Week Nine – it’s Expo Time

I lost a day last week to the world of HiFi and tellies by going to the Bristol Sound & Vision show on Friday. I was driving so fast and jabbering so animatedly about the six-ten-inch 9,000w, world’s-baddest home woofer I was going to review there, that I missed the correct turn-off the M4 and took my group editor on a brief but £5.50-worth of trip to Wales over the Severn Bridge which he had never done before! He’s going to dine out on it for ever he says. Meanwhile, I missed out going to Las Vegas this year for the huge CES show and in any case, when I do go, I concentrate on the 12V kit. So I had never seen a 3D TV before, but I did at this show in Bristol. It was a Samsung that uses the Disneyland (and nowadays mainstream cinema) method of 90-degree alternate polarised sunglasses and a dual set of screen images polarised to make it 3D. The other method involves TV sets flickering at 120Hz to give 60Hz to each eye and a set of £100 sunglasses with flickering co-ordinated ‘shutters’ to make the dual-retinal con take place.
For shows are where we see new stuff and I can assure you that there will be plenty of it at the Auto Sound Style show this coming Sunday 7th March 2010. (Stoneleigh Park Warks CV8 2LZ) With Kenwood having their new generation of kit with the sexy new highest definition screen they have ever used and Clarion’s latest ordnance as well as Alpine’s newest demo car on show and a whole new brand relaunch saved up just for this show from Midbass to unveil. (Rumour has it, it’s a new take on one of their already successful lines.) The EMMA people will be out on force as it to be the host of the UK season opener for car audio competitions and it is the very first time this show has been open to the public. It has always been trade-only before and now saves the Monday for the trade attendees.
One thing I should have mentioned last week but failed to was that I was due to put some real watts up the huge triaxial Pioneers I have reviewed here. The result was spectacular and as ever the dude at Pioneer was certain but waited and didn’t evangelise, but simply urged me to do as he suggested. A lot. Until I gave in! I was so certain they were headunit-only product but I was wrong and upped their score as a result!
Here’s a quote… “oh my WORD the bass and the tight accuracy of it on a decently grippy amplifier was revelatory!
I played some Seal, with his characteristic bass guitar melody and you could hear the grunting within the guitar notes. It had authority and might and amazing efficiency. The whole thing about the boxes being too small, turned out tot be rubbish as they loved their home once they had some watts to play with, so in FINAL summation later, very good on headunit power but if you amplify them and want to party, these are literally unbeatable on the UK market and shamefacedly, I admit a new Talk Audio First.
As a result of secondary testing, I am forced to re-mark the product as an eight for power handling, rather than a five…”
I’ll go get on then….
Adam Rayner – Online Editor