The best way to view the CES 2015 High-end Audio Show Report is by using the CES 2015 Show Report index. You can find a link to this index, on most pages, in the sidebar there ===> near the top of the page and high-lit in, currently, ‘orange’.
177 rooms. 2500+ photos.
With the end of THE SHOW, held at the Flamingo Hotel, this is the smallest show, OVERALL, we have seen in a long time. We saw 194 rooms, combined between the two shows, in 2013, and 244 in 2009, only a year after the crash. It was even bigger in 2007, and before then, but I do not have precise numbers.
[Have to admit it was convenient / time-saving / warmer to not have to walk the half-hour walk back and forth between the two shows everyday. Still… a loss. The featured photo shows the ad for the show that replaced THE SHOW Las Vegas… THE SHOW NEWPORT].
For our part we brought out-performing Acapella Cellini speakers ($50K+) [and a kick-ass Audio Note front end :-)].
The first and last days were really, really slow. The middle two days were much busier, and high-quality focused listeners [as opposed to looky-loos going quickly from room to room with little listening and little understanding what they are seeing.]
As a listener and show photographer, I like the slower days 🙂 As an exhibitor… our room with Acapella was positioned well-enough, and with an attractive setup that stands out [aka brilliant red horn speakers], that traffic remained good all 4 days. I didn’t hear anyone else complaining either, so perhaps, even on the slow days, show goers were intent on listening and exhibitors had someone to listen to the music they were playing.
When they were playing music, that is…
What seemed to be a new trend this year, many rooms were either playing music incredibly softly [merely background music], or not at all.
This is, after all, a show for people to make business contacts right? Trade-only? Held in the middle of the week?
But the reality has been that hard-core audiophiles have always ‘snuck in’ and these people played an important part of the economic viability of CES for high-end audio exhibitors. But these people now have other, more welcoming, shows to attend.
Between CES not really caring about the High Performance Audio part of the show [the CES staff are nice, and to a degree, helpful, but they are still largely ignorant about everything except for our existence], and high-end audio caring less and less about CES… [most forums do not even have a CES thread for the shows anymore].
See the trend here?
Sad because traditionally CES had the best sound of all the shows, at least at the ultra high end part of the hobby.
This year? Not so much.
This is in large part why I have decided to punt on describing how things sounded.
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When I take photos, many exhibitors point out what is new this year.
This is nice, and I make sure to take a few extra photos of the new things.
But, unlike the ‘Press’, I want photos of everything. For many people, YOUR WHOLE BRAND is new. To others, those old pieces of gear that came out last year? They are the ones at their local dealers, or on the used market, that they have been looking at actually buying.
I know Arnie tried this at Audiogon with limited success, but…
EXHIBITORS, feel free to POST YOUR MARKETING BLURB, describing your gear, in the comments section for your room.
I know, Stereophile and HiFi+, etc do this for you sometimes [if you had something new this year, and they visited your room]. But if you want to get the word out about your other gear, and in your own words… here is your chance.
