by Michael

CES 2008 High-end Audio Show Report with 2800 Photos

Is now, more or less, complete.

Less because we want to add an index to the report(s) …someday.

More because that day is not today, and it is not tomorrow.

So, then this is it, in two resolutions: Medium, suitable for lower resolution monitors and most laptops; and High, what the report was designed for .

2800 photos, of 180 rooms at the Venetian and 52 rooms at T.H.E. Show.

CES 2008 High-end Audio Show Report

We’ll be posting more about what was heard at the show on the Blog here, specifically the rooms in the Most Loved list.

in CES 2008 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Show Reports 0 comments
 by Michael

The Style of the Sound at CES 2008

For many rooms, I have been using a ‘tag cloud’ like this to represent the type of sound the room is going for:

This has proven to be a very interesting exercise.

Some rooms, it is obvious what they are going for.

Some, many, it can be really hard to tell. Get some kind of sound out for the show, anything!, probably. So, in all likelihood , Workhorse.

Some are very flexible, and it is hard to pin down exactly what these rooms, this year, are going for.

One of the main goals of this categorization system has been to help people clarify what they are talking about. You see people say ‘The MBL room was best!” [Not the first day it wern’t] and another say “The EPOS room was best” [whatever ‘best’ means – which really means they liked it for some reasons often unbeknowst to us and themselves… but we digress].

But these two systems have completely different goals [ignoring the cost differential] – one is purely Impressive – Bass and Room Pressurization and that is it. The other serves to be Enjoyable for playing back your average piece of music.

So *our* readers can read these posts, and, assuming that the posters were trustworthy AND have ears, know that among Impressive systems [and among people who like Impressive systems – but this is a a little shakier interpretation], the MBL system was approved of. And among those who are looking for an [Economical] Enjoyable system, the EPOS system was approved of.

I think, that until we can get people to understand and reveal their sound style preferences, this is the best we are going to be able to do [and we can’t even get the ‘professional’ reviewers to do this yet].

Another goal of including these tag cloud is to help people understand the systems from afar. Another is to help people who heard the rooms think about what they heard with respect to what the goals of the system were. Another is to categorize the show in some way… did you notice that many Impressive systems were in the larger rooms [smart] but not all [cheapskates :-)].

[More later…]

in CES 2008 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Show Reports 0 comments
 by Michael

Ever Present Vibrations and Their Deleterious Effects

Thinking about vibration and the effect is has on electronics, and cartridges, a question came up.

If vibrations from the sound of the system affects the sound of the system, negatively, as we all know it does [vibrations cause the wires in electronic equipment to move, and since they are often in some kind of magnetic field(s), these vibrations generate electric current in the wires that has nothing to do with the sound. Egro: noise]….

…then what about other vibrations?

Especially second story vibrations:

1. Here, we have wind that vibrates the house a lot
2. People walking or kids playing
3. Vibrations from the refrigerator motors
4. Vibrations from other people and elevators when in an apartment building.

And even ground floor vibrations:

1. Passing traffic, especially when the listening room location is near a busy road.
2. Some people have big freezers and furnaces down stairs, and sometimes the vibrations of these are transmitted though the foundation.

Anyway, our main listening room is upstairs, and I wonder how much higher a noise floor we have hear because of environmental vibrations.

Hard to test, because when it is really windy, and the house is shaking – it is also very noisy just from the noise of the wind.

Similarly with large trucks, that might be a mile away, but we can hear them [it is quiet up here] and once in a while feel them, especially when they use their exhaust brake [which is illegal up here, but if you gotta slow down, ya gotta slow down….]

So, there are indeed probably deleterious effects from environmental vibrations, causing a raising of the noise floor, but the noise from the things causing the environmental vibrations raises the noise floor itself, and even higher than that caused by the vibrations it causes, so it is probably not worth worrying about [i.e. if kids are running around, pounding the floor with their little feet, they are probably screaming too ;-)].

Not worth worrying about? Whew! OK, good. Neli! We can go on with our lives now. Such as they are….

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Philosophy 0 comments