• Home
• Forums
• Archives
• Dealers
• About

The Music Expo

Hi-fi report from the show

By Michael Jones

September 2004

Richard Thorne’s biannual Music Expo took place over the weekend of August 13-15 in Auckland. Although the show focuses on musical instruments and recording equipment (Richard also publishes New Zealand Musician magazine) there is also a hi-fi contingent at each show.

The 2004 show saw a larger hi-fi presence than the 2002 show, which is always good to see. Travelling to the show on Friday, this writer spent several hours talking to exhibitors and checking out the hi-fi.

First up was the Amber Technology room. This company distributes a range of pro and consumer gear, but our focus is on the Optoma video projectors. Unfortunately Tony van Dam of Amber Technology was tied up each time I popped into the room, so I couldn’t find out any more about the Optoma projectors.

Next door was the biggest hi-fi and home theatre stand at the show. Eurolife, an Auckland retailer, had the room to display and demonstrate separate hi-fi and home theatre systems.

The hi-fi system must be the most expensive that I’ve ever sat in front of or listened to. A single brand system, all of the items come from German brand MBL. A substantial CD transport, DA converter and preamplifier fed into large mono power amplifiers. Each amplifier had to be well over one metre deep and 300mm high.

The speakers are among the most unusual I’ve ever seen. Dubbed the “accordions from Mars” by one hi-fi rag, the MBL 101 feature unusual drive units in its four-way design. Wayne Patterson from Eurolife took great pleasure in demonstrating this $300,000 hi-fi system.

The other side of the room featured a home theatre demonstration. A Maxx video projector was producing a very good picture on a Vutech screen. Also on display were Definitive Technology and Acoustic Energy loudspeakers.

Sony had a large home theatre demo room. Centrepiece was a new projector, the VPL-H550 and around $7000. The H550 has a claimed contrast ratio of 6000:1 – an extraordinary figure for a home theatre projector. It was producing a very large picture, sourced from the latest DTS demo DVD.

Around the room’s periphery were new plasma and LCD TVs. A new disk spinner may be of interest to music and movie fans. The DVP-NS999ES is both a DVD and SACD/CD player at $1999.

Mayfield Audio were tucked away down a corridor and may have been missed by some show goers. This would be a pity, as it was an oasis of good sound.

Based in Toad Hall (yes, really) in Otaki, Royden Mayfield represents brands such as Osborne Loudspeakers from Australia, Audio Aero (mainly valve equipment) from France and Consonance, a Chinese based brand that makes both valve and solid state CD players and amplifiers.

Auckland retailer Smiths Sound had a stand representing two local manufacturers, Perreaux and Image Loudspeakers. On the Friday the stand was manned by Perreaux head honcho Martin van Rooyen and Perreaux engineer Clinton Jensen (pictured).

Perreaux were showing two new products in their Silhouette line of smaller products. The SXL2 ($899) is a line stage buffer, designed to (for example) go between a CD player and an amplifier. The SLX2 includes both balanced and unbalanced connections and can transpose a signal from one to the other.

The SLH2 ($899) is a new version of Perreaux’s headphone amplifier that I enthusiastically reviewed some last year. Version two solves the major gripe about the first headphone amp – that the volume control was too small and difficult too use – and adds various internal upgrades.

Image Loudspeakers had three speaker systems on display – the tasty Revelation, an Image 414 in Ferrari red and the Studio Monitor couple with an Image 100 subwoofer.

PQ Imports were showing a selection from their range of imported hi-fi equipment. The full Studio range of Paradigm speakers were on display, along with some interesting products from Sherwood. Sherwood have a 17” LCD TV retailing at $1999.

Actively producing sound were three products from Sherwood’s Newcastle range of upmarket AV products. The V768T DVD player ($1299) was matched by AV separates – still an unusual concept in home theatre. The P965 Processor/Tuner ($3199) was matched with the A965 seven channel 100W power amplifier ($2999).

Two new subwoofer models from REL were on display (the picture shows PQ Import’s Jason Bell with the REL Strata 5). When asked about the performance of the new REL subs, Jason said that the Strata 5 was “as good as the next model up in the old range”. Of interest to more cost conscious audiophiles will be the REL Stampede, a smaller model at $2199.

Gencom, the distributors of Barco projectors, featured the Barco Cineversum 70 DLP projector that impressed AudioEnz reviewer Tony Davey a few months back. The Cineversum 70 is, by normal home theatre standards, an expensive DLP projector, but its performance makes a great case for the expenditure.

Jason Parmenter of Parmenter Sound had a small booth filled with a pair of Avant Garde Solo horn loaded loudspeakers. Unlike the other speakers in the Avant Garde range, the Solo is an active loudspeaker (power amplifiers are built in to the speakers). The Solos were sourced from a Gamut CD player and Audio Note M3 preamplifier.

Linn New Zealand had two stands. The first included a large selection of Linn electronics, along with some of the Linn Akurate speaker range, presided over by Alex Webb from Linn’s Auckland retailer, Absolute Sound (pictured). A separate room contained a complete Linn surround sound system for both movies and music, again with Akurate loudspeakers and with an Optoma projector.

Talking to some exhibitors after the show gained mainly positive comments on the show as a whole. One disappointment was that numbers were down from the last show - possibly because the new Sky City Convention Centre is still largely unknown to Aucklanders. AudioEnz hopes that the reduced numbers don't affect the viability of another show in 2006.