Full Report
CES Main Conference

South Hall Part 1
January 8th-11th, 2007

* product carried by Audio Federation

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All pictures in this report are freely copyable and distributable.

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The nine busses that circulate between the major hotels and CES stop here at the Southwest corner of the main conference, also known as the Las Vegas Convention Center or LVCC for short. I took the number nine, after encouragement from John Lennon for many decades now, that traveled back and forth to the Alexis Park, which was where we were staying. It only ran in the mornings and evenings for a few hours, so getting back to the Alexis Park required either a taxi, or taking a shuttle bus to the Venetian and walking back from there - which I did at least three time at about 35 minutes / trudge.

Nero was going all out in their advertising blitz, putting their name of the badge-holding lanyard around everyone's neck and this big splash shown here. Must of cost a pretty penny - but considering I had never heard of them before, I guess it worked getting their name out there.

Samsung, also advertising a wee bit, reportedly was not allowing their booth to be photographed. If true, and I interpreted it as true and no photos of their booth appear in this report, it seems counter productive. The only booth that actually asked me not to photograph their booth was some kind of sound-augmented chair whose name I already forgot. Considering that literally about 25% of the attendees where walking around with tiny little cameras taking photos of everything and anything - this did not make sense on the feasibility level either, unless they want to confront each and every person getting close to their booth.

Speaking of cameras, my camera was one of the handful of SLR cameras I saw at the entire conference [sonicflare.com is another with a Canon Digital Rebel, and The Absolute Sound also had some kind of implement :-)]. People mostly had little baby cameras, including popular websites enjoythemusic.com and postiive-feedback.com [how my arms envy them!], with perhaps a dozen full-out TV-quality video recording extravaganzas walking or wheeling around at the main conference center.

I got to the South Halls at about 10 am on the first day. The show opened at 9 am, after the Gates Pontification. As you can see in this and subsequent photos, the place was already packed.

Part of what can be learned at this kind of exhibition is what companies now own or are owned by other companies.

If RCA wasn't blocking the view, we's get a good sense of how large and well-populated this hall is. Trust me, it is large and well populated.

Monster was well-represented. In addition to this smallish booth they had booths in other areas of the LVCC as well as at the Sands Expo.

The Sands-Expo and the Venetian are owned by the same company. CES extended the conference over to those two, connected, buildings - the Venetian containing only high-end audio, and about half of the high-end audio conference per se [the half that insisted that they be in rooms with solid walls aka hotel rooms]. The Sands-Expo contained the other half of the CES high-end audio conference, excuse me, High Performance Audio conference, as well as another floor like this full of exhibits... but smaller... to do with robotics and telecom and games. We got photos but it was pretty lame, IMHO.

Anytime, anywhere, someone grabbed a mic and started a demonstration people would crowd around. Really.

Seems like there is a limit to how many people can crowd around - limited by aisle width and the probability that enough tall people are in front of you to completely block the visual part of the demo. Seems like this crowd is at that limit now - forcing some people into the 'time to check my phone messages' procedure.

Ah, marketing.

Although it looks dangerous, walking underneath these gargantuan displays does not seem to trigger anybody's claustrophobic or crush-aphobic responses.

Another demo, another company I never heard of.

If nothing else, this show report should out a lot of companies most people have never heard of.

I do not recognize the movie, but it looks like a soap-opera... I wonder if anyone, naaaaah. But for some reason, a soap-opera would seem like a perfect counter-point to the conference.

There were a lot of iPod-support gear at the show. A lot of gear to get the sound off of an iPod and put it into the living space. Last year, at the high-end audio part of the conference, there was one or two manufacturers that had something. Now, just about all major product lines have an answer for these people.

Ooooh, carpet on the walls.

Seriously, there is only so much we can say about some of these exhibits. But since we are talking about carpet - most booths bring their own carpet. It sort of demarks their 'zone' apart from the walkway and their neighbors. They sometimes get carpet with a particular design or their logo emblazoned on it. Microsoft [in the Center Halls] had the most physically distinctive carpet - so deep and bouncy that it called attention to itself.

So, Microsoft, you get the Best Carpet of Show Award.

One has to wonder if Home Theater cables sound any good. Their absence from participating in high-end audio circles makes one doubt this. One has to wonder whether they care. Monster is presumably the target manufacturer whose client base they presumably want to plunder.

OK, I am clueless here... are these 'example display cases' for show prospective dealers how they will look in their retail establishment? Or are they for sale? Or both? I did see credit card machines here and there. so I think it is both. But do they worry about selling out before the show is over? Do they worry about what an empty display, or a display with empty slots, will look like to CES security which reputedly does not want commerce to be taking place unless it is under their purview?

Klipsch was also at CEDIA. Seems like they are big into these conferecnes.

Sound without speakers... Sorry, didn't get a chance to listen to me Radiohead test CD here, so no listening impressions will be forthcoming.

Kimber Kable was here, at Sands - Expo, and sponsor of the IsoMike room in the Venetian.

You know, if you check out all the furniture exhibits, they weren't getting much traffic. Everyone building things into closets these days? Or rather, the Big Buck, $100K+ installations are in the closet these days and no one cares about the smaller guy?

More iPod sound-amplification accessories from Klipsch.

"The world's best theater speakers'... There are so many things wrong with that phraseology, don't know where to start.

I forget exactly, but I think Soundolier's wireless connectivity is supported by equipment in these lamps.

By the way, like that fellow on the left there, getting around the show if you are unable to walk is not a problem - although you would have the same problem we all do trying to see over all the other people in front of you.

Hmmmm... no wonder these product lines are converging.

A lot of people were photographing this, so I did too. Seems like it is for young / small people - which is good. Parents can get an active chair for their kids and not have it take up more space than Mom and Dad's big easy chairs.

The booth in the background is the one that did not want photos taken. Should I digitally white it out?

Sennheiser headphones. See how busy this place is? I was hoping to get here early before the crowds... I had better luck after 5pm when it closed - but then it was STILL busy, just less so.

Also at CEDIA. BTW, A lot of products that were at CEDIA I chose not to photograph again except with a kind of a cursory overview.

A blast from the past. They were here last year and at CEDIA.

CAT is probably the highest-end audio here, although one can wonder how their revamped line sounds today, they do have a certain amount of prestige coming in to this.

Norcent had the largest booth in the South Halls - at least on the first floor, anyway.

Their name sounds kind of familiar - but I think that is just the way a well-chosen name sounds - and it sounds more like a telecom company that a... well, I think they make LCD TVs like everyone else. Or maybe just monitors.

There were several competitors to the D-BOX chair, as well as several karge "massaging and who knows what else I don't want to know" chairs.

Good name for these chairs, I think. Very descriptive.

This guy looks like a professional - but all demos like this found a large number of number of mostly guys willing to take time from their busy day to play games.

There was an exceedingly large number of exhibits that were focused on hanging /mounting LCS monitors / TVs on walls.

The CLO Systems' X Arm lets people adjust their wall-mounted LCD monitor / TV to various angles.

Apparently this company copies other company's loudspeaker designs... I wonder how close they copy the crossover and how close they sound to the original? I wonder if the establishment that carries these things can get sued for patent infringement? Probably not, these all look generic...

... and although this B&W Nautilus [the original] clone is quite distinctive, it may have been 17 years now since it was originally released and all intellectual property rights may have expired.

Another HD radio solution.