THE CES 2006 SHOW REPORT

This year we tried to get to as many rooms as possible and are putting up as many of those pictures we took as were in focus and interesting.

Each picture has to cropped, resized and, often, tweaked (the Canon Rebel XL has real problemd with dark rooms and resolving shades of gray) in Photoshop.

One thing I came away with is just how much stuff is out there and how much effort everyone puts into their room – almost everyone brings a LOT of stuff to the show.

Next is to try and annotate each photo with technical details and any listening impressions we may have had.

In general our show reports tend to be more ‘experience-oriented’ (i.e. ‘what were these people thinking?’ or ‘the soundstaging is positioned in an arch above the speakers’) rather than ‘brochure-oriented’ (i.e. ‘the price per watt exceeds the national average of MOSFET-based amplifeirs by 100,000,000.6%…’). It was my fustration with the ‘brochureware’ that was passing for show reports in Stereophile that led me to start writing these show reports in the first place.

And, yeah, I am still sick as a dog (do dogs really get so sick?) and kind of ‘out of it’ – so here is the deal:

If you disagree with what I write, then I was mad with fever when I wrote it and didn’t know what I was saying. If, however, you do agree with what I have written, then I was recovering nicely and in complete control of my mental facilities – inasmuch as one is ever in control of such a thing.

Where is everybody? We’re here, where’s everybody else?

Due to a misunderstanding, we thought that T.H.E. Show was its usual 5 days, and that it would end on Monday, not Sunday at 6 (which was more like 4:00 as everybody was packing up early).

Oops.

Ever year we usually stay at the MGM Grand and walk to the Alexis Park and back once or twice a day… it is about a 25 minute walk each way and is only a pain if we (me) forget to bring a coat, because the show ends each day after dark, at 6:00 pm, and it cools down fast here in the desert. Then it turns into a 20 minute walk.

But after 2 days at the MGM Grand, in a tiny little room costing an embarrasingly large amount of money each day – Neli managed to find a couple of vacant rooms at the Alexis and we did the move on Saturday morning.

Anyway, so here we are, staying unwittingly a extra day for no good reason. Outside there is the ringing of pipes all day long as they tear down the tents that covered all the walkways – just in case it rains or snows or, who knows, it might get a blazingly hot 100 degrees here at CES one of these years.

And now I caught a cold (I am so happy it decded to pay me a visit AFTER CES). So I stay here in the room, coughing and wheezing – apparently working on the show report (I mean, seriously, what else is there to do when laid up with a nasty cold in a hotel room?) on this laptop (that is 10 times slower than my PC with its 4 GB of memory, Raptor disk, Radeon X1800XT 512MB video card…. argh)….and Neli goes shopping (she says she is trying not to get the same bug that has me by the throat…).

Day 4 is about done, and I am starting on Day 1. Kind of backwards, but Day 4 was fresh in my mind – and, well, we were the ones that thought the show was 5 days instead of 4 – so you just have to expect that mixups like doing Day 4 before Day 1 is to be expected here at the Belfry.

This year we tried something a little different – trying to see every single room. Didn’t make it – still missed Ray of Sound, Cabasse, and one of te Magico rooms – and who knows how many others. But we did see a LOT more than we usually do. Wow. There is a lot of interesting technologies and people at this show. Hopefully we can convey some of the color and bewildering numbers of really pretty darn good equipment that was being shown at CES ths year.

The old-style HRS rack, the Audio Aero Prestige monoblock amplifiers, the prototype Audio Note transport… all have gone to the show – and we are following.

We will update our show report as often as possible during the show, and of course the full report will follow the show by a few days.

This year we are flying, using an airplane, because last year a blizzard kept us from driving, which is what we usually do. Of course, this year it is in the 50s and 60s all the way…

The LAMM ML2 monoblocks are now on the Marten Coltranes, where the Prestige amps (and later the EDGE Signature One amps) were until recently. First impression was Wow. The solidity of the images with the Lamm is just astounding – and entertaining. I feel like a kid with some of this music as it wafts back and forth between channels. Yeah, I guess I am easily amused – but not to death (seriously, I have not tried that CD yet, although it is infamous for such playful aural tennis court activities).

The pair of Valhalla interconnects you see streaking across the floor in the forground are the cables that connect the output of our phono-stage, the Lamm LP2 Deluxe, in the other equipment rack in this room to the Coltrane system.

Sometimes we like to play vinyl, either the Brinkmann Balance or the Walker, on the Coltrane system. Kind of have to avoid stepping on (or worse, tripping on) the cables, but what else can one do? You gotta get the music to where you gotta hear it – and we can’t let the SoundLabs have ALL the fun!

Anyway, packing for Las Vegas… Camera? Check. Camera accessories? All dozen of them, check. Laptop? Check. Laptop accessories? All dozen of them, I hope they work in the hotel and we don’t get too many viruses from the hotel network, ….check. Demo CDs? Ooops. Almost forgot those.

I hope something sounds good there. I know a lot of people are thinking they are just going to exhibit at the RMAF show now.

And a lot of exhibitors do not care if their rooms sound good or not – counting on their sales and marketing team to woo the dealers to carry their equipment. Kind of sucks for those of us who go there to hear things. But I guess a lot of these equipment manufacturers have dealers who take the same approach as well – wowing with jargon and sales instead of presenting their customers with a good sound. It may be a nasty thing to point out – but it seems like that is just the way it is – our industry is no different than any other in this respect.

In contrast, here, we wow people with music and smiles – Boulder does not have much use for salespeople, anyway, and we aren’t good, and don’t want to be good, at the lie-till-they-buy shtick…. Our approach works for most folks, but, amazingly enough, I think some people actually prefer the hype and confrontational hostility of your typical dealership – it is what they have come to expect. We just confuse them.

Lately though, people are starting to learn to expect something different, something new: to just click and buy…and this sea change seems to have no end in sight. So then CES, whose very existence is for manufacturers to display their products to dealers, signing up the dealers to carry these products, will have what purpose when there are no more ‘dealers’?