CES 2007

                                          
 

The 2007 edition of the CES/T.H.E. Show was once more a wonderful place to see and hear some great high-end audio equipment, but a change in exhibition venue left some of the manufactures in rooms that were less than ideal. T.H.E. Show was once again held at the St. Tropez but the new twist this year found the high-end portion of CES held at the Venetian. Exhibitors were split up between the suites in the Venetian Towers and the conference rooms at the Sands/Venetian. The conference rooms were certainly not the best places to demonstrate two channel audio, because the rooms were cavernous with really high ceilings and in some cases rooms were only separated by partitions. Still, vendors did their very best and the majority of the rooms sounded very good.

For the past few years, as you might recall, both shows were right next to one another and it was fairly easy to cover both CES and T.H.E. Show. Just like last year T.H.E. Show was held at the St. Tropez. Although the St. Tropez and the Venetian are less than two miles apart, traveling during peak hours (anytime during the day), could be a nightmare! On Monday and Wednesday it took about 50 minutes to travel one way to get over to the Venetian and that was after I waited twenty minutes for the shuttle!

Also the signage could have been improved because I almost missed an entire floor had it not been for bumping into Philip O’Hanlon of Halcro. On my way to visit the Rives Audio suite I discovered an entire new floor of audio gear at the Sands/Venetian.

Now that I’ve informed you about some of the anomalies that plagued the show and let off a little steam, let’s talk about the good stuff. Over at T.H.E. Show there were a few rooms that I was able to get to that had very good sound. I didn’t get a chance to see as many as last year because most of my time was spent at the Venetian.

One of the rooms that produced some beautiful music was the Escalante Design/ Modwright room. Dan Wright of Modwright, Peter Clark of Redpoint, and Frank Kraus of FLK Marketing put on an a very nice sounding demo. The Escalante Design Pinions ($6,900.00) were driven by the Belles MB-01 mono amps ($12,000.00) and a new preamp by Modwright, the LS 36.5 ($3,995.00). Dan Wright’s new preamp will have a balanced input and output and an outboard tube rectification power supply. It will also have new cosmetics. Source components were the Redpoint turntable ($15,500.00) with Triplanar tonearm ($3,900.00) and Phase Tech PH-1 phono cartridge ($2,000.00) connected to a Modwright SWP 9.0 SE phono preamp ($2,995.00). I spent a fair amount of time listening to vinyl in this room and the sound was everything that you would expect from a high performance setup with a tube preamp and a Class-A solid-state amplifier, rich, warm, and very musical. The presentation was so good that I found it hard to leave the room.

Across the hall were the very affordable and excellent sounding Acoustic Zen Adagios ($4300.00). These very detailed, musical performers, with tight bass were driven by Red Dragon Leviathan monoblocks ($5,995.00). Other associated equipment was the Modwright SWLP 9.0 SE ($4,995.00) preamp, Modwright Sony 9100 SE ($4,000.00) modified DVD player, and VPI Scout ($1,695.00) with Dynavector 10x5 cartridge ($380.00). All cabling was of course Acoustic Zen. This is one really good sounding loudspeaker that produces a wide soundstage with incredible dynamics and is a real bargain.

Down the hall the Rethem Saadhanas ($6,500.00) with separate bass modules was the perfect loudspeaker for listening to classical and straight-ahead jazz. As you can tell by the pictures these are some really interesting but good looking loudspeakers. Amplification was provided by the Melody Hi-Fi I2A3 ($3,000.00). Digital sources were the Metronome CD-3 Signature ($10,800.00) and analog duties were handled by a Sound Engineering turntable with DaVinci tonearm ($6500.00). The Rethem’s threw a wide soundstage with pinpoint imaging and presents singers with a presence that is so up close and personal that I was wondering if it was live. They use a single source Lowther driver that helped to contribute to the wonderful presentation. On more intense drum solos I found the dynamics to be good but some die-hard bass fans might want to add a subwoofer.

 

                                                              Next Page