The link:

JV’s 2011 CES Show Report

One of the most fascinating things in doing these reports on JV’s reports is trying to figure out what kind of sound he really prefers. This is something we as dealers have to do; and as a writer, it is useful to understand why people have the opinions they do about the sound we all are, presumably, hearing [more difficult at a show, where the room sound changes day to day, and our test tracks vary wildly from each other [I’ll have to look into adding Mario Lanza :-). (we do have various CDs and LPs of Mario’s here). This year my test tracks were Radiohead, Amnesiac – which most systems fail miserably at, and Mark Knopfler, Sailing to Philadelphia – which is a polite song that most systems can deal with. So, depending on the system, I will play one or the other – or both].

Might as well make a comment about JV’s reference speakers and how that is reflected in his show report [and get myself in trouble from the get go :-)]. There were several comments about how people who did not like the Magico Q5 speakers were people who perhaps preferred a sweeter-than-life sound [or words to that effect]. Certainly that may be the case – but a more fundamental concern is that, these speakers being so hard to drive, micro-dynamics, as well as correct decay, is just too difficult for most [all?] amps to manage on these speakers – and I believe that it is these two more subtle attributes of music that give music its life and emotional content. These are real world attributes of music, not some syrupy sweetener, that are missing from the Magico rooms at these shows

The Q5 being an aluminum speaker means that there have very little of the common speaker resonance problems [there may be other resonance-type issues, however, based on the basic design of the speaker. I think the Magico is slightly better than the YG Acoustics, also aluminum speakers, in this aspect]. I personally think this lack of cabinet coloration is addictive. [Luckily I also listen extensively to Audio Note speakers, where the cabinet is designed to resonate ;-)].

Similarly with the big ARC amps, their slightly whitish edge and lack of ultimate dexterity lends itself to JV preferring a slightly aggressive, in your face dynamic sound with not so much in the way of subtle cues.

My preferences are for extreme musical subtlety [harmonic and dynamic] first [seemingly requiring easy to drive speakers with top notch drivers], and I will prefer equipment that preserves the subtleties just sitting there on most source material waiting for me to hear it (them?). This usually requires small amps, which are seemingly more capable of fine detail. Although easy-to-drive speakers with small amps. are naturally dynamic, they are not the same as dense dynamics that come with big sledge-hammer type amps on hard-to-drive speakers [though you can tune a small amp system to do this if you want – which I just learned some people actually want to do].

So with that said, it is surprising that I agree with much of what JV has to say. For example, the Wilson Alexandria room.

* Lamm ML3, Wilson Alexandria

I think I agree 100%, although I bet I have a different explanation [than his which he does not venture to share with us :-)], for why the sound was slightly soft [and I think missing not just some leading edge but subtle details as well. The ML3 amps, BTW, drove these speakers with ease, and the Lamm LL1 and Neodio player performed admirably]. More later in our actual room report. However, differing from JV, I would give this room a BOS if I was giving out BOS, which I am not.

* Magico Q3, Soulution

Uh. Maybe they are warmer than the Q5, but they still seemed to lack what it takes to be musical. ‘Course, the Soulution ain’t exactly musicality friendly either.

As for ‘group delay’ and ‘phase coherence’ … ‘harmonics seem more proportionately lifelike’ … Let’s assume for a moment that minimally resonant cabinets are beneficial in this way, and that Alon has done a reasonably good job with the crossover [which I actually do believe].

My problem is that these cables there are seriously mucking with the frequencies/harmonics and the Soulution is not the fount of harmonic goodness themselves either, not to mention the source being a hard drive. So one can hear the speakers doing well at this *despite* the upstream equipment and *despite* the fact that the sound in that room was as a result harmonically only ‘average’ [for a show]. It is fine for JV to extract details about and report on his favorite speakers – like I do mine – but just realize that the room itself did not sound like anything except a very dynamic and tight solid-state sound that offered up a kind of “gee whiz that is cool” kind of pleasure. [for example, one of our friends there was seriously impressed with the soundstaging (although I, not in the sweet spot, got no soundstaging whatsoever)].

* Tidal

Oops. My original comment was referring to a different room than the one JV was referring to. My apologies. This room I do not remember.

* Sonus Faber

This is the room where JV’s and my [our, Neli was also there] opinions are diametrically opposed. Completely. Absolutely. I believe the speakers were driven with the big ARC amps while we were there [not realizing that, according to JV, they were using various amps during the show]. The sound was dark, lifeless, colorless… i.e. big ick. Not Sonus Faberish at all. As you may not know, Sonus Faber was bought out, and by the same hedge fund that bought ARC et. al. and it was this new company that designed these speakers. Having owned and loved SF Electas and Extremas, [and lusted after many of their other speakers, back in the day], I will burn a candle to their memory. [see, I *told* you we all came away with a vastly different opinion].

To be continued…

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.

The NFS Not For Sale room. Always trippy. Always a party. The sound quality *could* be better though…