CES 2008 coming right up…
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… 😉
Mike, did a security guy really threaten you for taking pictures? Tourists take pictures of Vegas hotels thousands of times a day! If it was in an exhibit room, it was none of his f-ing business. Looks like another year when I will have pre-reg’d for CES but won’t bother going to visit the Nazi portion of the audio shows in town.
For those wishing for specifics, the “no holds barred” AN room will be Alexis Park 2208 and the workin’ person’s room will be Alexis Park 2205.
As far as I can tell, the main draw to AP, (besides Audio Note, of course), will be the software vendors who had a dreadful time with the lunatic purchasing system at last year’s CES and have returned to the Alexis Park like dem boids to Capistrano. I had a notion. What if we supplied the sofware vendors with coupons to hand out to buyers entitling them to have one track from their new vinyl or CD played in either of the Audio Note rooms? (SACD and DVD Audio need not apply; we don’t play that, kinda like Homey.) It won’t be easy attracting people halfway down the largely empty range of rooms. . . .
Hi Dave,
Yeah, but this was at the main convention center. Kind of stupid, with everybody clicking their phone cameras everywhere you look (literally). But my camera stands out I guess – being so big (and heavy and clunky).
Well, we had ideas along the same lines, that people buying LPs and CDs can come play them on our systems. Of course, they don’t need a coupon for that… and we had a REALLY good idea we had better not post it here or the entire non-CES portion of the show will all of a sudden have the same idea 🙂
Yeah, our rooms are kind of in the boonies… but, for all of you who don;t know, that is because these are the rooms that Audio Note has traditionally occupied in the past ‘glory days’ of the Alexis Park CES high-end audio conference. Kind of cool, anyway….
Take care,
Mike.
Hi Mike,
Maybe they thought your rig was a baby bazooka!? Whatever you do, don’t show up with a fast tele on it, you’ll be clapped in irons for the duration!
Yes, of course they can play a track or two in either room without a coupon, (a simple “please, Sir . . . will do. ;-), but only if they think of it and happen to wander out there. The coupon would tempt people who are spending $40-$50 on a piece of software, wish they could hear it RIGHT NOW and wonder “How good is this really/What’s the best this could sound?” I think the TT3 Ref/AN1S/IO Gold/AN-S9, etc on the vinyl side and CDT4/DAC5 on the shiny silver disc side, coupled with the rest of the full-tilt AN system answer those questions fairly well !
A lot more people would have the notion if we presented them with the invitation at the moment the new software is handed to them.