Mobile Electronics News Show

Each year the trade has two main events. One is the evening jolly up of the M.E.N. Awards and the other is the Expo. Both are organised by the publishers of the magazine that holds the trade together and I wouldn’t miss either for the world. Their evening do is the best industry social of the year and the Expo is just pure concentrated essence of why we do this stuff. New products, keen businessmen filled with zeal for what they do and the thrusting types who come and check them out. Sounds a bit keen – well even in these tough times and with vastly reduced casual attendance, what shone through was that those who did go to Expo were there for good reason and some real business was done.
 
Midbass in particular were there in force with their whole new-for-2009 exhibition stand with no fewer than four demo cars. I particularly liked their new demo thingy. Shaped like a car cockpit, it has four of the Vibe speaker ranges installed all at once and you switch between them to compare. The seat is a bucket job and behind it, there is a space for a ready made bass box to sit. The idea is you can try many different system options from the brand. It works out as four multiplied by the number of bass boxes in stock at the dealers. Best of all, it doesn’t take up a precious slot of wall space as it is designed to sit in the middle of the shop floor.




The Connects2 guys are really ramping up their game and have decided that the ‘Net and Talk Audio in particular are darn good ways to get their story over. The most amazing thing was the launch of another whole new ice brand: Onyx.

Distributed by Connects2, they also had a fat hand in deciding upon features and design elements for the market they know best – us lot in Blighty. The amplifiers are the Onyx 1.150 and 2.150 and are a monoblock and a stereo item, each with 150w quoted as their motive force per channel. There are twelve  and fifteen inch subs, too. (“Tens are Piffle!”) They feature heavy duty power handling and have their tinsel leads sewn into their spiders to prove it. 360w RMS for the Onyx-12S-7 and 420w RMS for the Onyx-15S-7, which is rated 800w max.
 
The Celsus guys were present and had just taken over the distribution of Stinger wire and accessories in the UK. They had flown a spandy-fresh selection of stuff over from the USA, including Sergio DeOliveira, a high-up in the Aamp of America organisation who are behind this legendary set of kit. I drooled over the THREE over gauge power cable (Which is bizarrely flexible, I figured it’d be a hawser-like rope!) and then nagged poor Sergio half to death. Apparently, he was a bit shell shocked afterwards but somehow I had made a good impression! Expect more of this stuff to be seen in future.

The guys at ProPlus Sound are even more evangelical and delighted to be the UK’s Rockford Fosgate distributors. Once the leading light in the UK as they are legendary in the USA, Rockford Fosgate is the daddy of American Muscle ICE and they make some bonkers kit. Just go Google Steve Meade and see the amp he uses! The UK operation is opening new dealers up and shifting heaps of the kit, as evidenced by the mad wall of bass their chap Richard Page had set up at the show. It was all live and all whumping. Richard was a Rockford fan first at sixteen years old and is now in seventh heaven working with the brand. Anyone who wants advice regarding the stuff is welcome to give him a call on 07534 981 103. They were running said wall at almost no level but it was just like sitting in front of the bass section of a big PA rig at a major rock concert. Awesome, even if it did bass-fatigue some other exhibitors!

The new shop is Elite Ice in Rainham in Essex by the way (Call Danny Gibbons on 01708 55 222 8) fully stocked with entry level equipment from ProPlus and ranging from ‘good’ to ‘insane weapons-grade’ with Rockford Fosgate. Here’s wishing them all success in brave days to be opening up a new business.


Other exhibitors included Alpine, who had their new Fiat 500 Imprint demo car present and Armour who had a Warhorse on the stand. (It’s a 10,000 watt amp for a car)

Grant Hanan was there for top end esoterica brand Audio Wave, with some simply delicious new power accessories, all hand-created of course. See link for more.

Automotive Styling are the guys who landed distribution of the DAS six-tuner, four antenna intelligent mobile DVB tuner box for real TV reception when on the move. It is Italian and looks like an amazing item.

Apart from Alpine, Kenwood were another major Japanese ice brand represented at the show, with their new demo car. Embargoed until after a recent Ultimate Dub show, the video has Mike Edwards, heavy duty honcho at Kenwood, attempting to get in between me and my video camera and the car. But we bring you the spy shots!


It was a quiet show in some ways as far as visitor numbers were concerned but an important one for Talk Audio as well as for those who did go. A hearty salute to the organisers for getting me so very much concentrated homework in one place. I could have spent days but had to cram it into one.
If there are any gaps in coverage it is entirely my fault for nagging too long with everyone! But if you are trade, these two events are the difference between a backwater business and actually knowing what big t’ing a g’wan.
Here’s to the next one… All pictures by Neil Hunt