Neli represented Audio Federation at this years’ AudioFest down in Dallas, Texas.

She brought the small Audio Note system, this year focusing on affordability and portability. To that end she just took the CD player, the OTO integrated amplifier and a pair of speakers. Oh and some Sogon cables

Instead of the Acoustic Dreams equipment rack we decided to try using 3 HRS M3 Isolation Bases instead and put the equipment on the bases on the furniture that would be available. Unfortunately, the furniture selection was not overwhelming.

This year there were 9 exhibitors - about half of last year, and 30 - 40 people came to the room.

Here are some photos:

OK, obviously I did not go. Otherwise there’d be , even with only 9 rooms, what? about 900 photos, right? We’d find out EVERYTHING there is to know about that hotel (cleaner than the Alexis Park, anyway) and those exhibitors. Aren’t we all of us lucky….

At least the people that did go got to spend quality time with some nice people.

The rumor is that show attendance was down from about 11,000 to 8,000 and the number of rooms down 20% year over year.

Considering that the Canada economy is doing well (oil, the Olympics, their dollar vis-a-vis what is left of ours) one can only think that it is those of us from the lower 50 states that decided to stay home this year.

It also augers perhaps a lean year at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest this fall.

As almost everyone now knows, the Kharmas did not get put out of action by a static electricity discharge as Stereophile reported, but were instead rendered inoperable by user piloting error [hmmmm.. so sound? Turn up the volume all the way. Still no sound? Oh, forgot to press play. Blam! Oh, hmmm… no sound]. No, I’m not saying who it was - but it wasn’t us, thankfully.

Other than that, nothing much to report from afar.

Checking out the reports….

Cruising AudioXSell, it looks like Lamm brought their $139K ML3 amplifiers to the show. Looks like the Lohengren or Sarastro speakers. I guess this means we can show the Marten Coltrane Supremes one of these years without shocking the Canadians.

It also looks like Tenor is showing with Avalon Eidolon or Eidolon-ish speakers. So Kharma doesn’t appear to be there.

Audio Note isn’t there either - because none of us really got it together for this show on time. Officially, Audio Federation does not handle Canada - but we thought about doing the show anyway. The Montreal Show is a lot of fun

EnjoyTheMusic has their report. Positive Feedback, SonicFlare all look like they will not cover the show. Nothing in the discussions (kind of a blessing) on Audio Asylum or Audiogon. Nothing on Audio Circle. No wonder people like our show reports.

6moons has posted A Report. For some reason they covered many of which are traditionally the worst sounding rooms. Go figure.

Thanks to everybody (especially Robert Gaboury) for pointing me to the following reports:

Stereophile Montreal FSI Show Report [Why I didn’t think of this since this is ‘their’ show, I just couldn’t tell you. Neli, however, can go on at extreme length about my periodic lapses of common sense - and does. Frequently ]

UHF Magazine Montreal FSI Show Report. UHF is a Canadian print magazine so it makes sense that they should have great coverage.

Magazine Audio’s FSI page but I did not find any actual coverage there yet.

We will add more links to show reports as we (and you) find them.

[The following is their press release. I was of the opinion that RMAF was the ‘largest consumer electronics show open to public in North America’, but FSI is certainly up there. Maybe the U.S. has succeeded from North America and nobody told any of us. Wouldn’t surprise me these days.

And it looks like Stereophile finally found their show away from their show to sponsor.

It sucks that we are missing it. Why are we missing this again, Neli?]

Subject: Opening of Festival Son & Image 2008 Thursday April 3

The Festival Son & Image (FSI), the largest consumer electronics show open to public in North America, will be launched tomorrow, Thursday April 3, 2008, at the Sheraton Centre Montréal, located at 1201 René‑Lévesque Boulevard West. This first day is exclusively for industry professionals and the press, who, of course, are all welcome throughout the weekend.

The FSI, which has a new partner in the prestigious audio magazine Stereophile, will go on for the following three days, that is Friday, Saturday, and Sunday April 4, 5, and 6. Visitors from the general public will have the opportunity to discover all the newest in high-end audio and home theater on the 11 floors of the show, where some 120 brands are represented.

This is an event not to be missed for quality audio-video and new technologies enthusiasts and specialists alike.

A lot of unrated bits and pieces.

Apparently Hi-Fi+

was in dire straits when it was purchased.

Besides that nugget, 98% of what goes on Audio Asylum is bickering. So, yeah, nothing new there.

Mike (me) is miffed

that 1/2 of the hallway A on the 29th floor of the large photos section of the CES report was missing the photos and commentary and no one (NO ONE) told him (me).

I have been listening

to a hip-hop radio station and it is great. Well, except for the repeating of about 10 songs over and over (not kidding) and the SHOUTING at me between songs to buy stuff, or, as often as not, telling me HOW GREAT they are that they are not running a commercial that particular moment.

But they play the Hip Hop’s that is a blend of techno (electronics), disco (it has a beat), rap (one can understand the words and they use a lot of slang) and soul (it is not angry like rap, instead it is more like love songs and good times). Anyway, sometimes it is nice for a pick-me-up, and then switching to the classical station at the first commercial to balance out the hormones and minimize the speeding ticket income of the local police.

Let’s see.

The Kegon Balanced

amps kick butt. They control the Kharmas like nothing else I have heard. I just sit there and listen to them and it is so fun, switching between the glory of the harmonic structure and the beauty of the music and the impressiveness of he control.

Solid state amps on the Kharmas, and probably on everything, can be likened to SHOUTING [I know, twice in one post with the all caps shouting. What is with that?] when they get loud. The drive the speaker by punishing it. By throwing watts at it. But a great tube amp drives it by controlling it with an iron fist.

I am not saying that solidstate amps don;t have their place. Sometimes we want to punish the senses, to push them aggressively. After work, sometimes we might want to let off some steam, or to get a little rowdy.

Kind of like a couple of shots of tequila versus a glass of fine wine. I’ve enjoyed both [and now enjoy neither] and it is great that music, and our systems, can be tailored to suit our every mood and desire…

Danny Kaey reviews

the Audi car stereo over on sonicflare. This is probably a step above the one in my Audi S8, even though I had it replaced about 6 months ago [a pushbutton on the dash had fallen off, so they replaced the whole unit. Ah, German engineering. You have to love it. You have to wonder why.]. As I get older [yes, it happens here at Audio Federation too, darn it] I wouldn’t mind taking a look at that A8 V12. But just a look, mind you. A good… long…. look.

Oh, the stereo is decent. It is well-balanced, top to bottom for what it has to work with. A little tipped up [or more like pumped up, the port frequency of the door?] in the bass to counter the bass of the wheels on the road. I don’t listen to XM or Sirius - which needs like a tube radio or something to be moire than just bearable, it is so bright and neutral sounding [aka DIGITAL]. The stereo, for me, is better than the ones in the less expensive Audis and was way better than the Levinson in the Lexus, the Levinson being worse than the cheaper Bose in the Lexus. So, the Audi Bose system is nice, but no great shakes… it is not audiophile, IMHO.

Looking at the the rooms that sounded good at this years 2008 CES show, one might wonder, if one has the time to wonder about things, if there are any commonalities between the rooms that sounded musical [by which we mean a system that is engaging and has an audiophile performance commensurate with the price].

But, looking at the rooms…

We CAN say that a lot of old wives tales [just who WERE those old wives, anyway?] and rules of thumb are not really rules that people should be paying a whole lot of attention to.

For example:

* Always use small speakers in a small room, and big speakers in a big room.

But the huge Evolution Acoustics speakers sounded just fine thank you in a tiny room, and the Classic Audio Productions horn speakers sounded darn good in the Atma-sphere room, and similarly the Hansens [though this year they did bring a somewhat smaller speaker]. Now, mind you, they didn’t try and turn the systems all The WAy UP - not while I was there - and I am sure they could overload the room just fine. But that capability can also be a real plus when you think about certain genres of music that can use a little volume. On the other hand, the Cessaro speakers in the Zanden room did feel a little too large - that the room was impacting too much on the music.

It seems much more true that small speakers in a large room do not fill the room satisfactorily - though the little Magicos can do well [you just need to drive the poop out of them] and many small speakers in the best of show rooms filled their side of the room quite nicely indeed.

OK, what other rules can we throw away

* It costs a lot of money to make a great sounding system

This one is easy. It takes a lot of money to make a great PERFORMING system, one that is at the leading edge of humanity’s ability to reproduce music, one that has all of the audiophile attributes associated with the ‘high-end’. But if someone just wants to enjoy listening to music on a system that sounds good - that is not embarrassingly offensive - that was not built by people just trying to put out product without any thought to the performance that CAN be achieved at their asking price - then this is possible at all price points.

————————————-

And then there are rules that do seem to always apply [it is so like life to have some rules that work and some that are more flaky].

* Its hard to make a system sound good when the source equipment is severely compromised with respect to the rest of the equipment.

Many rooms had problems associated with source equipment that was almost an insult to the listeners - almost a ‘no one cares about how it is going to sound’ attitude. They used everything from DVD players to CD carousel players to iPods to laptops with cheap soundcards. EEEEwwwwww!!! They sounded… how shall we put it…. severely compromised.

This rule really is: Source components won’t Make a system, but they Can break it.

* Things like cables, equipment racks, power cords, etc. rarely make or break a system.

These are really ways to refine a system and get the most out of it as one can. But at a show - this level of attention to detail is appreciated, but systems can sound good at shows with cables and racks that we would not be caught dead using here.

* It is the amp / speaker combo that determines in large part what the system will sound like. This is what Makes a system.

If this ain’t right - well, might as well go home. Luckily a lot of combinations do work.

Sure would be nice though for some exhibitors to realize that their combo does Not work and try something different one of these years.

—————————–

Shows are one great laboratory where one has a lot of experiments running at once - about 233+ of them.

OK, I’ll add to this list if we come up with some more lessons learned. A lot of the lessons have to do with training the ear - learning how things sound… low efficiency speakers, different kinds of solid-state amps, different kinds of speaker cabinets, different kinds of cables and… on and on.

The thing, for me, at this years show was being able to tell if the exhibitors paid attention to the details of system configuration. No, I probably couldn’t do this blind, but with the help of looking at a system, I think I can now hear how there are fewer problems in some systems, that they played with things enough, optimized things to a point where a lot of the things wrong with other people’s systems - things that one just accepts at a show like room problems, vibration-induced congestion, etc. were reduced quite a bit if the exhibitors spent some time on system setup.

Again, this didn’t Make or Break the system, perhaps, not going to turn a sleeper system into a Standout, but it did make the systems more enjoyable - and more likely to get on the Best of Show list when perhaps otherwise they would otherwise just be mediocre and kind of annoying.

One of the questions we get asked a lot by people is “Did we hear anything great” that they should know about… that might affect their purchase plans over the next few system upgrades.

Thinking back to other shows, we, like most audiophiles we talk to, only find a couple or three things we think change the high-end landscape at each show.

On the plus side we have

Amps:

the $139K Lamm ML3 and the $85K Audio Note U.K. Kegon Balanced. There are now two more ultra-fidelity amps added to what is still only a handful of ultra-fidelity tube amps.

Since these two brands, which we happily carry and use on a day to day basis in multiple systems [:-)], already had most if not all of the amps in this category to start with [Kondo is great, but their purpose is very different, and somewhat inaccessible to the American taste] - they have just solidified their reputation even more.

And, with the proliferation of so many newcomers, with amps from $30K to the sky, having brands with a reputation for building world-renowned amps for more than a few months should appeal the the buyer who wants to get their monies worth.

What does this mean for people with, uh, restraint? While the Kegon Balanced is like a 300B Gaku-On [the Gaku-On uses 211 tubes], Audio Note does use lots of the same technology in their new P4 Balanced [which is MUCH less expensive - the exact price of which is waiting on us to finish staring in horror at the British pound / U.S. dollar charts].

It is very unlikely that Lamm will come out with a ML2Prime or something between the ML2.1 and ML3 [unless everybody clamors for it - and even then, likely not] but the ML3 does increase the worthiness and renown of the brand [not that they needed it - so this is not major].

Speakers

Let’s just go through them quickly and see which ones merit further discussion vis-a-vis people changing their buying decisions [as opposed to being pleasantly surprised that their previous choice is now sounding better than ever]. The $45K or so Audio Note AN/E SEC Signature now with high-efficiency hemp driver and high-resolution AlNiCo tweeter, The $16?K Classic Audio Reproductions with Field Coil midrange, … well, then we have the usual suspects: Hansen, EPOS, Audio Machina, Sunny Cable.

But new this year we have the Cessaro in the Zanden room [first time at a U.S. show], and new Kharma, Marten, Acoustic Zen speakers [are they trying to drive us nuts?]

For Kharma the new 3.2.2 [introduced at RMAF] and the new Galileo Exquisite [maybe I now will learn how to spell Galileo] make those who had the decision to make between going with the smaller 3.2 and the larger Midi Exquisite much more difficult - which these two speakers filling in that gap. For prospective Marten purchases - the new Form series competes with their Miles III [choose Form’s if you prefer lively and forgiving over accuracy and transparency, is the way I look at it]. And Acoustic Zen, with their new six foot tall statement speakers [I think these are still in prototype - but they sound ready to me and they are full range and somewhat forgiving].

The Cessaro - it is so much easier to talk about things we don’t sell, mostly because I want to be completely accurate about the pluses and minuses about the things we DO sell, and the things we don’t… well, I can just give kind of a general recommendation - that it ‘looks good’ at first blush [or second or whatever]. So, uh, yeah, the Cessaro horn speakers sounded good within the constraints of a room that had giant speakers and no room treatment. The highs were pure, the midrange was decent and the bass was attached and not under- or overwhelming - very much that ‘big horn sound’ done correctly, to my way of thinking, so that it sounds like the music other speakers make, just bigger and more relaxed and more dynamic. To be explicit: these sounded a lot like Acapella speakers - the sound quality [and appearance ] of this particular pair roughly falling between their Campanile and Triolon models. I say roughly because I only heard a few songs here - it was just a first blush.

Cables?

We are still staggering under the blow that the Nordost ODIN has delivered to our expectations of what cables can do. Specifically the interconnects. They rock.

Turntables?

Well, besides the Audio Note TT3 Reference [which we will post LOTS about over time here], the other tables I did not hear - and many I did not see. The big Transroter - seen and not heard. The, geez I do not know their names off the top of my head - the table in the Sanders room and the one on the 7th floor of the Venetian with a granite platter - I did not even see, much less hear [so the names won’t do me any good anyway].

On the minus side, we have

1. the commoditization of what was the hallowed [by some, admit it] Continuum turntable. Being heard, as it was, in so many systems, and many that were not WOW systems, the hype bubble surrounding the Continuum has leaked a little of that hot air.

2. the proliferation of new expensive amps and speakers from companies, new and old, that have never built one of these things before - and whose core competency, whether it be cables or whatever, is being neglected with respect to advances that one might imagine [or not] they could be making instead.

What does this mean? More choices and more confusion for the consumer. The beginning of the end of a number of companies [well, it does portend big problems in other industries, anyway, usually to do with money squandered and focused competition grabbing market share].

3. The [growing?] disrespect some exhibitors have for the sound. Maybe it is just more obvious now. But with iPods and sound cards and laptops and cobbled together media servers going into so-so DACs - many exhibitors just did not care if the megabuck things they were supposedly trying to get dealers to sell sounded good or not.

4. In a similar vein - the media server craze. The number of media servers in the prototype stage at CES was amazing.

In the early days of the PC, say 83 to 95, it was obvious that the PC would kill workstations. So some people used the PC [DOS and Windows] to do their work for all those years, even though it was inferior [and still is to some degree]. People may not remember, but there was a Win286, Win386, Windows 3.0, 3.1 and finally 95 that almost really worked for the first time. I know because I was one of those people and I own all of these.

Again, we have high-end audio companies spending their research dollar on this stuff - instead of better sound - when at the end of the day, Amazon, for example, can just keep your music server on the net for you, never any risk of hard disk failure, available at your friends house, in your car, on your cell phone, wherever - and you just have to click on ‘buy’ to have any track or CD added to your server instantly. All these hardwired incompatible GUIs, having to manage a physical CD or inferior MP3, worrying about format changes as they improve download speeds and the MP3 format… it will all be done for us. But hey, maybe one of these companies will beat Amazon and Microsoft and Apple - I certainly would be over-joyed to see it. But…

Hope all this was more or less in English - cause I need to boogie. I’ll re-read it later. Or get Neli to do it

[Oh, but I should add photos too…]

As you may have noticed…. Visually, the Venetian is very different than the St. Tropez and Alexis Park.

The rooms at the Venetian, especially some of those up on 35, are exquisite. Well appointed, well decorated, clean - suitable for entertaining just about anybody you can imagine: rich folk, Hollywood actors and actresses, sports stars, even the handful of politicians you think you might be able to stand a few minutes alone with. Not quite what you think of when you think of your average audiophile.

The rooms at the Alexis Park, and more so the St. Tropez, are old, dilapidated, scungy, skanky, horribly decorated with stiff soiled curtains that conflict garishly with the patched, blackened carpet, and kind of smelly to boot - suitable for entertaining, well, nobody. Not quite what you think of when you think of your average audiophile either.

The equipment in the photos at the Venetian are gorgeous, more so that THE Show. At T.H.E. Show did my best to crop out the icky curtains and stains in the carpet, whereas at the Venetian I felt free to include some of the yellows and reds of the backgrounds, and the golds of the lamps, it added color and context for the equipment.

I do not believe that the equipment is all that much lovelier at the Venetian than at the St. Tropez and Alexis Park.

At the Venetian, the exhibitors setup their equipment in this luxurious environment. They look around at the fine furniture and the view and the elegance - and they dust off their equipment a little bit, make sure it is all aligned in an attractive manner. Maybe ask someone for an extra rack or go get some plants to spruce it up a little.

At the T.H.E. Show, people kind of shove some of the mismatched furniture down to one side of the room and plop some equipment on it, or on the floor. Wires go everywhere. Components are kind of dusty and fingerprinted from the last 3 shows, but, heck, they are still cleaner than the room.

So I think this helps explain the difference in the attractiveness of the components in the photos.

But given all this, I think it is universally acknowledged that it was more fun to attend T.H.E. Show than the Venetian. It was more of a personal experience. More of an audiophile experience.

Why?

Is it because:

A. the business business business attitude of the rest of CES [some of which is right downstairs]?

B. the Venetian has a casino downstairs? [I personally think not. The casino is like a whole other world, man. More Ferengi than Humon]

C. the traffic was lower at the T.H.E. Show? So people got individual attention and the exhibitors didn’t get overwhelmed and treat people like moving bowling pins [but still sufficient that it kept most exhibitors busy all day]?

D. the quality of the traffic, that only true believers made the effort to make it to THE Show?

E. the beauty [and perhaps the sterility] of the Venetian distracted people from the equipment? [I think not, THE Show could use a little of that sterility, let me tell you. And if the grunge did not detract from the enjoyment, why would cleanliness detract?].

F. None of the above

G. All of the above

H. I have no idea.

I. I hate tests… Cut it out!

At this point, we are returning to the Alexis Park. It worked well for us. We talk about getting one big room instead of two small ones, different rooms, blah blah blah. Point is, we’ll be back. At least for next year, anyway. The Alexis Park is in somewhat better shape than the St. Tropez, and, at the end of the day, it is all about connecting with other people.

And maybe I should … borrow … a couple or three of furnishings from the Venetian and use it, going room to room, to throw behind each system at THE Show as it is photographed.

Oh, and carry a duster with me. We use the ones they sell for automotive use. Picks up the dust instead of pushing it down the ventilation holes of the equipment.

And, uh, then make sure we use it in our rooms each morning…

Is now, more or less, complete.

Less because we want to add an index to the report(s) …someday.

More because that day is not today, and it is not tomorrow.

So, then this is it, in two resolutions: Medium, suitable for lower resolution monitors and most laptops; and High, what the report was designed for .

2800 photos, of 180 rooms at the Venetian and 52 rooms at T.H.E. Show.

CES 2008 High-end Audio Show Report

We’ll be posting more about what was heard at the show on the Blog here, specifically the rooms in the Most Loved list.

For many rooms, I have been using a ‘tag cloud’ like this to represent the type of sound the room is going for:

This has proven to be a very interesting exercise.

Some rooms, it is obvious what they are going for.

Some, many, it can be really hard to tell. Get some kind of sound out for the show, anything!, probably. So, in all likelihood , Workhorse.

Some are very flexible, and it is hard to pin down exactly what these rooms, this year, are going for.

One of the main goals of this categorization system has been to help people clarify what they are talking about. You see people say ‘The MBL room was best!” [Not the first day it wern’t] and another say “The EPOS room was best” [whatever ‘best’ means - which really means they liked it for some reasons often unbeknowst to us and themselves… but we digress].

But these two systems have completely different goals [ignoring the cost differential] - one is purely Impressive - Bass and Room Pressurization and that is it. The other serves to be Enjoyable for playing back your average piece of music.

So *our* readers can read these posts, and, assuming that the posters were trustworthy AND have ears, know that among Impressive systems [and among people who like Impressive systems - but this is a a little shakier interpretation], the MBL system was approved of. And among those who are looking for an [Economical] Enjoyable system, the EPOS system was approved of.

I think, that until we can get people to understand and reveal their sound style preferences, this is the best we are going to be able to do [and we can’t even get the ‘professional’ reviewers to do this yet].

Another goal of including these tag cloud is to help people understand the systems from afar. Another is to help people who heard the rooms think about what they heard with respect to what the goals of the system were. Another is to categorize the show in some way… did you notice that many Impressive systems were in the larger rooms [smart] but not all [cheapskates ].

[More later…]