Just got back from the Vegas convention.......too much to see even in 4 full days on the show floor, not to mention the Alexis Park and St. Tropez venues.
I must admit that I am a recovering audiophile of sorts, because the more I learn about electronics and gear design, the more I detest most hi-fi companies. For many years I would pour over any high-end mag that I could get my hands on, but now I look at these magazines and can appreciate the industrial design of many of these brands components and that's about it. The prices and wild marketing claims drive me up a wall!
Anyway, back to the show:
Final has some great sounding little electrostats and nice sealed box subs with drivers from the guys at Adire. Hi guys! Very reasonably prices for the systems. Akai is also marketing rebadged versions of the same speakers as well as some nice receivers with tube front ends for under $1,000. Sounded very promising even on the convention floor.
The Gallo Ref 3's were also sounding very nice for the somewhat afforable realm of speakers. Great bass for a pair of 10's using their own amp.
BG's new in-walls sounded great on the show floor....
There was so much to see that I avoided any room that looked like "normal" stuff that we could all make and went for the rooms with "odd" type speakers and such. One exception was the Lipinski suite. Their speakers are pretty white bread looking MTM's with the yellow vifa cones and XT tweet, but they DO sound wonderfull, if more than a little pricey @ $4,0000/
PR. I have heard these many times now and have been impressed each time. Bob Katz has been using them in his mastering rig for maybe 6 months now and his studio is the first place that I heard them. Very neutral sound and dynamic. The other was the Usher audio room. I was blown away by their new berillium models. Beautiful to look at AND listen to as were the smaller models. It was good to see their drivers in person for the first time too.....looked very substantial and well built.
On the super $$$ side, the big DALI line arrays were awesome as were all of the Wisdom models. Hi Mr. Bohlender!
Also, I now understand all of the hype about the big new TAD berillium model (sorry can't remember what they are called). Superb sound! A guy in their suite picked up their 10" midbass driver and wasn't prepared for the weight and droppped it on the display table. I though the whole thing would crack in half. These are the most overbuilt and bullet-proof looking drivers I have ever seen!
The big MBL things for acoustic music have also mesmerized me for a second time. Bravo.
One last thing.....I hate audiophile p&*%y music. SOOOO many suites were playing either psychotic, crack smoking jazz/noise or some weak female vocals that I wanted to puke. I mean, come on people, most speakers can sound OK with just a vocal or a few instruments playing....give the stuff a workout why don't you? Some rooms, that was all you would hear all day long. Boring!!!!!
That's all for now.....Greg
thoughts on CES 2005
