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)

     "The zoo" is of course the Las Vegas Convention Centre, which may now be the world’s largest. It allegedly covers 28 football fields, which as you know is the official North American standard area measurement. The big players are here, such as Pioneer, Panasonic, Kenwood, Microsoft, but also a zillion small companies hoping to make it big...such as the makers of these cute little multicolored loudspeakers. They weren’t getting much traffic, alas.
     Although most of the hi-fi companies are at Alexis Park, where they can have closed rooms for demos, a few opted for static displays in a hall that could accommodate a Boeing assembly line. An example is Audiolab, whose 8000S amplifier is shown here.
     Remember Audiolab? Its prices doubled after it was bought by Tag McLaren, which subsequently went bust. Audiolab was bought by the same Chinese conglomerate that now owns Quad and Wharfedale. One of the original Audiolab engineers was picked up as well, and these are updated versions of the classic units. Only they’re built in China, of course. Expected price: about US$1200 per unit, which sounds as though it might be not too far from the original prices.
     Also at the zoo was Krell. Its EVO-707 preamplifier-processor for home theatre is an impressive piece, with styling that sets it apart from most such units. Of course we haven’t heard it.
     Harman Kardon’s hospitality room was showing its own new receiver, the AVR-740. It comes with its own microphone for automatic alignment, and also with a dock for an iPod, which it can then control.
     Harman Kardon has just turned 60 by the way, and to celebrate it will launch a JBL loudspeaker that, well, doesn’t look like a JBL loudspeaker. It’s called the TL260 (some focus group must have come up with that) and it will be a limited edition. There is another new flagship called the Project Array, and we’ll let you know more in the next issue of the magazine., since we did get to actually hear it.
     In between other things, we got a demo of the latest version of SRS Wow. When we first heard Wow, it was used to turn a ratty dialup Internet feed into something listenable. The newest version will show up in big screen TV sets next Fall, and will feature such possibilities as shifting the sound of the centre speaker up or down so it seems to be coming right from the screen. But that’s only a hint.
     As happens every CES, much of the Central Hall (the biggest chunk of LVCC) was filled with countless TV sets, both good and... Because these sets are getting bigger (the 100-inch psychological barrier has been broken), they took up even more space.
     Sharp’s Aquos demo, shown at right, is a hint of the kind of money poured into marketing these sets. By the way, if you think of Sharp as a maker of doubtful economy goods, guess again. The Aquos TV sets shown this year were among the best of the show (with an exception we’ll mention in a moment). Nor does Sharp lag in technology. One of our favorite sets was the LC-65D90U, a true 1080p set...ready for the day there will be material with that much information. By the way, as the model number seems to suggest, this is an LCD set, though this is not obvious at a glance. The Aquos sets were visibly superior to the large Sony Bravia sets on display nearby.
     Also nearby was Toshiba, whose sets were also eye-pleasers. That takes in all three major technologies: plasma, DLP and LCD (DLP was the nicest, we thought). But in fact Toshiba has plans for a major change in technology, starting next year.
     And therein lies a story. In UHF No. 74 we wrote about a new display developed by Canon called SED (Surface Conduction Electron Emitter Display). Working much like the old but excellent caathode ray tube, SED has a (tiny) electron gun for each pixel. The demo, run by both Canon and its partner Toshiba, was electrifying. This is tomorrow’s display technology, and there’s just no doubt about it. Toshiba says it will make SED competitive with the other major technologies. Interesting!
     Of course the Blu-Ray people were there, and so was Toshiba’s HD DVD group. Neither technology is available in stores, and neither is on the edge of arriving, whatever the two camps may claim. And so the stuff on display has not gone beyond prototypes...such as the Sharp Blu-Ray recorder shown at right. Or for that matter what looks like actual Blu-Ray releases, like this copy of Matrix, with its distinctive Blu-Ray logo atop.
     Was it possible to actually see Blu-Ray and HD DVD? Well, duh! Both camps has not only displays but little "theatre" demonstrations, with a huckster representative explaining the advantages of each. For Blu-Ray, more resolution and possibilities for the future, and for HD DVD cheaper production with savings that can be "passed on to the consumer." As if!
     But which system actually looks better? It is of course difficult to make comparisons on different displays. Oh...except that the Blu-Ray booth was running exactly such a comparison. On twin Pioneer displays, we could see roughly synchronized playback of a Blu-Ray and an HD DVD disc.
     The verdict? It’s possible that the people who set up the comparison might have an axe to grind (you think?), but it seemed evident that Blu-Ray looks considerably better. This is as we would have expected, since HD DVD maintains high definition in part by using stronger MPEG-4 compression than Blu-Ray’s (and the DVD’s) MPEG-2 standard.
     We hope the war is over soon, and you probably know whom we’re rooting for.
     Tomorrow, the final day of CES, we’re back at Alexis Park and T.H.E.Show for the final cleanup. We should have lots to tell you about.

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