The 100% digital (online) conference lives on. Although Neli tells me Ray Kimber (KimberKable) is setting up an exhibition this year – CES is certainly dead with respect to high-end audio in my opinion and what I want to get out of an audio show.

Munich – a real show for audiophiles – is scheduled for September next year as a show you-can-actually-attend – but Neli tells me there is talk that this may have to be put off again and delayed until 2022.

The Keynote speakers, below, for CES 2021 are sure – boring? I think that is too nice of a word… How about shockingly uninteresting?

I might sign up for grins – just to see what Ray’s booth looks like from my office… 🙂

We’ve been trying to reproduce the original sound field using 2 (or more) speakers for a long time. Here is anther way… (link to AP news story) (link to RollingStone story)

LONDON (AP) — Imagine a world where you move around in your own personal sound bubble. You listen to your favorite tunes, play loud computer games, watch a movie or get navigation directions in your car — all without disturbing those around you.

That’s

the possibility presented by “sound beaming,” a new futuristic audio technology from Noveto Systems, an Israeli company. On Friday it will debut a desktop device that beams sound directly to a listener without the need for headphones.

But this is a little discouraging…

The listening sensation is straight out of a sci-fi movie. The 3-D sound is so close it feels like it’s inside your ears while also in front, above and behind them.

The ‘inside the head’ effect has always seemed to me to be quite ‘unreal’ and takes away from the enjoyment of headphones. The above technology, however, seems like it could put the holographic soundfield between the head and wherever we want the sound to be coming from – right?

I guess if there was wall of these transducers, we might conceivably be able to do something quite realistic…

From the Noveto Systems website [why do none of the major sites link to the source of the tech they are talking about? What a bunch of SEO cowards].

SoundBeaming works using ultrasonic waves and beamforming to place sound just outside the ears. The waves are generated using Noveto-developed proprietary DSP algorithms and pushed into the air via a custom-designed transducer array. From the inside it may look like a small speaker, but you won’t hear anything coming out.

The Israeli company ‘patented’ the tech, so we’ll see what happens with it, if anything [besides beaming ads directly into our head why we are out and about – scary thought. Hey, a dystopian world gives rise to dystopian thoughts].

Rafe Arnott of Part-Time Audiophile fame, and Managing Editor in charge of AudioStream, and InnerFidelity fame, has started his own magazine: Resistor Mag.

Rafe is one of the powerhouses of energy in our business and hopefully has some of that energy left [ unlike the rest of us, 🙂 ] for his new endeavor.

Not that new, apparently started this April and launched July. It has been added to the, now venerable,  Audiophile’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Magazines section.

On the about page:

“Resistor Mag favors cultural over commercial impact; handbuilt craftsmanship over effective branding. We will remain fairly indifferent about measurements and specifications, while placing a premium on the more enduring aspects of arts, culture and the musicality of playback from hi-fi.

We realize that design and architecture are about more than just aesthetics. We are more inclined to venerate the things we love than to disparage those we do not.

More specifically, think of Resistor Mag as the tape on a reel-to-reel for laying down the tracks of writers, photographers, artists, musicians and entrepreneurs who are resisting the temptation to be basic and will work towards a shared goal of being interesting, inspiring and humorous.”

Neli and I wish Rafe the best of luck.

Check it out if you get the chance…!