The curtain falls on CES...
     The first and second days of this mammoth shows always appear to go by slowly...and then the last day whizzes by, leaving us to realize that we haven't seen all the people we had wanted to see. No exception this year. Still, we have lots of stuff to talk about.
     
     We mentioned yesterday that two major manufacturers, Teac and Linn, were coming out with universal players, to play not only CD and DVD (as all DVD players can) but also the two "super" formats, DVD-Audio and SACD. They are not alone, it turns out.
     MSB was demonstrating its "Super DVD," a universal player with built-in volume control (no preamp needed), for US$8K. And it did sound very good. The company was also showing off its new Platinum line of upscale components. They will be sold through a network of "exclusive" dealers. Stores that sell on the internet will be the ones excluded.
     McCormack was playing a prototype of the UDP-1..."U" as in "universal." It will be much more affordable, at US$2995. The player was feeding the MAP-1 six-channel analog preamp into McCormack amplifiers (of course), feeding five Egglestone speakers.
     The Boulder room was static, but one of its stars was the 2008 phono stage, probable the world`s most expensive at an eye-popping $29,000! We had seen it last year, but it was then an empty shell. It is now ready for market, and Boulder reports brisk sales, which may seem surprising for those who believe that the economy is not what it used to be.
     There was no lack of very heavy speakers. The Rockport Antares weigh 180 kg (400 lbs!) each. The cabinet is disconcertingly thick resin and epoxy. On most music it sounded lovely, though some low-pitched strings seemed to give the speakers problems. Or perhaps these massive speakers were giving the diminutive hotel room problems.
     Not far away, the Talon Firebird speaker, also massive (see the picture) was holding sway. They were fed by the excellent Audio Aero CD player, through Tenor tube monoblocks (several Alexis Park rooms were using the Tenor electronics). The sound was at once lively and smooth. The system was enhanced by a Rives room corrector. Essentially an equalizer, the Rives uses a microphone feed to figure out the frequencies that the room has problems with, and reduce them. Though we are wary of such manipulation, the result was surprisingly good.
     The Herron electronics, complete with freestanding phono stage, look like generic black boxes, but sound clean, with a natural sweetness that was delightful. The system was all Herron except for the Joseph Audio speakers and the VPI turntable. A visual redesign may be in order, but few amplifiers sound the way these do.
     Plinius may be best known for its two-channel amplifiers, but the company was eager to show it could build a multi-channnel amp that could sound great with just two of its channels playing. The Odeon amplifier is unusually flexible. Like many amplifiers of its type, it has slots for different modules, six of them in all. Into each you can slide a single channel amp (400 watts, with short-term 2000 watt output!), or a dual channel module. You can get up to 12 channels running at once (it's up to you to work out the application). Did it sound like other Plinius amplifiers? Astonishingly enough, it did.
     The Rethm speaker is one we've seen before. It's a very good full-range horn, with an odd but pleasant sculptured look. Strangely, this one had an unfinished frame that appeared to be plywood.
     One of the surprises came from Usher, a Taiwanese speaker company with a unique asset: its attractive speakers are designed by Joseph d'Appolito, whose name adorns the familiar design of a tweeter between two woofers. The CP-8871 shown here is quite expensive (US$8400), but sounds it. A less expensive X-718 (US$950) also sounded pleasant. The fine woodwork makes them look Italian rather than Asian.
     We saw the Referencce 3a Intégrale Nouveau once again, being driven properly this time by an Antique Sound Lab tube amplifier. Its finish is now the marble-like Corian, and it will be available in all of the standard Corian colors.
     The Gradient Revolution speaker is of unique design. It consists of a midrange-treble module sitting atop a bass module that can be oriented in three different directions. That module is open-backed, giving it a bipolar output, and two of them be stacked for extra output. The version we heard was active, with a purpose-built electronic crossover (200 Hz seam) feeding a pair of Roksan amplifiers. Because open-backed woofers suffer from bass rolloff, the Gradient's crossover also boosts the bass. That makes the system prone to overload, of course, but the speaker did well in the demonstration, even in a lovely recording for double bass that taxed the low end.
     We completed the show with the Acapella Violin speakers we had heard at the Montreal show last March. This imposing German speaker uses a woofer you don't see, a blue midrange horn (other colors are available) you definitely do see, and an ionic tweeter. The tweeter has a clear advantage: it has no moving mass other than that of the air itself, and therefore no audible resonance. We listened to a number of recordings (from a CD player and electronics from Accustic Arts, also German), including such artists as Harrry Belafonte and the King's Singers. The show had been over for half an hour, technically, before we agreed to leave and let the folks from Tri-Cell get down to the pleasant task of packing everything up.
     Our evaluation of CES this year? There were more rooms at the Alexis Park, fewer at the "rebel show" at the San Remo. There was good traffic, even on the last day, which is often deathly still. We heard a lot of horrendous gear whose makers should have stayed home and saved their money. But we also heard plenty of delightful products, whose honest musicality made us optimistic about the year ahead, and about the choices that audiophiles will have.
     We wouldn't have missed it for the world.

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