January 17, 2011 by Michael

CES 2011 – THE Show (Flamingo) Floor 4 pt. 1

Here are the photos of the rooms on the main part of floor 4 at the Flamingo. Wasn’t going to do this but so many rooms have been overlooked by the other show reports (except Audiogon) that I felt it was important to acknowledge here, in pictures, that people spent their time and money to setup these rooms for us to take a listen to and a gander at.

I added a few comments where I had something to say.

I listened to this system to see if I could hear what the racks were doing. A difficult task, to be sure, if not impossible. But the sound was indeed crisp and controlled, like a system with a good rack should be.

New in-wall speakers from SoundLab. Never did get back here to hear the demo, unfortunately.

Atma-Sphere amps, Teo cables, this system sounded round and powerful, especially in the bass department [they were trying to prove a point. They did].

Acoustic Zen Crescendo speakers with their grills on. This system sounded good, and I liked it better than the Tri’s on the Crescendos at the Venetian, which sounded uncharacteristically a little laid back, for some reason. I think they took the grills off later in the show.

The Playback Designs line-up of digital players now includes various options for USB input [I think this will be my generic statement for every line of digital on the planet, at this point].

I am not a good judge of $2K speakers in general, nor these here in this room in particular, and will leave it to those who specialize in these kinds of speakers to wax on their performance.

ZU Audio is continuing to innovate. There was something I liked about these speakers, but not enough, apparently, that it swayed me from my appointed rounds. Hopefully next show I will get time to play a few CDs here.

These new Studio Electric speakers packed a significant punch, and continue the more-musical-than-average orientation of their speaker line.

Sonist makes very musical, very high-performance per dollar speakers. They are planning to expand their offerings to include a couple of larger speakers in the near future. I look forward to hearing them.

WyWire cables. We just got to talking and, well, here is a photo of their cables.

I listened to this room for awhile. High quality components (new Kronzilla mkII amps, for example), this system sounded good, but not great or drug-like or that something special was happening here.

Teresonic always sounds musical and dynamic, albeit lacking the finesse and harmonic and dynamic resolution more typical of the more expensive high-end.

Clarity cable was there a day before the show, and already quietly playing music in their room as we arrived late Tuesday night. And last year they were playing music as we checked out [and maybe this year, too, though we were Bamm out of there when we finally left]. The sound was always quite Enjoyable.