega.
Rob Noble from Rega is on hand to take you through the range. Rega has become an increasingly significant brand for us at signals. Based in Southend and manufacturing in the UK from their two factory sites, they have grown dramatically in the past few years.
Originally recognised for their roots in more budget hifi, they are increasingly making some extremely serious products.
The primary system that will be played comes into the sensible mid to high end category. Their Aura Phono preamp costs £4400 but has embarrassed several far more expensive alternatives.
The Planar 10 turntable with Aphelion cartridge may seem pricey at £6840 but, again, it’s terrific value when put in context.
The Aethos amplifier is a similar story and Rob’s decision to use Dynaudio Evoke 50 loudspeakers was driven by the same desire to give maximum possible ‘bang for buck’.
Lateral audio stands will be used in the Rega and Accuphase rooms. Lateral’s owner and designer, Kevin Hancock, will be on hand to answer questions.
His new Arena audio interfaces will be there too. Kevin will have a stand in the marketplace; area in the centre of the Trinity Rooms section of the site.
First room on the right as you enter the main building and you’ll find Chris Fayers and Clive Smith from ‘Musicworks’ with an array of their Accuphase integrated amplifiers.
Their room system source was the very fine Accuphase DP750 SA/CD player and the full range of the ‘Accuphase’ integrated amplifiers were alternated.
The Musicworks’ team have decided to focus on their integrated amplifiers at this year’s show. Should you be tempted by the Pre & Power route, we can always play these at St Cecilia’s House at a later date.
The other complimentary parts of their room system: Dynaudio’ Confidence 20 Loudspeakers, signal cables from ‘Audiomica’, equipment racks from ‘Lateral’ and for the 240v side of things, a ‘Musicworks’ G4 Mains Distribution block along with an excellent alternative choice of power cables, and very much a favourite at ‘Signals Hi-Fi’, the ‘Naim’ Powerline.
Next room on the right and you would have found Dynaudio’s Bill Livingston and Marc Brekelmans playing the new Naim 200 series electronics into a pair of Dynaudio Confidence 30 loudspeakers.
Dynaudio is a Danish loudspeaker maker, founded in 1977 and builds speakers using only their own drivers.
With two adjacent rooms using Confidence series loudspeakers and Rega choosing to use their Evoke 50s, Dynaudio had a fair amount of exposure at this years show.
Those who scanned the QR code in their room could enter the free draw to win a pair of Evoke 10 loudspeakers worth £1300.
A relatively new brand to the Signals’ portfolio, Dynadudio has made a huge impact on us. At all price levels, they offer impressive value and performance.
For the show, we stuck to conventional passive loudspeakers but the new Focus series of digital, active, internet ready speakers are worth seeking out.
Continuing down the main corridor from the front door, third room on the right was being looked after by Chord Electronics.
Representing Chord Electronics, Maurice Tryner and Doug Graham are demonstrating the new Chord Ultima 3 pre-amplifier with both Ultima 5 + 6 power amplifiers.
The source components are Innuos Zenith music server connected to Hugo M-Scaler and Dave DAC.
Loudspeaker choices were Kudos Titan 707 floor-standers and ATC SCM50 stand-mounts.
On hand for the quiet periods were the full range of Chord DAC / headphone amplification products along with a selection of headphones.
Next, and final, door on the right hand side of the corridor leads you to Naim Audio.
Naim have suffered huge supply related woes over the past couple of years. Part of the issue was that they were simultaneously developing and commencing manufacture of a whole new ‘Classic’ range of amplification and streamers.
Now it’s 2023, the new range can start to be revealed and moods could hardly be more buoyant. Darren Woodyatt and Jason Gould werere playing the new Naim NSC 222 pre-amplifier / streamer with NPX 300 power supply and the New Classic NAP 250 power amplifier.
Focal Sopra 2 loudspeakers in the trendy new Concrete finish were used to greet effect.
We’ve heard the New Classic 222 / 250 combo drive some very high end loudspeakers, so we half expectedFocal Stella Utopia’s. In the end, the decision was made to stick with something more appropriate to the 200 series price point.
In addition, the full range of Focal headphones were on the headphone bar in the Trinity Rooms.
Other side of the corridor from Naim and you have Kudos Audio, a long time Signals’ favourite brand.
Derek Gilligan (MD) and Mark Benson (production manager) were your guides.
In previous years they have been operating in active mode with external line level crossovers and multiple power amplifiers. This year, the system is rather simpler and the speakers will be using their internal passive crossovers.
With Chord Electronics using Kudos Titans, it’s novel to report that Kudos were powering their Titan 808s (the flagship floor-standers) with Chord Electronics. The Ultima Pre 3 preamp was used again but this time with dual Ultima 3 mono power amplifiers.
Front end was up a notch too, with Innuos Statement server, Chord M-Scaler and Dave DAC.
With Innuos being demonstrated in two dem rooms, we had Stephen Healy from Innuos on site too for the duration. With their new Pulse streamers, high end Phoenix Net switch, Zen, Zenith and Statement servers and Phoenix USB reclocker, Stephen had some interesting products to show and explain and was mainly located in the Trinity Rooms.
Working your way back towards the front of the main building, last door on the right led to ATC.
This is another company who are celebrating their 50th anniversary.
ATC is the longest established brand on our portfolio. We’ve been stocking their products for almost all of the last 30 years.
Ben Lilly and Dave Spiers from ATC will be your guides along with Richard Bates from Auralic.
The equipment line-up is ATC SCM 150 active loudspeakers fed by ATC SIA-2 pre-amplifier and Auralic Aries 2.1 Streaming Transporter and Vega 2.1 DAC.
For analogue, there is a Vertere MG-1 ‘Magic Groove’ turntable with Phono One phono stage.
Auralic is a relative newcomer to Signals but we’ve been impressed with how well they can work. Their Altair G2.1pre-amp-cumstreamer (complete with moving magnet phono stage) is an excellent match for ATC’s active loudspeakers.
In this instance, we were using something from a little further up the range.
The SCM 150s impressed a lot of folks, most of whom would struggle to accommodate them!
Lurking in the bar / cafe area, were Alan Ainslie and Stewart Day from ADMM. They are distributors for Melco, ADOT optical Ethernet and NuPrime.
We were early adopters of Melco music servers and have consistently seen this as the best way to store and serve data to UPnP devices such as Linn and Naim streamers. Melco also make high end data switches and CD drives.
Uniquely, when Melco use solid state SSD drives, they also disable the default data cycling that is normally in place.
The recent arrival of the N1 38S solid state server has seen a significant uplift in performance.
ADOT offers a very cost effective way to isolate your music data network from electrically noisy drives and PSUs and is well worth investigating.
The ADMM team are well versed in explaining, so give them a good grilling:)
Taiwan based NuPrime make some excellent affordable audiophile data switches, music streamer transports, DACs, power amplification and headphone amps.
We held a couple of 30 minute sessions per day with those in the know in the Trinity Rooms.
In the middle of the Trinity Rooms Ben Holt from SCV was holding court with the full range of Meze headphones. On hand was a plethora of headphone amps and streamers.
He also had examples of the Iso Acoustics isolators and could explain what they do.
We are utterly hooked on how good the entry level Meze Classics are, and things just get better as you go up the range.
Kevin Robinson from Focal was in the central section of the Trinity Rooms. Focal have had some spectacular recent arrivals from the new and unsettlingly good sounding wireless Bathys to the latest version of Utopia, you could plunge your head into an alternative sonic universe.
Well worth a listen.
This picture is not of Kevin . . .
