Bristol Hi-Fi Show 2024 Show Report

 

The first port of call when attending the Bristol Hi-Fi Show has got to be Wogan Coffee, the HiFi Collective roaster of choice.  After parking at the £6 a day car park just off Wellington Road, don’t park at the Cabot Circus Car Park. You will be paying a lot more. Wogan Coffee is just around the corner on Clements Street. It has an uber-cool minimalist-style cafe to sample their wears.

 

 

I dropped my coffee haul in the car and headed to the Marriott Bristol City Hotel at 10am. I picked up my lanyard and headed to the 4th floor, planning to work my way down. The first room was Anthos Audio, showing off their awesome thirteen-leaf flower horn speakers powered by our own Elekit TU-8900E using 2A3 in single-ended mode using bespoke output transformers. You can just about see the amp housed in the unique hi-fi rack. The combination sounded amazingly spacious and detailed.

 

 

Audio Note: our old friends had two rooms on the 4th floor manned by Mickey and Daniel. They sounded so sweet, as usual. The picture below shows many Audio Note components, all stocked by HFC.

 

 

Andy Whittle was close by, looking after the Rogers room. Rocking out with the classic E20a valve amplifier and their range of BBC monitors.

 

 

In the corridors, I bump into a good customer of ours, Paul Stoneman. We spoke about TKD potentiometers. Thank you all for coming up to say hello.

 

UK brand, Tove Audio was on the 4th floor, displaying its beautifully crafted spherical designs.

 

The Malvern Audio Research room was sounding good, with a lineup of their British made valve equipment. Playing Coppice Audio X3 floor standers all wired up with Connected-Fidelity cabling and debuting their beautiful TT Hub record deck.

 

Bumped into the girls from Charcroft, who supply us with the Z-foil resistors, silver mica capacitors and ClarityCap. It's always good to see the Charcroftians.

 

 

I had a quick chat with Mark Baker from Origin Live. They were showcasing their new Strata multi-layered platter matt. As shown, fitting onto one of their beautiful Aurora turntables.

 

 

Had an interesting chat with the guys from Telegrapher. They produce superbly finished active speaker systems manufactured in Turkey. It is created with tech in mind and how people listen to music these days. The larger black subwoofer is called "Elephant" - love it. 

 

 

Fyne Audio has two rooms on the 3rd floor, displaying their extensive range of speakers. We often sell parts to these guys, which shows they go the extra mile to use audio-grade parts inside their products.

 

Supatrac had a room showing off their uniquely styled sideways uni pivot arm called the Blackbird. Teamed up with Reference Fidelity Components, showing their Rubatos stand mount speakers. Many of the bits inside are supplied by HFC.

 

 

 

Tannoy had a very open-sounding setup. Featuring their top-of-the-range dual concentric Stirling 3s, married perfectly with a Western Electric 91E 300B single-ended amp. It was brilliant to see them embracing the valve sound.

 

 

 

Interestingly, Orange Consumer Products had a room famed for their guitar amps, etc… They had on display their new Orange Valve Tester MK2. This shows what condition the valves are in and performs a wide range of tests quickly and accurately. It identifies faults and can also match valves. We will have to get one in to evaluate. They also had a cute Bluetooth speaker.

 

 

British company Lockwood Loudspeakers had an impressive range of products on display. Founded in 1930, I do rather like their classic look.

 

 

Listening to Lyngdorf’s demonstration was entertaining. Their RoomPerfect software, which analyses the room and adjusts the output response of the amplifier, was turned on and off. Quite a difference. Great tech.

 

 

Here we have the founder/designer Jess Kerr from Kerr Acoustics showing off the insides of the speaker panel - note the use of Jantzen Cross Caps, ClarityCap CSAs and Kiwame resistors. In the background, we have the K300 standmounter.

 

 

 

I was impressed with Pearl Acoustics' set-up. They were playing their Sibelius Loudspeakers with their new 170 singled-ended power amplifier. All are made within the UK.

 

 

PMC had one of the larger rooms on the ground floor. Introducing their new add-on rear panel that converts their passive line of speakers to active.

 

 

Charcroft / ClarityCap were in full force, showing a table of parts that HFC have in store. Some new things are coming from them shortly, so watch out.

 

 

Harbeth had five rooms. I particularly loved the combination of their M40.3 XD with the Quad II series. I used to have a set of the old quad II monoblocs, well, one of them…

 

 

We chatted with Diora Acoustics, a large speaker producer from Poland who does a lot of work with other brands. It's great to see such a big company flourishing. This a snapshot of their room.

 

 

This one took me back. As a youth, I used to buy a Sony Walkman every year to keep my ears plugged in. With the resurgence of the cassette, the FiiO CP13 personal Cassette Player was a solid build for around £100.00.

 

 

Neat Acoustics was forever present, demonstrating their Motive speakers among others in their range. These guys have been trading for over 30 years now. Awesome.

 

 

Headphones are still doing good business, with lots of makers demonstrating their latest cans. I was taken with Manley Absolute Headphone Amplifier, both the sound and styling.

 

 

It was a great show for me, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it was great to see all the familiar faces and some new ones.

I spent the evening with the dudes from Technics, Simon (from Hi-Fi World days) and Kevin. Had a fantastic pizza at Bosco. I had some tasty pints at New Bristol Brewery and enjoyed a late one at a Dub night at Cosies, St. Pauls.

 

 

I also managed to get up to do the rather hilly Ashton Court Parkrun.