This year’s Sound & Vision Show in Bristol was a considerably more upbeat affair than it was in 2009, when the recession seemed to cast a pall of gloom over the proceedings. In 2010 however, there was considerably more optimism, lots of new products and plenty of excitement.
Fatman’s wireless amps
Valve-powered iPod dock specialist Fatman showed off its new wireless amps. Each has a wireless link to a bundled Fatman Dock.
Fatman WiTube 302 iTube 302
The iTube 302 offers class AB push pull and can supply 30 watts per channel. The class A single-ended iTube 202 meanwhile delivers 20 watts per speaker.
Fatman WiTube 202 iTube 202
The company has also been experimenting with some custom designs. They can now supply products like the iTube ValveDock, seen here in retro shades of sixties swinger and eighies A-Team, in a range of finishes for an extra £100 above the standard price.
Roth CHARLiE computer speakers
Roth, the people behind the Fatman valve-powered iPod docks, demonstrated their own branded computer speakers The CHARLiE comes in two flavours – the 2.0 includes the electronics in the base of one of the oval shaped speaker cabinets.
The 2.1 uses the same satellites but augments them with a tubular subwoofer, which contains all the electrical gubbins. Both models come in either black or white and will be available in April, the CHARLiE 2.0 for £199 and the 2.1 for £299
Philips HTS-8160H Blu-ray soundbar
On view at the show but not coming to the UK just yet was Philips’ combi Blu-ray player and 5.1 soundbar, the HTS-8160H. It’s Profile 2.0 so it can handle DB live material and discs slot load from the side.
Philips HTS-8160H Bluray soundbar
It uses Philips’ Ambisound technology to project its sound at slightly staggered intervals from its five onboard speakers and separate subwoofer to give the impression of surround sound. There’s a five-disc automatic memory, so you can always go back to the place where you left off, and there are adjustment settings to allow for room acoustics as well as a 3.5mm input jack for hooking up an iPod or other MP3 player.
The £1,000 asking price is seen as a bit of a barrier to releasing it in the UK, but if they can get the price down, we could join our European cousins and get it later in the year.
Digital Opera S2 S5 wireless earbuds
No Bluetooth or Wi-Fi involved in these earbuds, which rely on the low-power Kleer wireless audio technology, which uses the 2.4GHz band to transmit lossless 16-bit 44.1kHz CD quality music over a range of up to ten metres. There are volume and graphic equaliser controls at the rear of each earbud.
The S2 version comes with a wireless adaptor which connects to a 3.5mm jack plug in the source player, and the S5 comes with a dedicated iPod connection. Kleer claims its system offers up to ten times the battery life of similar Bluetooth-based products.
Available from Wirefreehifi, the Digital Opera S5 is available now for £85, wile the S2 is £68.50.
Marantz NR1501 AV and BD5004
Marantz has a novel pairing in the NR1501 AV receiver and BD5004 Blu-ray player. The NR1501 is a fairly slimline 50wpc amp with analogue 7.1 outputs, 4x HDMI in, 1x HDMI out. It’s managed to keep its relatively svelte profile by dispensing with less popular connections such as S Video.
It’s matched with the similarly sized BD5004, a Profile 2.0 Blu-ray player which looks about twice as big as it should be, only because the pair then match.
Marantz UD8004 universal disc player
Marantz’s high-end do-it-all machine can play just about any disc you care to throw at it, including SACD and DVD-Audio (as well as vanilla CD and DVD), though it won’t be compatible with the upcoming 3D Blu-rays we’re expecting later this year.
It’s a scaled down version of the flagship UD9004 which retains most of the more expensive player’s features, including a separate audio circuit, 7.1 channel analogue audio RCA outputs, HD sound decoding and BD Live, but saves by using a less robust chassis and a slightly more basic audio board. It’ll still cost you £2,450.
Mordaunt Short P2 loudspeaker
Mordaunt Short’s latest standmount is the baby of the Performance range. It’s a two-way with 6.5in mid/bass driver and a dome tweeter that uses MS’s ATT (Aspirated Tweeter Technology) for wide dispersion of high frequencies.
It has a 6.5in aluminium woofer, a 1in dome tweeter and comes with a dedicated stand which features a glass base and metal extrusion and is on sale now for £3,060 including stands.
Pioneer 71 speaker series
Since it moved out of the TV market, Pioneer is focusing its product push for 2010 on speakers, and demonstrated its new 71 series for the first time in the UK at Bristol. It’s a 5.1 system that offers a more affordable alternative to the 81 series largely by dropping the high frequency ribbon tweeter, though it retains the dual concentric tweeter/midrange driver.
The floorstanding front pair include a diffuser plate at the bottom to spread the sound and Pioneer’s Acoustic Balance Drive technology, designed to reduce internal standing waves. The system is priced as: front pair (£1,399), satellite pair (£599 plus £399 for stands), centre (£549) and subwoofer (£599).
Leema Acoustics Stream and Pulse
The Welsh-based hi-fi firm unveiled the mark III versions of its Stream CD player and Pulse integrated amplifier. They’ve been restyled and both now come in white, black (and possibly silver).
The Stream now features slot loading, a ‘quad DAC’, said to be a refinement of the multi DAC on the Antilla flagship player and a digital USB output allowing you to rip directly to your computer.
The Pulse now has an inbuilt phono stage and a range of digital inputs (USB, optical, coax). Both should be available in April for £1,400 each.
Leema Acoustics speakers
Leema had a couple of new speakers on preview at the show in the Xeta, a two-and-a-half-way tower with two bass drivers, two midrange and a dome tweeter. It should be with us in June for £3,000.
The more upmarket Xanda II features the same upper section as the Xeta, but throws in a separate, but connected, 10in long throw subwoofer with a huge front-loading bass port. The wood finish is only a prototype apparently – it should be with us in August for £7,000.