Northern AV show

I attended the first-ever Northern Audio-Visual Penang show at the Ascott Gurney last Saturday and loved it. It was time that some focus fell on Penang after years of concentration on Kuala Lumpur as the venue for similar audio-visual shows. Although the scale of the show here was much smaller than Kuala Lumpur's, it still took  me about two hours to pass through every exhibitor.

The AV show occupied three floors of the hotel. On the 22nd floor, several of the rooms were taken up by the exhibitors who showed off their audio-visual equipment. However, I found my attention span lacking as I itched to go down to the seventh floor. Here too, I was interested in the two exhibitions here and after poking my head through the door, decided to make a quick exit to the second floor.

I found the exhibition here to be much warmer, the people manning the exhibitions much friendlier and effusive. CMY was there, Penang Hifi Choice was there, and an exhibitor for Triangle speakers - and incidentally, that's what I'm using now, a set of Triangle desktop speakers - was there, together with some others promoting their high-end equipment.

Then there was Wildflowers Records, possibly the only outlet of note in Penang that sells first-hand (that is, new) and second-hand (that is, used) vinyl records. Their regular outlet is on the third floor of the KOMTAR podium block but for these two days, Wildflowers have made their presence felt at the AV Show.

The moment I emerged from the lift, I was immediately seen by Joey Tan, Wildflowers' owner, who pulled me to his section on the second floor lobby. There were already quite a crowd going through the record shelves. With vinyl records making a small comeback worldwide, I think there are still quite a number of people into this medium locally. The only problem is that they do not know where to go for records. I can think of two or three places that still sell second-hand records but Wallflowers also sell reprints on at least 180g vinyl.

I retreated into the three seminar rooms on this level. I was struck upon entering the first one. Good, clear music was emerging from one of the listening areas. I retreated to the back in order to appreciate it and was surprised that the source was a box streaming digitised music. Called the AA Music Streamer, the equipment is made in Penang by AA Audio. Cost of the set-up? A cool RM15,000 RM25,000, I believe. I think that was the price tag I saw. (Note: Thank you, Anwar Ali, for the clarification!)

I made my way to the second seminar room. This one was occupied by Penang Hifi Choice. This company has been around for a very long time. At least 25 years. And their outlet is at the Midland One-Stop Centre. Here, they have shipped some of their high-end equipment just for the AV show. I settled down into one of the seats. 

Someone put on a Muddy Waters compact disc and when the drummer, Clifton James, started hitting the skins on the song You Gonna Need My Help, it felt like my ear had received a sonic punch. Muddy Waters' wailing came across loud, clear and forceful. Truly an experience!

Oh yah! I met someone else whom I've not seen for more than 20 years. From afar, I thought that it was him in deep discussion with another person. And I turned out right, Harish Chandra. He used to work at Digital Audio Centre* in the 1980s and 1990s, a small but well-known music shop in a somewhat dilapidated bungalow off Northam Road which has since been torn down. The bungalow had a seafront and was accessible through a short gravel path from the main road and I used to spend hours browsing through the compact discs sold by this Digital Audio Centre. The music shop was also like a library and one could rent compact discs from them. But like most music outlets, challenging times were ahead and one by one they sadly folded.

Hefty price tags for these two Made In China equipment

And in the third seminar room, I too took one of the seats in front of the Hi-fi system. Here, I caught only the last minute or so of a Tchaikovsky opera that was being played through the system. Mazepa, I think it was. I sat down not because of the music though, but because the design of the speaker boxes had greatly intrigued me. And after this last experience, I decided to make my move from the Ascott Gurney. Unfortunately, I had other plans for the rest of the day. Anyway, I hope the AV show will return to Penang again in the future.

* On the note of music shops selling compact discs in the 1980s and 1990s, apart from Digital Audio Centre, there were several music outlets at KOMTAR Phase I. But outside of this place, there was one other prominent shop that I can recall in Penang. Disc N Dat, run by a chap called Ivan, among a row of shophouses in front of the Desa Tanjong condominium in Tanjong Tokong. This music outlet also had a very good collection of music not readily available anywhere else. The owner tried diversifying into laser discs but this shop too closed down in the early 2000s, I believe.