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2008 CES/T.H.E. Show
Up In the Tower
Well at this point I’ve spent nearly a day and
a half in Vegas and have yet to spend much
time in the Venetian tower rooms where most of
the exhibits are. So my expectations were to
be overwhelmed by an abundance of great
looking and sounding systems. Was I
disappointed? Read on.
World Hi-Fi Group
(Escalante/Electrocompaniet): It was a reunion
of sorts for me when I came upon the World Hi-Fi
Group room which distributes the Escalante
Design loudspeakers and electronics from
Electrocompaniet. My reference system from a
few years ago was comprised of the Talon Audio
Peregrine X speakers which were designed
Escalante’s Tierry Budge, and Electrocompaniet
Nemo mono amps, EC4.7 preamp and EMC-1 CD
player. This year, Escalante’s room featured
Budge’s best speaker design to date, the
Fremont ($20,990/pr), along with electronics
from Electrocompaniet including the EMC-1UP CD
player ($7,700), the new EC4.8 preamp ($5,800)
and AW400 mono amps ($15,000/pr). The Fremonts
were finished in a dazzling Indianapolis Red
Metallic paint. This two-channel system
rendered a holographic image of Kurt Elling
and Al Jareau singing/scatting Dave Brubeck’s
immortal Take Five.
As a bonus, I was able to hear and see this
same performance in the room next door which
featured the new Electrocompaniet EMP1
six-channel universal player ($11,000), EC4.9
six-channel preamp ($8,500), and a AW2x120-M
dual mono amp ($7,400) and AW3x120-M triple
mono amp ($9,400). The speakers in the
multi-channel setup were the Escalante Pinyons
($10,900/pr) in front, Junipers ($7,990/pr) in
the rear, Juniper center channel ($3,995/ea)
and Uinta subwoofer ($7,990). Again, the sound
was great but the visuals provided by the EMP1
took the enjoyment to another level.
Staying with the Escalante theme, there were a
couple of neat source components that I saw
for the first time. Charlie Harrison the U.S.
distributor for Margules Audio and Ayon Audio
showed off new products in a system anchored
by the Fremonts. The Ayon CD-3 ($5,995) is a
two-box top-loading tubed digital playback
system sporting elegant looks and wonderful
sonics. They also had on hand a new iPod based
system from Margules that provided
surprisingly good sound with the tubed
electronics that were being used.
Avatar Acoustics:
Darren Censullo’s room was one of the most
dynamic I heard all week. The system featured
Franck Tchang’s the drop-dead-gorgeous
Acoustic Systems Tango loudspeakers. The
Tangos feature a 1” silk dome tweeter, 5”
midrange and three 8” woofers in a frequency
range of 15 Hz to 25 KHz! They were being
driven by the splendid Karan Acoustics KA M
1200 mono amps ($50,000/pr) and KA L Reference
preamp ($15,500) and the system was fronted by
the popular Abbingdon Music Research CD-77 CD
player ($8,500). The system was wired with
interconnects from a new company called
Current Cable ($2,000/1m XLR). The power cords
and speaker cables were Harmonix.
Half Note Audio:
Daniel Barnum of high-end distributor Half
Note Audio (a real life descendant of P.T.
Barnum himself) is fast becoming one of the
most fascinating people in the industry to me.
While many U.S. distributors are looking for
inexpensive products that can be sold to the
masses, Daniel seeks products that frankly,
only a small tribe of people might be
interested in or can afford. The roster of
manufacturers represented in his room at the
Venetian reads more like a “Who’s Who” of
European hi-fi, except for an Oracle CD player
that was the source component of his main
room, but even that was connected to the
Slovenian-made Stylos SYS DAC ($15,000). Shown
is the new and very attractive Tidal Contriva
loudspeaker ($44,900
in African Mohogany) and the legendary German made ASR Emitter II
Exclusive B integrated amp ($26,900) which
features two separate power supplies and a
battery power supply for the preamp section.
He also used the Tiffany-like Argento Serenity
Master Reference cables (speaker cable
$11,875/1m, interconnect $7,500/1m) and Flow
Master Reference power cords ($4,950/2m) from
Denmark throughout and an Audiostone equipment
rack made in Norway. The amp sat on a Critical
Mass Systems Grand Master isolation stand
($2,365). If you don’t know these companies
very well yet, start doing some homework
because they make some of the best products
available.
In addition to this setup, Daniel was also
hosting private demonstrations of the new
Pythagoras turntable designed by the creator
of the brilliant Thales tonearm, Micha Huber.
The Pythagoras integrates a turntable with a
massive granite platter into an Audiostone
stand made out Norwegian granite. The table
comes equipped with the Thales tonearm in a
package costing a dizzying $80,000! The table
I heard was equipped with an EMT cartridge and
was connected to an EMT preamp and Tidal
Impact ($40,000) amplifier. The system played
music through a pair Tidal Piano loudspeakers
($28,900/pr).
Perfect 8/BAL:
Jay Bertrand of Bertrand Audio Imports may
have been responsible for one of the most
audacious demos of the entire show. His room
featured the Perfect 8 Technologies “The
Force” loudspeakers ($275,000!) and Bridge
Audio Labs electronics. Now as easy as that
was to say, it is ten times more difficult to
describe. These speakers stand nearly seven
feet tall, weigh more than 350 lbs each and
are made of glass! They were partnered with
two “The Force” subs each having its own
external amplifier. These gargantuan speakers
were being driven by the equally massive and
gorgeously built Bridge Audio Labs BP-1 MKII
amplifier ($70,000) and BC-1 MKII control amp
($55,000). The system was fronted by an
Accustic Arts DAC-1 ($7,000) and Drive-1
($6,500). You’ll have to do some investigating
if you want to learn more about these
products, but I’m sure you’ll find them to be
as fascinating as I did. The really good news
though, is that this system sounded absolutely
spectacular! But did it sound $275,000 worth
of spectacular? Unfortunately, I probably
won’t get to hear it again until next year’s
show. I’ll let you know after I’ve had a
second listen. Sensory Power cables were used
throughout.
 King
Sound:
Getting back to more reasonable fare, I
remembered editing Lew Lanese’s excellent
review last year of the King electrostatic
loudspeaker from King Sound. They seemed like
one heck of a bargain for the price and the
level of performance the Lew indicated they
were capable of. He was right. But the value
for the dollar didn’t stop at the King
loudspeaker as I felt the same way after
spending quite a bit of time listening to the
King’s slightly smaller sibling, the Prince II
($4,000). Listening once again to my Erin Bode
disc I was entranced by the wonderful imaging
and soundstaging capabilities of this 'stat.
At only $4K a pair, these speakers represent a
golden opportunity to experience a type of
musicality rarely afforded by dynamic designs.
The Prince IIs were driven by the MBL 8011AM
mono amps ($13,000/pr)
 Coincident
Technology:
Israel Blume found a great way to get people
into his Coincident Technology room: have an
attractive and quite pleasant young lady greet
you at the door. The young lady was a
ravishing redhead named Eve Ren but let’s be
honest, she wasn’t the only reason to stop in
this room. Blume was demonstrating a
Coincident Technology system featuring a pair
of Pure Reference loudspeakers ($22,000/pr)
being driven by his own Dragon 211PP and M300B
Frankenstein mono amps. An Audio Aero CD
player was the front end source.
Venture Audio:
Venture Audio was another room that went the
system route. They featured the gorgeous
looking and sounding Reference III
loudspeakers ($135,000/pr) being driven by
their own V 100A+ mono amps ($67,500/pr), VP
100L linestage ($38,250), and VP 100P phono
stage ($24,750). The system was fronted with
an Immedia turntable.
Uniwave/Golden Sound:
Whenever I go into a demo with Allan Chang of
Golden Sound, I know that there will be
something interesting to see and plenty of
good sound. This year was no different. As
part of the Uniwave room which featured the
Chateau Reference Monitors, Anaco 2
amplifiers, Anaco 2 preamp, and a scary good
(and cheap!) Oppo DV-980H universal disc
player, Allan had his famous Golden Sound
tweaks in full effect,
 DH
cones and squares, heck he even claimed to
employ small sacks of jelly beans on top of
the speakers and small trays of water with
tiny flowers in them as part of their set up.
But the tweak that really blew me away was the
new “CD Energizer.” The Energizer looks like a
3” round by ˝” thick black plastic disc with a
black cone sticking up from it and a clear
plastic cone stick out from it. While not
getting into the science of what it does, he
proceeded to take my favorite and well worn
Erin Bode disc Over and Over, and placed it on
the Energizer and pressed a button which
flashed a light through my disc and voila!
Suddenly my disc was cleaner sounding with
noticeably more transparency and detail. I
still don’t know what this thing does but it
works. Unfortunately, Allan says the effects
of the energizer don’t last.
Dave's Top Ten
I must have visited more than one hundred
rooms during the week and I know I still
missed getting to many more. In fact, I ended
my coverage of the high-end exhibits early on
the last day so that I would still have a
little time to check out some of the exhibits
over at the Las Vegas Convention Center
(a.k.a. The Zoo). There I saw things like the
world’s largest plasma HDTV (150”) by
Panasonic, a Giorgio Armani cell phone, and
more video games than I could stand. I saw
enough to know that I’d rather stay with the
audio gear.
But out of all the exhibits I saw I managed to
come up with a list of the Ten Best Rooms at
the Shows. I like each of these rooms for a
variety of reasons. All offered great sound
but some were chosen because they represented
great values while some were selected due to
there sheer beauty and combination of
strengths. So here they are in alphabetical
order:
•
April Music: Aura Note and Aura Speaker
• Audio Design & Marketing: Berning,
TW-Acustic, German Physiks, Exemplar
• Avatar Acoustics: Abbingdon Research, Karan
Acoustics, Acoustic Systems
• Bertrand Audio Imports: Perfect 8/Bridge
Audio Labs
• Half Note Audio: ASR, Tidal, Stylos,
Audiostone, Pythagoras, Argento, Critical
Mass,
• King Sound Oracle
• MBL
• NAT Distribution: Raysonic, JAS Audio
• Signals Super-Fi: Vitus Audio, German
Physiks, Continuum, Stereovox
• World Hi-Fi Group: Escalante,
Electrocompaniet
Well that’s it for me folks. It was a great
time to see some exciting new products and get
excited about the future of our hobby and
passion. See you next year!
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