Report

 

Venetian:   2 A B    29 A1 A2 B1 B2 C1 C2 C3   30 A1 A2 B1 B2 C1 C2   34  35  

  Alexis Park A B   St. Tropez A B C

 

 

Venetian Floor 35

CES 2008
T.H.E. Show
Las Vegas

January 2008

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Copyright © Audio Federation, Inc.. All rights reserved.
All pictures in this report are freely copyable and distributable
if attribution is given but may not be included in multi-room show reports without written permission.

 
 
 
       

 

 

 

Previously, on the Audio Federation high-end audio CES 2008 Show Report that is trying to take over the world one photo at a time, it is late Thursday afternoon, the last day of the show, and we have arrived at the last floor, the final floor, of the Venetian that we haven't visited yet.

By the time we get to the bottom of this page, we will have finished the entire high-end audio extravaganza that is CES and T.H.E. Show except, with my apologies, the few rooms at the Mirage [bad planning on my part], 3 or 4 at the St. Tropez [laziness], the Magnepan room at the Alexis Park [brain in serious need of repair], and the static displays at the Las Vegas Convention Center [just couldn't get excited this year about companies too embarrassed by the quality of their sound to put them in a live system - or who have no interest in the audiophile market, preferring instead the mass market aka making mo money].

Well, this is it then.

Thanks for reading this far - hope you enjoyed it. Yeah, we are a little controversial sometimes, but most manufacturers love the reports - whether because they realize that there is no bad publicity, because they will make lots of sales no matter how much we talk about how much they suck [you think any of us are hurting Bose's sales any?], or because it is just plain nice for someone, us, to acknowledge that they do in fact exist and some of their products did in fact appear at CES. At THE CES, which is still The Big Time.

We're open to suggestions for improvements for the next reports - but, if someone mentions adding even more photos...

This show report continues in the Blog, where we expand on the reviews of the rooms that we liked and people can add their comments. So if you are interested, see ya over there in a day or so!

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
A selection of Pro-ject tables.
 
           
New Vienna Acoustics speakers.
 
        
Room treatment.
 
SME turntable
 
 
These rooms are humungous. This is another system in this glorious space.
 
 
 
       
 
The feet of this Vienna Acoustics speaker.
 
Transparent driver membranes. Cool but....
 
Flat membrane drivers. And weird membrane at that. Is this the.... the speaker from Mars...?
 
Audio Research electronics, SME turntable.
 
A bevy of REL subwooofers.
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Across the hall, another huge space. Don't you think that it looks like there should be a painting between those curtains there, or an equipment rack.
 
The turntable on the right is an SME table...Primare electronics.
 
In an alcove, the top-of-the-line Sonus Fabers stand watching, watching.... We rarely see them all together like this.
 
 
 
       
A couple of photos of the Amati anniversario. We have photo'd the other speakers many times in the past. This year, we are moving on.
 
A selection of Primare electronics.

 

 

 

 

 

 
Esoteric's massive suite has this as one of their systems. Anyone else think that these are really modest speakers, albeit Esoteric speakers, for a system with such relatively expensive gear?
 
Esoteric now makes amps.
 
 
 
A second system, in a home theater-like setup.... with distinctly top-of-the-line gear.
 
The Esoteric P-03 universal player.
 
The Esoteric D-03 DAC.
 
Esoteric UZ-1 player.
 
Esoteric UX-1Pi
 
 
 
In another alcove, a selection of hardware is on display, like this tranport.
 
 
 
Finally, we have some photos of equipment on platforms on mirrored surfaces.... just in case we all want to see the bottom of these components without picking them up, see?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the drop-off and pick-up location for the shuttle to the St. Tropez. See, down there, way down there, is the Casino Royale. I think this pink building is part of it too. I saw people checking in here even. Ours is not to question why, ours is to wait for the shuttle and not have to walk home this one day, this the last day.
 
OK, getting bored, Trigger finger gets itchy. Taking some photos. That car in the lower right, from the first picture, is still unloading.
 
Straight ahead is the Venetian proper. As I understand where the heck the rooms are all in this monolith, the Meeting Rooms Level 2 are in the building on the other side of the building on top of the garage. The floors 29, 30,, 34, and 35 are in the building on the let.
 
On the other side of this adobe-colored wall, are the moving walkways that take is through the new parts of the Venetian and into the casino at a rather random location from which one can, indeed, find their way to the CES high-end audio rooms with only 20 - 30 minutes of wandering around feeling like an idiot.. Trust me.

OK everybody, thanks for visiting and have a great year and we'll see you all either on the Blog, or, at the next high-end audio invades hotel from Earth super feature!

 

 

 

 

Copyright © Audio Federation, Inc.. All rights reserved.
All pictures in this report are freely copyable and distributable
if attribution is given but may not be included in multi-room show reports without written permission.

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