Nordost at CES 2012

Nordost always has shootouts of their cables against each other in their exhibit room at these shows. These shootouts are controlled [i.e. they play music of their choice, so they can make the differences as apparent as possible (esp. for those who never heard cables sound different before, most of whom seem compelled to post profusely on the lesser quality forums), and these shootouts last about 1/2 hour to 45 minutes] – and typically performed on a modest, yet quite dynamic, system.

“Room 29-125 in the Venetian Towers is our demonstration room. The spotlight will be shared between Lars Kristensen (pictured above) and Bjorn Bengtsson (pictured below). The guys alternate during the four days and each have plenty of jaw dropping demonstrations to share!”

“The greatest thing about the Nordost demonstrations is it’s all about proving things. You will never walk into our room where we pat ourselves on the back about how cool our packaging looks. Or simply talk about how great our technology is and how much better it is than others. The proof is always in the pudding and if your ears can hear the difference then it exists.

It’s why we always do active demonstrations where we show you that as you climb up the Nordost ladder you hear the differences.”

Lamm at CES 2012

Lamm has two rooms up in the Venetian Towers, on floor 35, just like previous years.

Unlike last year’s historic showing with the Wilson Audio Alexandria X-2 speakers in the large room, this year they are reverting back to the more modest Wilson MAXX 3 speakers driven by the Lamm ML3 amps.

New this year, however, is ONEDOF’s $150K turntable, which deputed at RMAF 2010 and we got to hear at RMAF 2011, albeit with inferior equipment and cartridge [if you are interested in hearing what the turntable actually sounds like]. The Neodio digital is actually pretty good, so the turntables in this room have to be pretty decent just to keep up, IMHO.

The smaller room looks the be about the same as last year, Lamm ML2.2 amps on Verity Lohengrin, with the addition of the Kronos turntable [there is no rack listed, so that could also be a surprise].

Audio Note at CES 2012

Although there will not be a dedicated Audio Note UK room this year at CES/THE SHOW, Audio Note equipment will be featured in two rooms at the Venetian.

Venetian room 29-327 – Robert Lighton Audio

Robert Lighton Audio will be showcasing their new RL10 95db efficient speakers along with:

Audio Note Meishu Silver Signature (9 watt Class A single-ended 300B line only integrated amplifier)
Audio Note M3 RIAA Phono Stage
Audio Note TT3 0.5 Reference turntable and/or Thorens turntable
Audio Note CD 4.1x CD Player

Robert is a long time fan/supporter of Audio Note gear, and these speakers are designed from the get-go to run off of low-powered tube equipment like Audio Note amplifiers. Should be very interesting.

Venetian Room 29-230 – Volent Audio

Volent Corporation will be showcasing their VL-3 speakers along with:

Audio Note Jinro (25 watt 211 SE integrated amplifier – $24,000 copper version of the Ongaku)

We’ve heard rumors that Volent speakers work well with the smaller 300B Audio Note UK amps – and, if so, they should, in all likelihood, kick butt on the Jinro integrated amp. Should also be an interesting room.