We are not going to be providing photos to Audiogon for CES 2008, Albert Porter and crew will be doing the job for them. That makes life easier for us - we just do what we gonna do - which is probably a lot like last year, unless you people have other ideas?

Let’s see. Here, we are in disarray. Shipped 8 HRS platforms out to Vegas early in the week. We have two skids of equipment going there as well full of Audio Note equipment [Neli will have to let me know what she knows and then you’ll know what is on the skids]. We are taking two separate cars not quite full but too full for just one car. This for two rooms over at the Alexis Park. Near the back. Whatever, it’ll be better than over at the Venetian that seems to want to CRUSH whatever spirit and innovation and individuality it can find - which is funny for a place that hosts the Audio Video Awards. Maybe if we put more sex into our hobby, they would be more accommodating?

The things I am looking forward to? A few things….

The Lamm ML3 amps - which are now even more expensive. Yeah, they’ll be on - well they just say Wilson speakers. Anyway, no not the ultimate pairing, but one that should give us a sense of what the amps are doing, since the sound of most Wilson speakers are pretty familiar, well for the year or so that they are current production, anyway. Zanden front end. OK, going to be sweet. Good for driving Wilsons, probably. Silent Running Audio platforms and racks… uh - soft and mushy? OK. … TW-Acustic, Kubala-Sosna. OK, do not expect a forward and detailed presentation

The new Audio Note TT3 turntable (premiered in Milan). This will be in our room this year. Low mass platter with high torque motors. Should be interesting. We *do* like the voicing of Audio Note gear (so far ) so this should be …interesting… kind of goes counter to the high-mass platters we have had here - or the just-make-it-look-good tables that most other manufacturers build.

Emm Labs might have a thing or two to premiere…

The new and IMproved Wilson Alexandrias II+++ [I don’t know what their latest designation is]. I’d like to hear these. Hope someone is bringing them.

Kondo is doing a lot of press these days - maybe they’ll be at the show… and hopefully with a pair of decent speakers.

Maybe Clearaudio will actually *play* their uber table this year?

Video-wise, I would like to see a Sony XBR 1080p in 32 inches or smaller. The 20 inch LG I have on my desk now… is nice but… has issues. I’ll do a post on this thing sometime for those of you that give a hoot.

Uh, can’t think of anything. I hope it is sunny and warm, but I hear it has been a cold winter there (40s). I do about 45 minutes of walking outside, on a good day, carrying a large hunk of camera… so, uh, maybe gloves?

This year I registered as ‘Press’. Last year a security guard threatened to confiscate my camera because I wasn’t press. We’ll see if they think I qualify as a member of the ill reputed ‘press corp’.

A number of industry people we usually see at shows have decided to skip this year’s CES. Kind of sucks…

This year we will have two Audio Note rooms. We should know next week exactly what we are taking… but it is going to be great. A large, or rather expensive, room with lots of goodies and the same small room we had at RMAF, but with 4.1x CD player this year.

We will have a small HRS SXR rack and, well, we’ll see…

We’ll be at the Alexis Park. There are going to be lots of exhibitors… hopefully lots of people too. Not that exhibitors aren’t people, per se…

At this time of year we get preoccupied with CES, what to take, how to get it there, what to ship and what to put in the car, will there be SNOW between us and Vegas, and how MUCH….

The Odin is still settling in on Kharma system. After such an intense burn-in process, it helps to just leave them in one place for a week or two.

We put the Emm Labs CDSA on the system with the ODIN, so we have CDSA -> Audio Note Ongaku. A little more detail, a little less warmth.

Detail fans are just going to go ga-ga over the Odin, especially the interconnect. There is so much more on the CD and LP than I ever had imagined - and I thought we had pretty high resolution here before …

And, as you can quite imagine, looking at Nordost’s line of cables as it extends up through Valhalla - the ODIN has w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l tone.

The Jorma Prime might have more emotion (though we haven’t done the shootout yet) but the musicality and tone on the Odin is way, Waaaay out there - very close to the real thing - recorded electric guitars really invoke the sound of my old electric guitar and amp [over and over again, it is not like it sounded like this once, on one CD, but many times, many CDs, springing out at me when I was just listening casually], significantly unlike anything I have heard.

Looks like CES will be here and this year it won’t catch us by surprise [yeah, right.]

Not too much in the way of floor plans up on the ces website that I could find. Then again, it is quite a maze over there. [Its a lot like Microsoft’s website. Ever try to find anything over there? With the emphasis on “try”? We should talk, huh? ]

The general floor plan at the Venetian / Sands Expo appears to remain the same:

(click to go see large version)

The T.H.E. Show floor plan has expanded into the Alexis Park:

(click to go see large version)

Our show report is getting updated a little.

Audio Federation CES 2008 High-end Audio Show Report

Mostly going to white backgrounds instead of black, grouping photos together a little more naturally. And a few more things to help make navigation through a few thousand photos a little easier.

And, looking at that picture reminds me, it is unclear whether we are going to cover the Main Conference this year. Not sure how many of our readers are interested, beyond satisfying a “Oh wow, that is what they are doing over there” kind of curiosity.