Audio Federation - CES 2008 and T.H.E. Show Reports - Acoustic Zen | Artemis Labs | NFS | Kondo

St. Tropez
(Part C)
CES 2008
T.H.E. Show
Las Vegas
January 2008

* Denotes a product carried by Audio Federation

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Previously, on this high-end audio CES 2008 Show Report that takes as long to read [and four times as long to write] as the show itself, it is Wednesday evening and dark out, the third day of this four day show. We just finished the second third of the St. Tropez and will finish it up the best we can, here on this page.

Which we do.

More or less.

These Acoustic Zen* 'Crescendo' speakers were introduced at this years RMAF in October. Halcro amplifier and linestage. ModWright-modded Sony CD player.

Acoustic Zen* loudspeakers - Halcro amplifier, linestage and CD player

The Halcro linestage

Prototype Acoustic Zen PC / desktop speakers.

These are the new Acoustic Zen* loudspeakers. They are larger even than their recently added 'Crescendo' speakers, and the largest Acoustic Zen speaker to date.

Yes. They are pretty big. OK. Not that we got that established.

I heard a few tracks here. I found no serious flaws, and like these better than the Crescendo speakers. I would say that these are more of the forgiving side than, say, Wilson for example. Yeah, bad example. But forgiving, yes. It would have been great to play something a little more challenging here....especially since there were so few systems at the show [4?] that I thought showed no gaping maw flaw.

All I can say, is thank you for the plants. SUCH a relief to see, especially in rooms at the St. Tropez that all seem in need of some TLC.

You're traveling through another dimension.

A dimension, not only of sight and sound, but of mind.

A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination.

Next stop, the... NFS Room.

The lubrication that powers the NFS room.

The engines that power the NFS room

The fuel that powers the NFS room.

WAVAC amplifiers, Venture speakers, Einstein CD player.

STYLE

Impressive Sweet Enjoyable Emotional Sophisticated Natural Workhorse Real/Truth Magical/Spiritual

SOUND

This system sound appeared to meet the goals of this style of system.

The Kondo room is always filled with people, usually standing, milling about, which makes a more conclusive evaluation not possible this time around - which I would have liked to have been able to do - but I heard enough to tell that this system was a very magical, emotional and enjoyable system to listen to. This was one of the very few systems where I *had* to stand, no kneel, in front of a speaker to photograph the system's equipment rack and electronics [similar to our Audio Note U.K. room when picking out the next LP]. Few systems will let you live through that. These did.

The external crossover for one of the speakers.

The Gakuoh PSE amplifiers

Kondo Ginga turntable

The RISE CD player.

Kondo M1000 Mk II 2-box Pre-Amplifier

The Kondo KSL-SFz set-up transformer

The KSL DAC.

Didn't get a chance to hang out in the Almarro room this year. The camera's memory card got filled up here and I had to go back to the room to download the photos off of the cards before I could go out again - and it was too late for that. In fact, this room, all the rooms, were about to close up for Wednesday night.