KL International AV Show 2018

This is a yearly event which I was always keen to attend. Not much of an audiophile nowadays but I like good recording. The current hifi setup I had was bought after attending one of this event a couple of years back and it was a good event to see new gears and just have a good look.

This year's venue was a departure from the last one. It was held at Sunway Putra Hotel, right next door to the old The Mall opposite PWTC.

I'm legit!The venue was smaller than before - JW Marriott at Bukit Bintang. But the concept were the same. Using hotel rooms emulate our living room to a certain extand, which gave better acoustics rather than open spaces. But walking through hotel corridors did pose some unique problem. The traffic flow around the venue as well as queue for the lifts proved testing.

So, did I hear any good stuffs? I sure did.

This must have been the most expensive kit on display Some of the gears were deduct loudly expensive and relatively unknown. The rigs were too big and difficult to maintain. I wanted a streaming system which is more practical and would fit both my budget and space.

The one which caught my eyes were the system from Linn. Not an all in one like my Naim set, but sounded excellent. The units were not yet available in Malaysia though. The unit on show were from Singapore although I was welcome to order.

There were some good clearance deals as well as it was the last few hours of exhibition. And I was guilty of picking up a Bluetooth amplifier. I have yet to get a speaker for it at the minute but the deal was just too good to ignore.

Now to the poor man's area ...Headphones were also seemed to be making a comeback ...There were units going in excess of RM100k with great sound. But it would depend on the source. Just a plain CD would not be enough to explore the real quality of the system. Most of the units either use a specialized streaming unit or turntable. Not practical really for casual users like myself.

I may have a closer look at the Linn system once a local unit is available. The sound were good enough for me ...