This year's CES was among the best I've attended. The weatherman spoke of temperatures in the mid 70's during the day - cooling to the mid 40's at night. Perfect for someone who resides on the right coast. The sun was beaming down on show goers enough during the day to make me feel over-dressed with my jacket in tow. I mention this because it was only a year before that I actually witnessed snowflakes fall in Las Vegas, Nevada. That dampened spirits big time. This year was completely different. Psychologists speak of sunrays having a positive affect upon one's emotions. Don't know if that's true but based on all the smiles going around it certainly appeared as such.

Attendance was down at Alexis Park and the St. Tropez despite claims of 114,000 gadget nuts attending this year's event. Speaking of which, the taxi line (right) at the airport was outrageous yet again. This year however was far worse than previous years. The line was easily about 1500 people deep. So long, in fact they had the line snake to and fro, back and forth about six times before you actually got to even see a taxi. The only resort is to rent a car but the thought scares me due to the way people drive around in that town. You literally cross the streets at your own risk (at CES 2003, I witnessed a women get killed crossing in front of Alexis Park). After a grueling 90-minute wait, everything else seemed like a breeze.

As soon as I got to my hotel I received a call from Dave Thomas stating lunch was being served at the St. Tropez where The Show was being hosted. That's all I needed to hear after a grueling 6-hour flight and 90-minute taxi wait. I dropped my bags and off I went. Oh no, lunch at The Show can be almost as bad as trying to catch a cab except most of the folks in line are people you either know or recognize. Catching up on old times made the line move fast. Before I knew it I found myself a seat with S'Times column instigators, Mike Wright, Bill Wells, Key Kim, Craigy G and Dave Thomas. It certainly was nice catching up with all the boys as it's been some time since we last saw each other despite the fact we talk almost regularly. After lunch and salutations everyone disbursed rather quickly in separate directions. My guess was everyone was anxious to get the buzz on what's new in audiophilia. And from the looks of it there appeared to be a host of new companies that made their way to CES 2006.  

Speaking of New

Speaking of which, Chinese manufacturer Jungson introduced a new line of electronics that featured this War of the Worlds look-alike loudspeaker in the Deity ($49,000). Their CA-PRE10L preamp and CA-MP200L amp combo ($40,000) accompanied by their beautiful and hefty (80 lb.) Impression SACD/CD player (left $11,000) took honors as being among the most intriguing to these eyes for 2006. I'm told all cabling as well as AC cords were by way of Jungson as well. Though the system was brand spanking new, the soundstage it produced was substantially wide and open despite the obvious fact: the loudspeakers were much to large for the room. When I stopped in the next day (Friday) the sound improved considerably showing what could be had from a full Jungson setup with proper burn-in and room considerations. 

        
Formally of Cello, Viola Audio Laboratories designers put on their own show - at the show! This room, which featured their Allegro 3-way system perched atop the Viola Basso passive woofer (above $52,000). Their inspiring Cadenza preamplifier ($16,000) driving their smallish 75-watt Forte mono amps ($10,000) was an absolute treat to witness. This - almost - all Viola setup (CD player was by way of Bel Canto) produced some of the best sound I heard at the show. The larger Symphony stereo amplifier ($16,000) was not in use during my listening sessions. The performance of the little Forte monos made it hard to argue they would have been even necessary. Considering their size, I was shocked to witness how utterly well they held themselves together while playing some of my very own torture test CDs. The performance I heard by these amplifiers far outweighed their power rating. I gotta give props to setup man Mike Broughton of the Audiophile Source for his skills at getting the best sound from bad rooms. Bravo!

Tact Audio's new reference digital line of Boz amplifiers (above) were on grand display at the Alexis Park. Starting at $9,000 in standard stereo configuration and rated a 200 watts per channel, one can actually upgrade to 16 channels of pure digital amplification via a single controller. Room correction will be added in the not too distant future we're told. In the sound room Tact showed their S2150 amplifier along with the 2.2X Room Correction/Preamplifier driving a pair of Von Schweikert VR4JRs. Cabling was via Sunny Design. The one advantage Tact has over many, if not all showrooms, is they can tame the room of nodes and bass issues. They did this very convincingly but the overall setup still needed a little more TLC. Considering they were using VR loudspeakers and Sunny cabling says plenty so I won't be so critical. Next year, hopefully they'll hire someone who knows a thing or two about making a room sing!  

Lyngdorf Audio, launched their new CD-1 CD/Transport ($2500) that by all appearances looks like, well a new Tact product. The reason is because Peter Lyngdorf, formally a partner of Tact, split and has since moved on to produce products bearing his name. Their websites product specs boast of the CD-1 "... is designed with the all the experience gained from designing the fully digital amplifier products. Low-noise design techniques are applied to carefully upsample the digital output of the audio drive to a user selectable output rate. This is done using state-of-the-art sample rate converters so the digital output can be delivered in a 24-bit resolution at a sample rate up to 192 kHz with extremely low jitter. The digital output is available in SPDIF, Toslink or AES format. The analog section – just as with the digital – is upsampled in a parallel process to 96 kHz."                    

Which Way is Up?

Who was it that said imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? Tact USA sure doesn't think so. Their European counterpart Tact Denmark split sometime last year due to irreconcilable differences. As with many splits between businesses things don't always go as smooth as one would hope. Such is the case here. Former partner Peter Lyngdorf, who also presides as president of DALI, started a new brand name digital amplifiers and loudspeakers company Lyngdorf Audio (upper left) which, unfortunately looks virtually identical to Tact components (right). 

The reason I think this is unfortunate is: historically, business separations are nothing new (take a look at NOLA loudspeaker who once went by the name ALON - which, I might add, are alive and kicking and still making loudspeakers). Taking on the exact same look in any new company only brings about higher levels of confusion to new and existing customers. In the end I wonder how either company can win when both compete for the same customer... with an identical product give or take minor differences. Speaking with both parties, it appears only a courtroom will  resolve who can ultimately keep the look. My hope is this will happen fast enough as to not discourage longtime Tact loyalists as myself. Stay tuned for Part Two!

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