Part 1: The initial associations…

(last year CES 2005 at  http://www.goodsoundclub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=484)

The CES 2006 was as usually, probably slightly worst then usual subqualified level, somewhere under the bottom of my always foolishly optimistic expectations. It is ease to complain about the audio show at CES….Still, this trip to CES I eventually got a feeling settling the CES in my perception.

The CES is a strip joint. Not practically an upscale strip-joint but a little stinky and obnoxious tittie-shop. You found yourself in a boring place during a boring time and drifted into a local “gentlemen club”. You are starching on a comfortable couch, smoking the biggest and strongest Cohaba ever produced. You are somewhat at the 3/5 of the cigar and this loud music has already do not bother you as you are deep into your Cohaba’s trip. You are high on your sigar and your mind is wondering across the peripheral of your awareness wondering why Ernestine refused to embrace quantum mechanic…. A semi-naked girl is dancing. Perhaps under a different conditions her artistry would attract you but now your “Cohabanised Ernestine” is something that fascinates you more. You give to her a dollar, or a twenty or a hundred, completely without caring what she did and how much she would get paid. You do not care about her. She does not bother you. You do not need her, eat least now and you both keep a mutually comfortable distance form each other, still you wish to keep her “warm and running somewhere nearby” and therefore you are feeding her with cash… How much this strip-club and this girl worth to you of subtract the Cohaba’s smoke and the comfortable sofa? At this time it cost for you not more then a strip bar tip – namely a buck or two. In your mind you give a tip to that girl not because the quality of her service but because she happen to be there when you happened smoked your sigar… Hey, this is her work place, you must pay if you use it, so, you juts rent it out and use it in the way you happen to prefer…

The irony is that the Hi-End CES show is absolutely identical where all vendors and participants are juts the employee of one big erotic entertainment sweatshop. They sit in their rooms, chaise the visitors, attracting them with their lap-dances. Any person with healthy awareness clearly understand the artificiality of the events and never confuse it with Realty, would it be the Realty of being pleased with female body or with the realty of real Audio.  A dance of a strip-girl or the dance of the hi-fi manufactures, representative and the dealers is just a routine of amusements and it worth as much as it cost – laterally a dolor. They jump, scream, wave you with different particles of own body, they puff themselves up, they try to express your affection to you… and perhaps they succeed (or you can make them believe that they did)… if you’re not be smoking you Cohuba during their striping. So far, those strip-audio professionals worth to you juts a few bucks that you pay to them in order them do not bother you….

A reader, who have read up to here, would ask: “So, Romy was the CES good?” I do not know how to answer as I do not remember the show. I remember a wonderful taste of the Cohuba’s smoke. I remember the fractions of the naked legs and breasts mixed with assurance that the only best parts were used to assemble something… I remember the ignorant but arrogant statements that were not backed up by anything tangible or demonstratable. I remembers how adults and generally smart people converted themselves into voluptuary idiots when they were running their leaps speaking about audio. I remember the reference points of the 11 years old teenagers were presented as the Mecca of human audio development. I remember the strip-club music was played on $200.000 installations and I remember that the entire hi-fi industry that was dancing nearby, naked and unrequested…. nearby where I smoke my Cohaba.

So, what was the CES 2006?  With a next few days I will surmise very-very briefly my observations but I doubt that I will be able to say more then I have said already. Whoever I have seen and heard in Vegas was as fascinating as the few bucks that you give to a naked women, the naked women who just happen to be near you when you were at the 3/5 of your cigar….

To be continue….
Romy the Cat

Part 2: Music

When I said above that the music played at CES 2006 was the strip-music then I was not lying. I have seen a Moron who was jumping form room to room begging each vendor to play for him the soundtrack of the depth-chargers for U-571 movie. The vendor’s music was not much far. The typical crappy jazz or the insultingly up-closed recoded strings. Some of the vendors (and the vendors with the “big names”) had even no classical repertoire among the music they brought to the show.

The vendors who had some remote signs of consciousness used different type of music to hide to problems they have with thier system. “ Today we play juts lute music or the sole piano for the right hand only”. Any more or less demanding performance took the system apart, literally. You really could not blame the system’s hosts for what they did arranging simple music to mask out the system’s problem. Still, spending 3 days at CES I did not heard any single recording, played or sold that I would be interesting even to ask what it was. I presume that luck of any desire for people to bring up an interesting material came from the generally very poor sound at the show? Perhaps, but I have my reasons to doubt that it was the real reasons…

The caT

Part 3: Sound

The sound generally at CES was disgusting. There were virtually no rooms with something that might be marginally conceded interesting. There were some more or less interesting episodes, though… All interesting episodes, no mater how few there were, took place at St Tropez hotel (the location of T.H.E Show). The St Tropez’s neighbor – the Alexis Park hotel (the location of the CES Show) was in deep deep deep deep ***. No single installation in Alexis Park sound even remotely worth more $50. I am not kidding. In fact each and single installation in Alexis Park sounded absolutely identical: superbly comparers, with very-very muggy upper bass, with ears-wrenching upper midrange harshness and with complete discoloration of notes. The Alexis Park’s was a magnificent illustration what electricity might do to sound (I presume it was it). No one talks about it seriously, not one trying to understand what is going on with electricity, there is no attention or remedy to the problems. Very unfortunate… The very few manufactures that work with the domain of filtering, isolation or regeneration of power source but they are not at the level whey they should be. Their devises curing one of the minute aspects of power aggravation unfortunately destroy entire Sound as a side affect.

The St Tropez’s sound also snuffed from electricity but it was rather temporarily and when you were lucky to listen something between the electricity’s anxiety attacks then it sounded as it should… well, as much as the given playback installation allowed it to be…

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

Part 4: Audio

There were very- very few interesting products that attacked my attention.

Steven Klein, the Vibraplane guy form NH, who keep buying the audio toys in Japan and selling them to the Americans for quadruple price this time brought an interesting device. It is some kind of optical finalizer for CD. I it relay another little gizmo when you radiate a CD with very strong light source that perusable make it better. There is some big theory behind that I do not know or care. I have heard many or them and have trued many of the different CD improvements. I can personally testify that all of them are garbage (Clark do not even start with the Reality CD ;-) and all of them false as soon you begin to use a REAL good CD. So, when I visited the Steven room and he took my CD and without asking me (!) ran in he stupid optical finalizer machine I was very much annoyed.  To my surprised the CDD after this machine did perfumed way more interfering and it was auditable even in context of that challenged Condo playback. When I heard that the optical finalized CD made those Condo little monitors to sound like a honky horns I said that I wonna it. There was an array of other quite positive employments…. I am  not rally a big fun of Steven Klein, he know it quite well but let pay the dues where it should – his optical finalizer did demonstrated itself very affectively.  Of could wherever the Steven Klein is his stinky dealer nature rush from Earth like an eruption from the Vesuvius! When I told him that I wont the unit he begin his typical disgusting dancing around the prices: your price, his price, list price, dealer price, industry prices, near-industry price… I like to play all those game but for whatever reasons I hate when he does it and he is very series about it. Each single word he is saying, each single thoughts flying in his head has very district association in his mind with receivable cash and I do not feel comfortable to be a subject of it. “Romy, I would give you a better price if you were the industry person”. I wonder what I have to do to become the industry person: to French-kiss with Atkinson, reduce my IQ on 100 pint, demote my listening intelligence o the kindergarten level, begin to blab on the subjects that I have no clew and begin o shake the hand with the morons who I do not respect and no interest? Thanks! Anyhow, I decided do not buy the unit in Japan for a fraction of the price and let Steve to make his profit – he well deserved it discovering this gismo. Well, the Steven Klein remains to be the Steven Klein with all his little miserable thighs…. still, his optical finalizer works and deserved to be used.

Another interesting think come from AudioPax. Somewhere between the Brazilian bananas plantation and football fields (do not confuse with the game for the Morons – the American Football) there is Eduardo de Lima. Eduardo is Brazilian engineer and as many times I met him I rely liked the way in whish he thinks. I also, like him personally as there is something in him that make him very much not the “industry type”. Anyhow, Eduardo brought his new 30W fully SS, Class A, single-ended amp that I find might be very interesting and I appreciate some objectives that he put into this amsp. It was hared to listen anything in his room as there was no real loudspeakers in his room (the box loudspeakers of 90dB driver by SET are not loudspeakers for me) but what I have heard in context even his installation made me wonder how this 30W single-ended amp would drive a properly designed and built horn. I do not know the answers but the direction that Eduardo went might be very prospective.

The last interning product that I spotted was brought into US by estimable Victor Goldstein of Fanfare International. It is French made little monitors that all together sounded very accurate. Yes, the did sound like small speakers and I usually do not even try to listen any speakers that have the short side sorter then the longest starch of my Cat but the “Acoustic Production ASA” (Grand Monitor) did OK. Yes, choked with large musk but very-very gentry and non-annoying. All together for the very little space that they take, for the very little money that they cost and for many little affords they required they produced the very reasonable result. I was lucky to get the when the elasticity was good and they form my point of view produced the best among all handicapped sounds that I had head at that Show. Interesting that I returned there in 30 min and it was already much sharper and with much rubbery bass. Among the problem that I detected with then was the they completely change the response with the distance and if you are not in the optimism position then the FH will destroy your listening experiences. Another problem is the price. For the idiotic American consumers those speakers would not be popular for this money.  Victor should jack up the price over $20K then this baby would fly….

Anyhow, it was pretty much it and I do not remember anything else that I would fine worth to mention. I do not know if what I did mention was worth to mention but at least it was what stand above for me or exited me …

Part 5: Horns

It was quite bad, bad on all horns…..

The first was the  “new horns guy”  …

(references to: http://www.goodsoundclub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=484)

This year behaved quite nicely. Seeing me he immediately told that he has nothing to demonstrate to now but if I visiting San-Francisco he would be happy to take me to his client’s site and let me to listen his 5-ways installations. I still have my concerns about this guy but I like when people do not just run this mouse but demonstrate the actually accomplished results. This exactly what he was ready to do and he spoke very confidently. When I told him that his speakers were not time-aligned this time he knew what it meant and he explained that the entire system is digitally crossed and time-aligned. Well, I do not want to start again about the digital crossover and probably should withhold me negativism until I visit San Francisco and head the “new horns guy’s” intention.

Avantgarde brought their Duo model. I generally not a big fan of Dio and in addition they were in Alexis Park: the combination of poor loudspeakers and bad electricity was practically deadly. What, however surprised me that the Avantgarde guys refused to do anything with own bad sound, although there were some means to at least minimize the electricity damage.

The large Classic Audio Repudiation are not really horns but wonna-be-horns. They still did not do well. I am not a big fun of the Classic Audio Repudiation sound as there are two things that they constantly and persistently do wrong: complete non-reasonable positioning of their loudspeakers and use of the Atmosphere electronics. Both are deadly horrible for sound.

Bruce Edgar brought his new Titan II system. As I was told it was heavily customized MF drives and completely new, this time straight 80H, upper bass horn. Well, as far as I can tell the Titan II was disaster. The upperbass horns were howling like wounded in his ass wolf, the entire bass was muddy and very-very insulting, the room felt like you are being squashed by 500 tonn pile of debris… The MF has no transient response at all and was sounding worst then the Altec with symbiotic diaphragms. The tweeters were rolled off too soon and the entire systems system sounded like an 81dB sensitive mid-range driver with marble diaphragm. I have no idea in which direction Bruce decided to do, perhaps he picked a few mode customers in Mid West and it was their signature sound. With all notable problem of his Titan I system that he demonstrated last year (wich was very-very nice) sounded very far from what the Titan II demonstrated this year. I think, Bruce should very seriously rework and review the design or implementation of the Titan II as the progress in this direction would juts add to the idiots-horn-haters some credibility. If Bruce, with his experience will not be able to make more or less responsibly sounding horns then who would?

Steve, Rich from Cogent and the Oswaldsmill’s Jonathan brought a big horn installation. It hard to judge those gays hard, as it was their first introduction as demonstrators, they obviously have no experience to run the showrooms and in multiple issues they did shut themselves in this own foot. My initial feeling about the Cogent intentions, after being stressed by the titanium tweeters in other rooms, was very-very positive. I really liked soft they handled the dynamic stresses. Their electro-magnetic driven, 3 ways playback sounded very soft and very non-abusive. The electricity was fine as well and the total experience was quite relaxing. However, returning for another dozen or more times in Cogent room I liked the sound less and less each time and I felt that the new severe problems unfold themselves. The Cogent’s huge LF channels should not be used or at least in the way in which it was implemented. It is shame that they spent so much effort to built, deliver and to unstill this huge upper bass horn and that this sucker did as poorly as it did.  Do you remember as in the book about the “Three Little Pigs” the wolf farted and the home of one of the piggy got demolished? I felt the very same each time the woofer went on. Probably there were not reasons to build a huge subwoofer enclosure from “papier mache” and use electromagnetic driver in there. With the flux modulation of the electromagnetic the LF will always be off the wall… unless your definition of success in bass reproduction is to play the Charly Chaplin piano soundtracks… on the “period instruments”. The upper bass horns were wrong, juts plain wrong, not to mention that the upperbass horns were overwhelmed with the not-unloaded bass. The MF horns were very resonating. In fact I head in those MF horns something the negatively unique that I never head before: the reflection of the room IN THE BELL of the horn!!! The MF driver did not have necessary phasing plague extension and as a result it was loosing (I might only estimate) 2-2.5K of its HF capacity. The MF was also more decolorized then I would like. The driver had no own “smell” and dos not be able to render the “smell” of the reproduced tones… I mean the MF drive accurately render the signal but it’s sound was very bland and depersonalized. No salt, no paper not species, juts the distill water…. I meant the Winner Philharmonic’s string sounded like Kirov Orchestra and the woodwind of Prague Philharmonic sounded like woodwind of London Symphony. Actually all tones sound very much the same, or more precise…. like nothing. The pitched were unquestionably correct and I did not detect any harmonic problems but they have no smell, not after taste, not beauty, no humanity and no dirt, the dirt when all music lives…. The longer I was listening the Cogent the more this depersonalization of the MF drives annoyed me. Steve and Rich put a lot of efforts in those driver but I think they should mentally remove themselves from the enslaving them concept that they imitate the 70 year old RCA driver and put themes in a position of the creators of their own demands and this own sound. Steve, a former piano tuner, should hear and recognize it. Now he have to tech his drivers to sing, the really sing. Not in the way in which tier cosines did in 30s and 40s but better.  There were a few other things that I did not like but it would be too long to mention each detail, also without a proper LF support my comments might be mistaken.  In addition, the Cogent should be more serious about the electronics as the Ron Wilborne’s amps and preamps were not adequate. Those amps were fine to drive the “yellow drivers” in the homes of the AA’s Moron’s but probably nowhere else.   I think Steve; Rich have a lot of work ahead of them before getting out of their drivers something interesting. So far, they reached a point that they did something… and that “something” produces Some Kind Of Sound. Now, they need to learn hot to navigate this sound into the direction that they needed.

That peaty much end of the horn observation at CES. I was very disappointed with the horns presentation at the show. Perhaps my judgment would upset some  good people but I try truthful demonstrate not a respect to the people or to the agendas but the concept of better horn sound. Still, despite, the best efforts of limited number of the enthusiasts an average audio-Joe had not opportunity to hear any properly performing horns at CES 2006.  Very sad....

Part 6: the curtain down

What we have in the end of the CES? We consumers, really do not need it. The reps and the vendors have some use of it but the cost per transaction at the CES actually is very foolish. The very same contacts and the very same publicity at the today’s world might be accomplished by very different means and substantially more effective then CES. At least any single manufactures with whom I spoke were bitching that the CES for them was just the waste of money and time.

So, who need the CES? The answer is: the only the audio media who keep the CES (as many other actions in the industry) as an ultimate extortion mechanism. The manufactures and reps jus afraid “do not show up at CES” as it might send a message to the dealers and the customers that the company is shadowing. So, the entire $5-$30K of a manufacture’s money (that eventually become the customers money) got wasted at CES only in order for some kind of idiot-reviewers mention the company once or twice in this moronic publication… Dose it worth for you, a manufacturer? Dose it worth for you, a consumer? Let look. $5K-$30K is a lot of money for many manufactures. Quite few of them do not even break the $100.000 barrier and for them $5K-$30K might be 10%. Would we, the consumers agree to the redaction of audio prices for 10% juts in exchange to kill this dams worthless CES?

I hope you remember in beginning my association of the CES show with a strip joint, I would like to return to it again. If the CES vendors are juts the teenager-strip-girls who run across the podiums at Alexis Park and flashing their asses then the audio media (that created CES) is the strip-club bouncers. Only in this case the bouncers forget that this job is to “protect and serve” and turn their attention explicitly for extraction money from the poor dancers. Now is the irony of the situations… Who are we - the consumers?  We are the OWNERS of this strip club: we create it, we pay salaries to all participants and we the ultimate subjects of strip…. oops…audio. We, not they! I think until each and single audio listener would not feel herself/himself as the real owner of audio industry, we the consumer will be continuously raped with overprized and under-performed products, with the ignorant reviewers and critics, with uninformed manufacturers with bogus and fraudulent marketing campaigns… So, a consumer, the CES sponsor, make your choose!

OK, what for you in CES, Romy. Really nothing.  I’m starching on that couch, sucking in the last yummy millimeters of my Cohaba and I’m really not there. The level of interest that I have in audio are not flying among the Alexis Park alleys and the fact that I as any audio people use the worlds speakers and amplifiers means absolutely nothing. As I said in there above:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/TreeItem.aspx?postID=1832

the CES 2006 was my last CES. I moved over. I am writing it on Monday, the next day after the CES. I know that there are a lot of folks still in Vegas, licking their CES wounds. Reader, if you read it while you are still in Vegas, then please, before you go to airport tomorrow then shut down the lights at the Alexis Park…

Rsg,
Romy the Cat

smilin wrote:

Romy, you screwed up big time, you did not visit room 1805, APL HiFi.....This room was the BEST sound at the show. I gave you info, inviting you to see the future. Too bad you did not visit. I thought you were seeking top notch MUSIC reproduction. You really blew it this time, buddy. You also did not get the Fine single malt, and Excellent Hoyo De Monterey limatado reserve #2, I had waiting for you. Good bye, and good luck

First of all I was in your room. Sometime I turn the badge with “Romy the Cat” name off in order to “fly under radars” and be able to get what I need. I would intentionally not comment on the sound in that room.

Second, I appreciate the single malt preparation, though I do not drink. The reason why I did not introduced myself was because I was intimidated with your “see the future” and “top notch reproduction” and the rest exuberant run offs that you have expressed about that playback in your post above and in your posts before. You are perfectly entitled to do and to say whatever you wish but I would like to be my own judge about what I blew and where is a future. Also, I would like to point out that expressing the overwhelming and none-supported enthusiasm about anything hurts the subject of the enthusiasm much more then helps … unless the target market of your audiences are the MWays shoppers… who as we know always are taught to seek the “K-mart top notch”…