CES 2006 and the parallel slow run from January 5-8, with a special press day on the 4th (Day Zero, we call it). Click to visit each of UHF's live reports. The report will appear early the next day, if not before.

CES Preview

Day 0 (Jan.4th)

Day 1 (Jan.5th)

Day 2 (Jan.6th)

Day 3 (Jan.7th)

Day 4 (Jan.8th)

     Alexis Park is of course the Las Vegas resort where most of the CES high end audio exhibits can be found. Oh, and some video as well. For some reason, on this first day we ran across a disproportionately high number of loudspeakers.
     The Reference 3a Veena was one of them, and we’ve seen it before: a pair is going through break-in as we write this. Driving the Veenas was a pair of Antique Sound Lab single-ended monoblocks, The Explorers. Despite the single tube the amps put out something like 45 watts, and had no trouble handling the Veenas. Nice. By the way, those strange claws under the amp are an anti-vibe device from Granite Audio.
     A totally unknown speaker to us was the one from Sunny Audio. The movie demo (with the famous scene from The House of Flying Daggers) was impressive, but so was the two-channel music demo. That model, just finished and not yet priced, projects an astonishing image despite its large size.
     Some four years ago we first saw a Taiwanese speaker called Usher. It was back, this time with a CD player and electronics as well. The speakers, shown here, appear to be Italian-inspired. The overall sound was not quite up to the looks, though we should add there were far too many speakers in the room. These sound like large speakers, not always a good thing.
     Much more impressive, and this is no surprise, was the newest version of the Acapella Violon, the large horn-loaded speaker with the virtually massless ionic tweeter. The bass cabinet is now closed rather than open. It has always sounded gorgeous in every demo we have attended.
     The Audio Acoustic Sapphire TI-C SE was a real find. These speakers are large, with sculpted glossy cabinets made from many layers, and ceramic drivers: two angled woofers and a tweeter. The price is enough to knock you out of your chair: some US$69K. But the sound! On a recording of Mahler’s Second, the string sound was startlingly close to real.
     Thorens was back with some turntables, which is no surprise. That they also brought Thorens-branded monoblocks was a little less expected. With ELAC speakers, the combination sounded rather nice.
     Boulder had its usual components for those with judicious investments, but also brought along its new entry-level 800 series. Entry-level? Well, don’t get your hopes up, because its monoblocks alone are $10K.
     Innersound is moving downscale too. Its empty room had a letter taped to it, explaining that the company’s large electrostatic speakers were not selling, and it was working on a new series of less expensive hybrid speakers, to be called Windsong. Ensemble was another no-show, also with an explanation taped to the door.
     Several Italian speaker companies were represented, and with luck we’ll tell you more in the days ahead. The two colorful speakers at left are from Eventus. Its larger models are more conservative, with curved wood sides that look...well, Italian.
     Totem’s front room was showing its familiar models, but the back room was outfitted with the new Tribe speakers, designed as a home theatre series. There are three versions,priced individually at US$750, $950 and $1500. They are long slim columns, with a tuned port at each end, easily placed at each side of the screen as well as underneath. They are meant as a long step above Totem’s Dreamcatcher series.
     Focus Audio was showing its Master 3, a giant speaker that is, however, less giant than some of its other models. The Toronto company has also picked up distribution of a Danish electronics series, VA. The VA monoblocks (shown at right), operating in pure class A, have a price tag of...US$49K. A Weiss transport and DAC completed the setup, which we spent some pleasant minutes listening to.
     We spent a few more minutes with another Canadian-built speaker, the Hansen Prince (US$27K, and there are bigger ones). It’s a three-way design with a proprietary midrange and woofer. One of our favorite tracks, the Ray Brown Trio’s Take the A Train (from LP yet!) sounded convincing.
     In the same room was the eye-catching Magnum-Dynalab MD-109 tuner. It has a five-digit price, and is billed as "satellite-ready." This means that either an XM or Sirius receiver module will be available, but the company has yet to decide which (helpful hint: Sirius couldn’t get a press conference together this year).
     Over at the Rogue room, we heard the Stereo 90 power amplifier, the same one we reviewed in UHF No. 74. Alongside it was a brand new preamplifier, the Perseus. This US$1795 unit is full of features: a phono stage with MM and MC, a fixed output for home theatre, and an extra output which can be either fixed, like a tape output, or variable for a subwoofer or a second amp.
     By the way, we had a little problem with the Stereo 90. One of its tubes died in shipping, and someone later stepped on a second tube. The result was that, by the time we did the photography, we no longer had four absolutely identical tubes. But heck, that wouldn’t matter, and nobody would notice, we were confident of that. But Rogue’s Mark O’Brien saw it right off!
     Tomorrow we’re off to T.H.E.Show, at the St. Tropez, right next door to Alexis Park. And by the way, someone at CES did figure out that it might be necessary to have parking available at Alexis Park, and not take up the space with empty trucks. So far so good.
     Tonight we partied at ShowStoppers, an event we’ll tell you all about as soon as we...zzzzz!

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