by Michael

CES 2015 Acapella Audio Arts

At CES 2015 Acapella Audio Arts will introduce their new Acapella Cellini speakers.

We will be exhibiting with Acapella this year in room 30-225, in the Venetian tower, with Neli spending most of her time here.

The Cellini speakers are similar in size and pricing to their Violon speakers but feature Acapella’s new hyperspherical-shaped horn.

Here’s a lovely description, and specifications, fom the factory:

Acapella first used a hyper spherical midrange horn in the Poseydon speakers. This horn configuration offers an extraordinarily open and transparent sound in a more compact home loud speaker system,

Acapella Cellini

This highly musical midrange is traditional accompanied by the Acapella Ion Tweeter TW 1
The bass foundation is provided in a sleek housing that also serves as the support for the Ion Tweeter
and the spherical horn. The complete system recreates the sound of any type of music with absolute
authenticity and a certain mysterious magic.

Technical: Overall Frequency Response: 28 Hz – 40 kHz, Efficiency: ~ 91 dB / 1 W / 1 m
Impedance 8 Ohm, Load capacity: 100 W – 1000 W / 10 ms
Recommended power output of the amplifier: from 15 W
Dimensions (HxWxD) without horn: 1490 x 330 x 475 mm (4,89 x 1,08 x 1,56 feet)
Dimensions (HxWxD) with horn: 1705 x 620 x 585 mm (5,59 x 2,03 x 1,91 feet)
Weight: ~ 105 kg (230 lb), High Version 120 kg (265 lb)

The room will feature:

* Acapella Cellini High loudspeakers, € 46,600, currently $58,250 with the Euro at 1.25.

* Acapella LaMusika integrated amplifier, $106,388.

* Acapella cables, specifics tbd.

* The EMM Labs XDS1 player ($25000) or… the Audio Note CDT-5 transport with one of their Level 5 DACs, specifics tbd

* HRS SXR equipment rack and M3X platforms.

————

CES 2015 is just a few weeks away…

Be there or… read the several dozen show reports that no doubt will appear [including ours :-)]

 

 

in Acapella / CES 2015 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo 2 comments
 by Michael

CES Asia 2015 is one week after Munich High End

CES Asia is CES trying to branch out from its currently one-a-year shindig in Las Vegas each January.

Sure, why not?

But CES Asia 2015 is going to be in Shanghai on Monday, May 25 – Wednesday, May 27, 2015

But the Munich show, Munich High End, is on May 14 – May 17, 2015

Choose one option below:

a) CES is trying to take thunder [exhibitors] away from Munich, because they see Munich as a threat?

b) CES does not care about high performance audio and so do not care if exhibitors can make it to their show or not?

c) CES did not know there was a Munich show at almost the same time as their show

d) CES figures China is so important to business these days, it does not matter what other shows exist at all, they will all go to CES Asia 2015

e) is there an e) ?

I am going to cheat and say b), c) and d). But a) is funny, so I had to add it in [I mean, it would be great if a) were true, but… ]

In any case, I imagine this may cause some angst for some manufacturers. Which show… which show…

I would say Munich – it is our hobby’s premier show on the world stage – certainly until CES shows some significant support for high-end audio, high performance audio part of their new trade show / conference.

Or I could say CES Asia, because lets say you are the only high-end audio booth; depending on how many people attend the show, this could be an awesome amount of exposure in what appears to be a market hungry for high-end audio gear.

Decisions decisions…

in CES 2015 / Show Reports 0 comments
 by Michael

Personal audio is the future? – RMAF 2014 and beyond

Personal audio is the future? – RMAF 2014

So say some people…

CanJam inspired some people to announce the end of high-end audio as we know it.

PEZ on Audio Circle

“… CanJam on the other hand has literally exploded out of the Marriott convention hall and spilled into the Atrium. It will not only continue to grow in 2 years time I promise you it will surpass the rest of the show. When you see the vendors at can jam selling shoebox sized boxes hand over fist to guys 35 and younger and compare that to the same retired old two channel shlubs with out turned pockets going to the same rooms they were in last year and still not buying anything you start to understand why. Hifi is dead… Long live Hifi!!!!”

Steven Stone on TAS

“Most Important Trend: Portable and personal audio is the future. You only had to stick your head into the CANJAM room to feel the palpable energy and young enthusiasm, even from old goats like myself.”

REALLY?

I will argue that this is completely wrong, both because I believe it to be so, and because I want it to be so.

Personal audio is the wave of the present.

1. The primary argument against this being an enduring trend is that this young generation is the most social generation in the history of the world.

They cannot live 1 minute without checking to see what their friends are doing. And portable and personal audio is inherently a solitary activity.

Sure, someday someone will make it so friends can link their personal audio devices together and all listen to the same thing at the same time. Every group of friends will have their own ‘radio station’ they can tune to. Every school will have their ‘radio stations’ their students can tune to for parent-approved listening.

But in the end, being young is about meeting new people, starting new romances, and personal audio is inherently anti-social [as most of us not into personal audio can readily attest :-)]

2. There are primal forces against personal audio.

a. The beat. FEELING the beat, man.

b. Freedom. Freedom to move around and interact with other people nearby. Talking. Snogging. Being a spousal unit. Being a parent.

c. Employability. There are few jobs where being by default unavailable for interaction with customers, colleagues and bosses is acceptable. Software Development is one of those few, but it still is going to hamper your ability to participate in what is becoming more and more a group activity [see #1 above].

3. It is just too ‘geeky’

Geeky trends hardly ever last. Someone sitting in a corner of the room huddled over a shoebox-sized system? Weird devices in or on their ears?

For this level of geek, I, personally, would want, no NEED,  to be plugged into the whole Matrix, not some MP3-deck. I want instant Google direct to my brain. I want infinite memory and infinite knowledge just by thinking about it.

But, hey. YMMV. 🙂

I certainly enjoyed my time at CanJam. People are making a ton of cool gear. Having fun.

About half the companies are new and about half are companies who primarily make large systems, trying to participate in the personal audio wave.

I don’t know. Personal computers did last about 15 years. So….

 

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / RMAF 2014 / Show Reports 2 comments