CEDIA 2008 Denver – Show Report Preview

We received our CEDIA 2008 Expo Show Magazine last week. There is one of these for each day of the show – and there are often lots of stories about high-end audio.

I thought I’d show you all a few of them – and why we actually go and take photos at these shows [and also because they are in Denver – a hop skip and jump away].


The main convention floor. Yeah, it is about … 1/6? the size of CES. But,that IS STILL darn big.


Mark Levinson is still alive and kicking.


The theme for speakers at the show, last year especially, was speakers that were hidden away. Who wants to see those ugly things anyway? But this company is capitalizing on what WE all know – speakers are often works of art.


Simaudio and home-theater


Cable news. The gossip is that Esoteric is branding AcroLink cable. And hurray for anybody who tries to do away with RCA connectors [and spades, please].


People also write about personnel changes in the industry.


Halcro and Wadia [I know what you are thinking :-)]. Yes, sad to say, McIntosh is about the only tubed gear at this show.


Theta – somehow, though attrition and persistence in large part, they have made it to the top of the heap in surround sound processors [from the perspective of someone who does not cover HT and who will pipe digital through EMM Labs foregoing the fancy shmancy digital babel that is the high-end video world of today].


Parasound…


Paradigm…


Revel is still hanging in there… and in fact coming out with speakers quite frequently these days…. is perhaps not in the avantgarde style and wicked price performance of old.


Anthem…


A music server that looks like a jukebox with a computer screen [GUI] interface to Music Giants catalogs, lossless and uncompressed audio, etc.