Took about 4400 photos it looks like. 8 DVDs full. All 3 shows, or 4 locations depending on how you look at it.

Will try and get some photos and commentary each day as we spend tonight and tomorrow packing and Saturday driving back.

Oh, and sleep.

It was a upbeat show - but nothing too spectacular. Well, the Lamm ML3 but that was on the Wilson MAXX II which requires some listening around - and besides, it will take years to get the full measure of these amps - which doesn’t mean we didn’t hear things that shed light on how music can and should be reproduced.

Funny, show-to-show, some years are very different, and some are very similar.

Some rooms NEVER change, and some are always experimenting.

Some have new stuff to show, and others just want to reiterate that their stuff still passes muster.

At the main conference at LVCC, things look very much the same. They all seem to be broadening out their product offerings, as opposed to being the ‘best ever for a day’. How many 103″, 105″, 108″ announcements does it take until people grow bored. We are up to 150″… How about wall-sized LCD high-res monitors that do not give off much heat and cost about 2 grand?

But to stop digressing… there were a number of ‘retro’ offerings at the show… olde-looking radios and turntables. Can’t be long until the consumer starts looking to get something real… hopefully.

At the high-end audio part of the show, well, I’ve more to see, but like the main show, it seems like one of evolution, not revolution, of companies broadening their offerings. Cable companies adding turntables, turntable companies offering solutions for different arms, etc.

Face it, just about every company on earth now offers an iPod docking solution. That market is what they call saturated. And even more are offering media server solutions - though some are calling it media distribution solutions, blah blah blah. Where you store the media, who has the licenses, how you get it in the system, how you get it to the speakers, what GUI the user uses to access the media [what people really care about, oh, and price/performance], all these details vary slightly from product to product to product…

For example, the number of turntables being used this year seems WAY, WAY down to me. [Is it just our culture that lets teen-somethings set our media and entertainment priorities?] Anyway, the rooms with turntables care about the sound and the music, the ones without care about establishing a beachhead in the new ipodish-marketplace. No good or bad here, just a real bifurcation of rooms at the show, it seems to me.

Oh, and then there are the confused who don’t know what they are doing or why - who ironically are hardly any worse off because of it, since there is a lot of prognostication (guessing) without any real sense of just what IS the best way to stay alive.

Sounds… fuller sounding… to have two speakers being driven. [Thanks to Neli and our kind benefactor in Florida]

Now to play some test CDs, but this system sounds quite excellent to our ears. [i.e. come see for yourself if you got the time].

Next stop for me is to register at CES 2008 at the Las Vegas Convention Center (which they call badge-holder pickup). Then take some photos of the main convention, then over tot the Venetian, then back to the St. Tropez and Alexis Park here at T.H.E. Show.

Fun!

Pre-show photography, such as it was getting our own room ready for the tomorrow morning, which is today already.

An idylic setting

Software venders are still setting up their LPs, CDs, and DVDs and whatnots.

More photos for day one’s preview at the Show Report Dailies

Enjoy!

Should have a good tube here before the show and low and behold we’ll be back in the stereo world.

Listening to Sun Ra….

Subsequently to the photo the two box M9 phono preamp replaces the M1 (yes, Jim, YOUR old M1 - did a great job ) and a DAC5 Signature replaced our DAC4 4.1x Balanced.

I think Neli is going to enjoy this room too, way too, much….

Esoteric goes for world domination:

1/6/2008 ESOTERIC(R) INTRODUCES NEW “X” SERIES PLAYER FOR CD/SACD

1/6/2008 ESOTERIC(R) INTRODUCES HYBRID TRIOIDE TUBE AMPLIFER MODEL A-100

1/6/2008 ESOTERIC(R) INTRODUCES FIRST PREAMPLIFIER MODEL C-03

1/6/2008 ESOTERIC(R) SHIPS 2 NEW MASTER CLOCK SIGNAL GENERATORS FOR AUDIO VIDEO APPLICATIONS

1/6/2008 ESOTERIC(R) P-03/D-03 SELECTED AS EXCLUSIVE SOURCE COMPONENT FOR KEF MUON USA INTRODUCTION

1/6/2008 ESOTERIC(R) LOUDSPEAKERS NAMED INNOVATIONS 2008 HONOREE BY CONSUMER ELECTRONICS ASSOCIATION

1/6/2008 ESOTERIC(R) INTRODUCES RE-MASTER OF BEETHOVEN OVERATURES CONDUCTED BY SIR COLIN DAVIS

1/6/2008 ESOTERIC(R) INTRODUCES HI-END WIRE AND CABLE LINE AT CES 2008

ARC searches for lowest common [workable] denominator

1/6/2008 ACOUSTIC RESEARCH WIRELESS HOME THEATER SOLUTIONS PROVIDE TRUE “CD” QUALITY SOUND

Another year another “yeah, it’d be nice”

Logitech Transforms PC Audio into High-Performance Theater Sound

and…

The Doctor and the DJ Convene between the Sheets: World’s Smartest Bed Alleviates Snoring, Monitors Body Movements and Rocks the Bedroom

Yesterday was 71 degrees for a few minutes as we picked up several loads of big heavy goodies from the shipper. Ah, shirt sleeves….

Well, here we are in the rather empty (deserted!) Alexis Park. Actually, many hotels are empty here, these few days before the Deluge of CES attendees flocking in like banshees out of Circuit City.

The small Audio Note room is more or less setup and warming up…

The large room, well…. its mostly up and warming…

Setting up the rack, uncrating the platforms, tracking down a RCA to XLR adapter (guitar center) for the M1 which, until the M9 gets here, is our preamp without balanced outputs.

Here are our new AN/E SEC Signature loudspeakers in Madrone. yummy.

High Efficiency. Yummy.

The Balanced Kegons… in a different chassis from the traditional Kegons.

VERY nice looking on the inside…

Except one channel has a Baaaaaad tube. BAD tube. No worky.

With only one channel, we break in one speaker and amp for awhile, then the other… but we should have both channels going sometime. We hope. As soon as we find a GOOD tube.

Sounds pretty farking good with just one channel …. Hee Hee Hee. Killer speaker control and delicacy of decay….

… and that is with one channel, the M1 instead of the M9 which is arriving tomorrow, and with speakers that are brand new. [Yeah, we can both easily hear ‘past’ problems that we know are caused by situational difficulties like lack of break in, room anomalies, etc - so it will be interesting to hear what other people think…. ]

So now, to track down a 10Y (VT-25) tube…..

… Well, you will have to wait until AFTER the show starts.

Sorry.

According to the CES pamphlets this year - this is what the show is all about:

and

Funny how they focus on home audio when it is treated like such a distant cousin to PCs and Cell Phones and Cameras and even Car Audio and, oh yeah, video.

Face it, we lack glamor. Josh over at SonicFlare.com is trying to help, comparing equipment to sports cars.

Let’s see, what can we do?

Neli’s too busy to read this post, so how about:

The Sophia Loren of amplifiers. The Rachel Welch of speakers…?

McIntosh can get Brittney Spears…

No? The approach too libelous?

How about… No, can’t use gemstones: the platinum version of things this day is way too tired of a adjective .. or is it metaphor?

Endorsements would be cool…

These speakers are endorsed by Arnold as true Kick Alien Butt class loudspeakers. Spok says these amps are ‘The logical choice’.

Still gonna get us sued.

Well, we know how motorcycles and alcohol do it. But any nudity in Stereophile seems to bring out the church brigade. [I wonder what percentage of us WANTS high-end audio to stay a niche hobby.?]

One way is obvious, have the print media not dumb down their offerings to the ‘buyer guide for everyman’ state. Such a cop-out. Magazines in Japan have glorious audio porn and present the ultra high-end in a very desirable, Wish You Had These kind of style. You go to the magazine stand in THIS country, and look at the car mags… 1 in 20 is a buyers guide - the rest are high-end specialty car mags. Somebody has a clue over in THAT aisle.

Well, so now you know where we stand, and where this blog stands. And where we are headed.

I know, a lot of posts in a row - but you will be rid of me for a few days… next time you hear from this blog will be from smoky, sexy, crowded Las Vegas!

I now get lots of emails most of which I am not going to share with you [You can thank me later.]…

One email talked about their being 2700 exhibits this year… No. Wait. that is 2700 exhibitors. OK, at an average of, say, 5 exhibitors per exhibit? Is that a good number? … we get 540 exhibits. I expect about 160 - 180 high-end audio rooms [about 60 of which are at T.H.E. Show] so high-end audio is a third of the show [ and T.H.E. Show a 3rd of the high-end audio portion]? Maybe so - looking at how much time it takes me to photograph everything.

Hmmmm… WARNING - there was a lot of Wile Eyed Guessing in that last paragraph

[Neli is helping me here with this post. Hope it gets done this year… well, we have 6 hours, should be enough?]

We have two rooms again this year. One has a modest system and one… does not.

The Modest, Down-to-Earth System

AN/E SPe HE speakers (98dB High efficiency with the hemp drivers - the ones that were brand new at CES last year, now much more broken in)
Oto Phone SE integrated amplifier
CD 2.1x/II CD player
TT2 turntable with ARM Three arm and S4 stepup transformer IO1 cartridge
AN/Vx interconnects, Lexus XL speaker cable

The Over The Top System

AN/E SEC Signature loudspeakers in Madrone with external crossovers - high efficiency with the new tweeters. [uh. brand spanking new. Well, we have the weekend to break them in, Whoo Hoo.]
Kegon Balanced [Brand spanking new. Detecting a pattern here?]
M9 Phono preamplifier [graciously on loan]
DAC 4.1x Balanced DAC
CDT-Three transport
TT3 Reference turntable with AN1S arm, IO Gold cartridge and AN-S9 step-up transformer.
SOTTO interconnects and the new SOGON [50] interconnects and speaker [96] cables
HRS (Harmonic Resolution Systems) SXR 3-shelf equipment rack and 8 M3 Isolation Bases [i.e. 5 on the floor as they say]