Brussels Hifi Show 2015 - a nice event!

[bart]

Hi folks, last Sunday, my wife and I spent an entire day in Brussels, where 10 dealers set up a good show.
It was an entertaining, not too crowded and friendly event.
I had some nice chats with importers and producers.

Not a lot of the dealers knew of AudioAficionado before, but when they heard about the 162,000 members, and usually 4 times as much 'lurkers' as members online, they were more than willing to share some of their time.



Stay tuned.
Meta took a lot of pictures!

[bart]

First room: Focal and the 432 Evo Streamer/server.
432 Evo is a Belgian company.
They produce streamers that convert 440Hz into 432Hz on the fly.
It seems that 90% of the listeners prefer 432Hz as it would sound more natural.
Italian composers from the 17th and 18th century knew this already and composed in 432Hz I was told.

As hard as I tried, I couldn't hear a difference.
It could have been the Focal headphones, that might be not revealing enough.



I could switch as much as I wanted, but nope, nothing changed for me.
I want to hear this through a decent system, but so far I'm not convinced.



For the rest this was an interesting room, with Focal Sopras, Metronome Technology CD/DAC, and amps I hadn't heard of before.











The server has 2 Tb internal memory.
No SSD as they believe SSD cause high pitch distortion.

[bart]

Some room treatment in that same room:






I didn't get he pyramid like thingies...

[bart]

Next room: Harbeth and Gato Audio.
















Very photogenic gear!

[bart]

We only heard the Super HL5 speakers.
Their little brothers were on display:





Wireworld cabling:








This was a good sounding room.
Price/performance ratio very good even.
The Harbeths, that I had already heard with Halgorythme amplification, wonderfully held their own.
I was even looking if there was a sub involved, but there wasn't.
Only disadvantage, which I already noticed at Cédric's place: the wooden box construction plays along, and it's clearly audible.

[bart]

Next room: Alluxity with Gauder Akustik:






The amp and DAC were new to me, and the specs are promising.
I saw this gear in other rooms too:








This room sounded nice, but maybe a little too hard.
I think these electronics can handle large speakers.
There seemed to be a lot of power behind them.

[flyer]

Originally Posted by bart

Some room treatment in that same room:




I didn't get he pyramid like thingies...

Hi Bart,

Thanks for sharing this wonderful report!

Just wanted to share that the guy that supplied the panels as you have seen at certain locations is me. These panels (V-wings) are diffusers that also work in the time domain (i.e. delaying the signal by a few milliseconds) from the brand SMT (SMT AB and facebook.com/audiorefinement).

Several rooms had similar ones supplied (like between the speakers in the Vitus/focal room) since the dealers start to appreciate their effect.

Unfortunately, after their positioning they sometimes got displaced reducing (or in one case even leading to no effect at all) their effect...

[bart]

Originally Posted by flyer

Hi Bart,

Thanks for sharing this wonderful report!

Just wanted to share that the guy that supplied the panels as you have seen at certain locations is me. These panels (V-wings) are diffusers that also work in the time domain (i.e. delaying the signal by a few milliseconds) from the brand SMT (SMT AB and facebook.com/audiorefinement).

Several rooms had similar ones supplied (like between the speakers in the Vitus/focal room) since the dealers start to appreciate their effect.

Unfortunately, after their positioning they sometimes got displaced reducing (or in one case even leading to no effect at all) their effect...

flyer, welcome to AA!
I visited your website.
Very nice products.
Unfortunately, my Swedish is not so good...

[flyer]

Originally Posted by bart

flyer, welcome to AA!
I visited your website.
Very nice products.
Unfortunately, my Swedish is not so good...

Hi, I changed the link, try this one then: SMT | A handful of references and work photos

[flyer]

Hi Bart,

Thanks for the very nice report!

The guy that supplied these panels is myself. They are V-wing diffusers from SMT. Clearly, the pyramid is not part of it :-) !

They were in several rooms, like the Vitus/Focal room as well. Though not always located at the right spot as they got displaced intentionally or not... I can only make them available, ultimately the dealer 'owns' the room.