CES 2011 and the parallel show run from January 6-9th, with a special press day on the 5th (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.5th)

Day 1 (Jan.6th)

Day 2 (Jan.7th)

Day 3 (Jan.8th)

Day 4 (Jan.9th)

     This is the day we tied up the loose ends, particularly at the Venetian, the site of most of the high end audio exhibits. Did we get to see it all? No, but we expected not too.
     We're not sure the photo of the Thiel speaker at right quite does it justice. That's lacquer, not some tinted wood grain, and it was inspired by Les Paul's favorite guitar, which was in fact sitting next to it. Yes, it was for sale...at a considerable premium over Thiel's usual list price.
     However we spent some time listening to a working pair of Thiels, the SCS4T, which run $3690, driven by a pair of Bryston 7 monoblocks. This was the first time we had been able to listen to Bryston's BDP-1 digital player, along with the matching converter. The BDP-1 is an unusual hybrid product. It is not a CD player, and it does not contain a hard drive. You store your music either on your network, or just on a plug-in hard drive. No actual computer is needed, except to put your music on the drive in the first place. A portable device, such as an iPhone, can be used as a remote, and will even display artwork. The BDP-1 can operate with resolutions up to 24 bits and 192 kHz sampling rate. It can handle most common music formats, including FLAC and (this is important to iPhone and iPod owners) Apple Lossless.
     Ah, but how does the system sound? Very, very good, despite the horribly large room, whose difficult acoustics had been partly tamed by the judicious placement of Japanese screens and plants. Sonic differences between Red Book and high-resolution music were readily apparent. We have already requested both Bryston pieces for a future review in UHF.
     Thiel and Bryston did better with those impossibly-high rooms with their movable partitions than most of their neighbors did. Yg, which often bills itself as "the world's best loudspeaker" (though not this time) was showing its new Anat III, with enclosures milled from aircraft-grade aluminum, and even speaker cones similarly machined. We listened to an old favorite, Michel Jonasz' Le Temps Qui Passe (this song was first brought to these shores by 3A's Daniel Dehay, and was for a long time a staple of hi-fi shows). It might have sounded very good in a better room, or one that had been treated in some way, but here it was distant and did not have its usual transient impact. Yg actually had one of the better upstairs rooms last year, and why they returned to these cubes is a mystery.
     Another neighbor featured products from Italy, the large B2 speakers and Pi Greco electronics. The music had very good impact, and projected a suitably large space, but it was defeated by the room.
     Ocean View, which is a famous California recording studio but comes to CES to sell its homegrown monitors (one of which is at left) had also moved from the tower to one of the large but hideous rooms. Black curtains were absorbing some of the worst reverberations, allowing the huge dynamics of the speakers to come through. A large stack of Viola amplifiers was in charge of the muscle. Best of all, Ocean View had brought some digital master recordings, and there was even an Ampex ATR-100 tape machine standing by. It was a good place to hear real music, and to hear pros discuss artists and recordings.
     Italy's Mastersound was launching its newest super amplifier, the Evolution 845. Like other Mastersound amplifiers, it runs tubes in class A. Paired with the excellent Eximus CD player and the $16,000 Revolver Cygnis speakers, it sounded smooth and musical. In a totally different category was Mastersound's little Piccolo integrated amp (at right). It delivers 3 watts of class A sound per channel from single-ended EL84 tubes, and is designed to sit next to your computer. At about $2000 (the actual price is to be determined) it may cost more than the whole computer, and it doesn't include any digital inputs.
     Mastersound is not alone in aiming products at computer-age people. Check the rCube device, which is a surprisingly good all-in-one rechargeable stereo (yes, stereo) active speaker. It can stream uncompressed music and even movies from an iPod, iPad or a computer. It communicates with a device or even other rCubes by Clear Streaming, which is neither Wi-Fi nor Bluetooth. The quality is surprising for casual listening, but what is even more surprising is the name on the front: Arcam. You might consider this downmarket approach (and Arcam is not alone in this) to be a sign of tough economic times, but it can also be seen as an attempt to draw a younger, mobile-oriented demographic into higher-quality music reproduction.
     An rCube costs $799.
     We got a glimpse of a Revolver Rebel 2 turntable, the product most often associated with Revolver, which is now primarily a speaker manufacturer (its Music 5 speakers will be reviewed in UHF No. 90). A new version will eventually be launched, the price not yet determined.
     It's well known that EveAnna Manley, who runs the amplifier company bearing her last name, likes large loudspeakers. She used to own the larger-than-life Tannoy Churchills. She came to CES with a new Tannoy model, the Kingdom. Here it is, dwarfing the Model 250 monoblock next to it (a Manley Steelhead preamp was nearby). The sources were a Linn DS server and an LP12 turntable, and we asked to hear both. Some care had been taken in setting up the room, and the sound was full, with amazingly low distortion. A good room.
     Canada's Focus Audio was showing its new FP88 SE speaker, which is large but not as large as the models of its Master series. With an Audionote CD player and PS Electronics amplification, it made for pleasant listening.
     Anthony Gallo Acoustics is known for unusual speakers, some of which are very tall line sources, and others that have a rounded escargot shape. Those models are not going away, but the company is seeking higher WAF (wife acceptance factor) with its new, more conventional Classico wood series. The Classico III, at left, was playing, and was having some difficulty with the acoustics when heard from a too-distant couch. Moving closer brought them to life. The company is not using generic drivers. Indeed, the patented tweeter provides a challenge for the grille, which had to be shaped to fit over it. The Classico III costs $1995, though smaller models will be well below $1000.
     The buzz we were hearing at the Venetian tower was all about the Perfect8 Force speaker from Sweden. That's it at right, yet another glass loudspeaker.
     The "8" in the name comes from the figure-eight radiation pattern, not from the eight vertically-mounted woofers, which look out from the laminated plate glass front baffle but are decoupled from it. A second laminated glass panel is at 90 degrees from the front, and its edge rests against the rear of the drivers. The rear is left open. A very tall proprietary ribbon tweeter provides the high frequencies A dual subwoofer, class D amplified, on the floor to the left of the speaker, takes over below 56 Hz, down to a claimed 8 Hz. The three-driver speaker sitting atop the subwoofer is a different model, and is not part of the system.
     The speakers weigh some 160 kg, but fortunately they come apart. The price is heavyweight too, at $325,000.
     The sound, with a full stack of Ypsilon gear, was...well, we did say that there was a lot of buzz around the Perfect8's, and it was for good reason.
     Another CES over, then. Our impression: without generating the overcrowding of shows of a decade ago, both CES and T.H.E.Show have bounced back, possibly following the upward curve in the world economy. There was, certainly, lots to see and hear.
     And potentially to buy.
     

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