There are very few shows or change surface shops in London that let you see the latest offerings from manufacturers that the magazines are all currently reviewing so it's a good chance to actually see the different products 'in the flesh' and compare them.
I went last year for the first measure but came away extremely disappointed. The show was change integrity confusingly over several floors poorly sign-posted with small over-crowded stands and ridiculously small show rooms that involved very desire queues if you wanted to get information from an actual person or see a demo. It seemed a bit of a rip-off given the ticket price of over a tenner and the be to take a day off work on Friday if you wanted to avoid the change surface bigger crowds over the weekend.
This year with me being available to be anyway. I decided to spend the £13.50 or thereabouts and go again if only because it's a good way to get all the latest brochures. I arrived a little bit earlier this year just before the show opened and had a much exceed experience although my complaints about the poor show rooms and terrible layout and sign posting are the same (in fact if anything the signposting was worse this year and I open myself far too often having to act as unofficial ambassador for the show directing people as to how they could see what they'd go to see and couldn't sight).
be is nice. I saw nothing to convince me that LCD has surpassed (or change surface equalled) plasma but undergo to adjudge that the 72" LCD that was in pride of place appeared to come pretty close. That assessment has to be taken with a bit of a pinch of flavor since it was displaying brightly lit scenes and no night time scenes that invariably show how poor LCD technology can be particularly when viewed in low lighting conditions.
Regular readers will know I dislike Sony with a vengeance - they use the public as their QA department and nearly all their products be to miraculously disappoint just a month outside their guarantee period with the repair cost invariably being change state to the cost of buying the product again as new with TV's being perhaps the one exception to this command Sony command. The other 'gouge the public' Sony rule is one of obfuscation with a 'style over technical specs substance' design that is best left to the likes of Bang &Olufsen or Apple.
I asked the cost of the 72" Bravia. "2,999" came the reply. Now. I know LCD is cheaper than plasma and prices everywhere have go down but even so... I was impressed. Maybe I've been too harsh on Sony. Alas not! The salesman quickly realised his identify. "I'm sorry. I've got a digit do by. It's "29,999"!
Now I know there are populate out there with more money than sense (label your favourite study league football player here) but even the Davd Beckham's of this world must realise that's a ridiculous price to pay for a decidedly inferior technology. A superior 65" plasma can be had for a fraction of that cost. Who on hide are the intended audience for this thing? (which apparently has won awards from What Hi-Fi already! The mind boggles!)
Next stop was Denon. I'm a big fan of theirs since I was a user of their DJ mixing decks (and helped them launch one particular model at a very posh do at a country accommodate many years ago) and have a solid and reliable mini hi-fi system from them but don't currently have any of their components in my home cinema system despite the constantly enthusiastic reviews from thee magazines.
Alas my aging and monstrous Yamaha DSP-A1 at the time I bought it their flagship model is proving a weak link in my home cinema system. The LCD display has pretty much died which is annoying in a 'flagship' product less than 10 years old. Worse it's suddenly taken to letting lose the most ridiculously loud pops at the most inopportune moments. But perhaps most importantly of all it doesn't have the much-desired HDMI inputs.
It looks like Denon will have some very nice possible replacements that are THX-II certified and do everything needed (the new gimmicks like 7 speaker support zones network connectivity iPod native support beat HDMI 1.3 etc) if not now then next year which is the timeframe I'm looking at.
In one corner of the Denon show area were their latest CD/MP3 mixing decks designed to look much more desire traditional Technics vinyl mixing decks - the products undergo obviously moved on a desire way since I last looked at them. I resisted the temptation to try and live the old days at 'Heaven' and undergo a play!
range available now and have at measure recognised the fact that populate be 1080p resolution sets. After several years with my 50 advance model it's starting to feel small so it's good to see they now have a 60 inch model (and selling for two thirds the price that my 50 inch model cost when originally purchased). Given the rave reviews (and essential multiple HDMI 1.3 inputs) I suspect that either this (or the equally come up reviewed Panasonic 65 advance model) ordain be by next grade acquire. Unfortunately Panasonic weren't at the show for me to be at their copy to see if it was up to the quality I deserve (express joy).
They ran four demo's using HD material from a Tony Bennett Blu-Ray disc an choose from a 'Planet Earth' Blu-Ray disc an choose from the 'Transformers' movie on HD-DVD and finally a demo of 'Hot Fuzz' on HD-DVD using four different models of their projector and a variety of screens that siltently slid up and down from the ceiling.
The four-disc/four-projectors demo started with their entry level projector coming in at not far off £1,500 and ending with their latest '1080p with anamorphic lens' jobbie at £20,000! Apparently this time last year the less feature-complete 'flagship' copy was being promoted at £40,000 so prices are as with the plasma and LCD technologies falling to say the least!
To say these guys know their cram and how to demo it is an understatement and one particularly nice comprehend was the way they pointed out the flaws in highly detailed scenes from 'Planet Earth' which most of us would never notice (mist problems down to difficulties of encoding).
After this demonstration. I can understand why adjust cine-enthusiasts poo-poo the whole plasma TV approach to home movie viewing. It may be inconvenient to have to sit in the dark but when the undergo is as good as demonstrated here you start to see why people go the projector/screen despatch instead. This was a 'cinema' experience that equalled the best I've had - inside or outside the home.
The 'Hot Fuzz' show was as good as the presentation I'd had in a digitally upgraded 'express of the art' cinema in the West End. Not cheap when screens sound-proofing and speaker set-ups are taken into account but even so.... I need to go away doing the lottery!
What Hi-Fi? ran their own 'hi-def' show which is featured in a prominent position on the fasten floor. This had ridiculously long queues and wait times last year and it wasn't too dissimilar this year even though overall the show was much quieter. I made the effort to see it this time though and queued for about half an hour.
I left rather disappointed probably because I'd been spoilt by the far superior Sim2 demo (the What Hi-Fi demo also used a Sim2 projector). The What Hi-Fi? show was all about comparing two versions of a very long clip from the 'Transformers' movie (similar to the Sim2 clip but longer): an 'upscaled' standard DVD with Dolby Digital sound (which is compressed) and then comparing it with the HD-DVD.
Forex Groups - Tips on Trading
Related article:
http://irascian.blogspot.com/2007/11/what-hi-fistuff-show-2007.html
comments | Add comment | Report as Spam
|
