The Bristol HiFi Show 2024 Report
Another year and the Bristol HiFi Show 2024 got underway last Friday and was on all weekend, it is one of the longest running HiFi Shows in the industry and one of the best, and for good reason, every year apart from the COVID lockdowns it has provided an invaluable service to what is one of the most enjoyable industries around the world and gives us audio and HiFi enthusiasts the chance to hear some of the best HiFi available today.
The show is hosted at the Delta Marriott Hotel in the centre of Bristol and although it is a 3 hour drive it is well worth the time as the 5 floors that it is spread over has one of the biggest line up of brands in the industry with nearly all of them having live demos to hear what they have to offer and the experts and owners of the companies available to chat to members of the public and answer any questions you may have.
Starting off on the ground floor the area and brands on show is sprawled over quite a large area and covers all of the hotels rooms, with a massive presence basically the hotel is completely occupied by the show and its exhibitors.
The Chord Company
At 11am members of the press were invited to have a presentation of what the Chord Cables and English Electric products can do to improve your HiFi and sound, back to back demos were shown with the Naim Audio and ATC Speakers system with Chord Cables shown connected and then the new PowerHAUS products which were introduced to allow you to hear the benefits of the technology, the new English Electrics EE1 noise isolator was also demonstrated which slots in line with streaming products to remove noise that could be introduced into your system from the network. This was some impressive demos and showed how noise from the mains and your network can affect the sound quality that you hear and with the perfectionists that Chord are always working on new products to improve your HiFi experience with products that start off at very reasonable prices and go up depending on your budget.
Chord Electronics Ultima Integrated Amplifier
Chord Electronics had the new Ultima Integrated and was shown on demo for the first time in the UK and what an amazing new amplifier it is which was partnered with the award winning Chord Qutest DAC and incredible M Scaler and for speakers the stunning ATC SCM40s were used to show what this amplifier is capable of, and it was one of the best sounds of the show, I am using the new BerTTi amplifier at home for my system so know how good this Ultima technology is and the new Integrated amplifier is a beast of an amplifier having massive amounts of current and power on hand, but it is the musicality of this system that impresses the most and yet again proves that Chord Electronics are indeed one of the leaders in the HiFi industry with their products.
ATC Speakers
Last year ATC wowed me with the impressive SCM50A speakers and this year again they proved why they are one of the leading brands in the speaker market, they had the beautiful SCM50ASLT SE speakers on demo which were in a gloss black finish, they not only sounded amazing but looked incredible too. Ben Lilly was on hand with the demos and chatted for a bit with him and his knowledge of the brand is invaluable, this was another favourite of the show and if you managed to get a listen I am sure you would agree.
Wilson Benesch Speakers with Trilogy and CAD
Wilson Benesch always have the same room at the show and it is such a great space and demo area which always pulls in huge crowds and for good reason, their speakers are simply sublime in sound with the stunning Discovery 3Zero on demo with Trilogy and CAD components, also the Infrasonic sub was on show and they always impress with such beautiful sounding systems, this room I visited on a few occasions.
Kerr Acoustics
Kerr Acoustics had the stunning sounding K300 standmounts at the show and this was a really beautiful sounding system with Chord Electronics powering them, managed to get a good listen and the room was packed with people trying to get a listen to them and proved to be very popular at the show.
Leema Acoustics
Leema Acoustics had the new Neutron Preamplifier and Graviton Amplifier at the show and also a sneak peak at their next offering the Electron CD player, the sound from this system was really really good and considering the pricing of these new components you really do get so much for your money, priced at £1500 each it was an amazing demo and Lee Taylor was also on hand to answer any questions, they were paired with a beautiful sounding speaker from Serhan Swift with the mu2 MKII speakers, they were very compact but sounded sublime with the Leema electronics, a brand to certainly keep an eye on !
Cyrus Audio with Audio Physic Speakers
Cyrus Audio had a great room this year with the new XR series and also their new Turntable, the speakers from Audio Physics were a fantastic pairing and really did make the Cyrus components sing and heard some really good music from this combination.
Symphony Distribution and Tannoy Speakers
Symphony distribution had a big presence at this years Bristol show with the stunning Tannoy Stirling III Speakers on demo and a great stand down on the ground floor showcasing all the Tannoy range of speakers, the main demo of the Stirling III speakers were partnered with the beautiful new Western Electric Integrated amplifier and from what I got to hear it sounded very good indeed.
ProAc Speakers
ProAc had a great show presence with the beautiful and one of their best selling speakers the D20R and D2R's on demo in 2 rooms at the show, I own the D2Rs and they are one of the finest standmounts but I managed to listen to the D20Rs and they were paired with Exposure HiFi which I have not heard with ProAc speakers before but it proved to be a great combination and featured some really good sounds !
Fyne Audio
Fyne Audio had a pair of their Vintage series of speakers on demo at the show and were also partnered with Accuphase electronics, a great sounding combination and also featured a Linn LP12 turntable.
Wharfedale Speakers and Audiolab
Wharfedale speakers and Audiolab were on the lower ground floor and featured the new 9000 series of components and were partnered with the Wharfedale Aura speakers, great sounding combination and pleased that I got to listen to this pairing as it proved to be very popular at the show.
This is just a snippet to be fair of what the show had to offer as their was so many other brands that I did not manage to get to as time always catches up with you, so my apologies to all the other fabulous brands that I could not include in this report, I hope to be back there next year and more time to spend with some of the others, I would of loved to catch up with the guys at Focal and Naim Audio as their room has always impressed on past shows.
In total there was 158 brands at the show so much to choose from but these are my favourites from this years show, see you next year Bristol and thanks so much to What HiFi and Audio T / Quobuz for putting on another incredible showing of HiFi !
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