If you read my Rocky Mountain Audio Fest report last fall, then you already knew I wasn't looking forward to this year's CES. To be fair, the only real reason I attended CES this year was to pay a visit to the home of music connoisseur and audiophile Dr. Jim Langham. Jim, who resides in Oakland, CA and someone I consider a good friend and confidant, purchased FIVE Behold BPA768 stereo amplifiers and a APU768 preamp equipped with super-sophisticated 12-channel room-correction/equalization software. This mega purchase proved ideal for Jim to help remove unwanted room resonances and gain an even better grasp over the driver phase/time alignment of his nearly $400k Magico Ultima horn loudspeakers - (I'm told Jim has one of only three pairs in existence). My goal was to do a feature on both the CES and my visit to Jim's place. I've succeeded by getting back in one piece (5 planes in seven days is a lot). I've a heap of photos and will write all about my experience with the Magico Ultima at the conclusion of this report. My apologies for getting my report up later than usual but my trip further west really wore me out once I got back. I hadn't noticed until I laid down in my own bed...ahhhh. Okay, on to the business of CES 

Thanks to my very good friend Ves Reed, who recently moved to Lost Wages (from NYC), I avoided having to get on that 1200-people taxi line at McCarran International Airport. And yes, I did see that it was as long and snake-like as usual...this time, however I was walking away from it rather than to it.

I wasn't as lucky once I arrived at the Venetian in the late morning in an attempt to get to the upper floors where a majority of the high-end exhibits were on display. Although the wait for an elevator seemed as long and frustrating as in previous years, the actual amount of high-end audio exhibitors dropped considerably (with unconfirmed reports saying as high as 30%). Last year, high-end exhibits occupied three full floors of the Venetian Towers with others companies like Lamm, Boulder and Avalon perched on the upper floors (using bigger suites). This year however, there were only two floors used to full capacity. That's a lot of no-shows when you consider one floor can hold about 75 rooms.

Yes, we can certainly point the finger at the lagging economy and how expensive it is for exhibitors to show at CES, but in the end I think moving from the Alexis Park to the Venetian was a big mistake.

Once again, signage was nowhere to be found. I've been to the Venetian each year since the move and it makes no difference: you need a GPS navigation system just to get from point A to point B in this humongous god-forsaken building. Denver's annual Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, as well as Munich's High-End event is like an oasis compared to the Las Vegas CES. Once you've been to either of those events I don't know how anyone cannot be intimidated. I take my hat off to all of you that put on a great show...and manage to smile through it all. 

And make no doubt about it, this year most setups were remarkably balanced sounding from one room to the next. I don't recall hearing any setup that would have been considered bad sounding which is remarkable considering how many that did only a year ago.

I owe Peter Sansone of Laufer Teknik an open and public apology (photo above second from rear) for believing in the outrageously expensive Audio Acoustics Sapphire SE loudspeaker ($128k). Personally, I felt the performance of these loudspeakers as unsatisfactory when I heard them at last year's Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. Of course, Sansone didn't agree but this year, he literally proved me wrong and forever changed my impression of what these loudspeaker are truly capable of...

Strapped to a huge pair of pure Class-A, 135-watt Win Analog SET mono amps ($50k) which features the same baby-bottle sized 833 power tubes used in the ultra-expensive WAVAC amplifiers. The sound of this room was nothing short of breathtaking! (particularly considering how much I was beginning to NOT like this loudspeaker). With Sansone acting as resident disc jockey using a Nova Physics Memory Player as his guide, the sound was sweet and sultry with harmonics that were to die for. All cabling was by way of Audio Acoustics as well. I would have to consider this room as one of the bigger surprises at this year's event. My congrats to Peter Sansone for his undying belief in this product and everyone else who helped put this lovely sounding room together. Kudos.