Hi-Fi Show Worth Jumping The Ditch For

Melbourne hi-fi show gathers together many of the juiciest examples of audiophile goodness (and it’s a record fair, too)

Is there nothing going on this weekend? Have you considered jumping the ditch for a fun weekend in Melbourne? If so, you could send the family off shopping while you enjoy the Aladdin’s man-cave type experience of the StereoNET Melbourne Hi-Fi Show.

Not only is this the closest thing we’ve got to our own hi-fi show, but an added incentive for all music lovers is the event it runs in parallel with: a ginormous three-day record fair.

Yes, it is sad that there is no Kiwi hi-fi show, but our market is just too tiny to sustain such a thing. And if it happened in Auckland and you live in Christchurch, then it could be about as expensive to get there (or maybe even more) than getting to Melbourne, with all that wonderful city’s added incentives.

There will be more than a touch of Kiwi about this weekend’s hi-fi show, though. Local brands exhibiting at the show will include Theophany speakers (whose owner and creator, Garth Murray, will be on hand to answer questions), Antipodes Audio (with their world-famous music servers) and Napier-based importer/distributor Critical Sound.

Billed as ‘Australia’s greatest exhibition of hi-fi, home cinema, headphones and home entertainment’, the Melbourne Hi-Fi Show features over 100 brands from the rarefied and super-premium audiophile category through to entry-level/affordable set-ups. Not only will experts be there to answer your questions but also visitors will be able to audition the equipment in the various rooms and sound suites.

Red-hot brands at the show will include Bluesound, Bowers & Wilkins, Cambridge Audio, Dali, Golden Ear, JBL, Krell, Linn, Mark Levinson, McIntosh, PrimaLuna, Sonus Faber, and MoFi (Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab), many of which will have show specials and be demonstrating never-heard-before gear.