AV Magazines

We paid a flying visit to the Home Entertainment Show at Manchester's Renaissance Hotel at the weekend. A modestly sized show compared to Bristol, it featured 40 exhibitors over two days, including many who were noticeable by their absence at the recent Heathrow Show. There wasn't much in the way of high-end tweakery and this was very much a down-to-earth show with real-world prices, and quite a few models being shown in the UK for the first time.

KEF iQ series
KEF showed off its latest midrange speaker series for the first time in the UK, with pride of place going to the iQ50 (£500) and iQ70 (£700). The internal geometry has been improved over their predecessors (the iQ5SE and iQ7SE), and they've added a plinth. These are the middle models - there's also the iQ90 which adds another 165mm bass driver, plus iQ30 and iQ10 bookshelf speakers and the iQ60c centre channel.

KEF_C5_C7_sm
The entry level C series was also getting some attention with its distinctive front ports and features the C1 bookshelf (£140), C3 bookshelf (£180), and pictured, the C5 standmount (£400) and C7 standmount (£480).

KEF iQ 'tangerine' waveguide
KEF has added an improvement to its Uni-Q speakers. The tweeter in the middle now features a shaped metal covering that is designed to offer a wider high frequency spread. They've nicknamed it the 'tangerine' but it looks more like a Terry's All Gold to us.

Pioneer KRP-600A plasma
There are two sizes of this new plasma with separate media receiver - this 60in one for £4,500 and the only slightly smaller 50in KRP-500A. Previous models included a built-in room sensor to help with calibration, but these now include a separate sensor which connects magnetically to any part of the TV.

The Media Receiver connects with a single cable to cut down on clutter and includes among its connections one for satellite, though it doesn't support Freesat. The rumour was that Pioneer is looking unlikely to support Freesat and would be more likely to support Freeview HD after it launches next year.

Pioneer BDP-LX91
Pioneer's new Reference BD-Live-ready Blu-ray player was available to see though it wasn't playing live, since it's still apparently going through its final testing process at London's Air Studios. Pioneer clearly intends it to be the last word in Blu-ray disc spinning and it will have all of Pioneer's most up-the-minute Blu-ray technology including new 16-bit video engine, I/P conversion, video adjustments and scaling, with a dedicated audio power supply and 8x Wolfson DACs. It should be on sale next month for £1,600.