Wow. My first day back and I see I am already 14 pages behind in providing a CES report thanks to Steve “the Energizer bunny” Williams who takes no prisoners when it comes to posting minute by minute updates. Before going right to the heart to matters with equipment reports, let me just say that some of my favorite non-listening moment were hanging out and just comparing notes with other audiophiles in the halls in addition to meeting some great folks (i.e. Myles Astor, who I had only known from emails previously).
I think there were some general themes for me that I’d like to share. But first, let me say unequivocally that whoever invented the room cleaner they use at the Venetian ought to be shot. The Venetian has a smell of its own- nothing else like it in Vegas. The repugnant odor of whatever concoction they use to hide cigarette odor, body odor and other odors is just in some kind of vapor world of its own. I strongly suspect that one probably loses one IQ point for every hour spent in that place. Ah, but I digress…..
My recent experience at CES over the past few days could be captured basically in one sentence: "where's that damn EQ when you need it!" It was like attending a clinic in audio deficiencies, most demos of which could easily be corrected with a little EQ. Some great examples of floor cancellation causing mid-bass suck out were easily found (i.e., PerfectEight- a 150K speaker-that is not a typo- that was tragically marred by floor cancellation at 150Hz. Midbass suck out due to floor cancellation was also sadly evident on the big Lansche loudspeaker (driven my mega-buck Ypsilon electronics). Bright top end? Yup, plenty of that too. The most egregious was the new Magico Q7, which would have easily benefited from some EQ there. I swear, this Magico worship thing has gotten out of hand. People were congratulating the designers as if they had drunk the kool-aid but forgot to listen to the speaker. It was a perfect example whereby a bit of EQ would have made a big difference. There was also a clear grunge at 2500-3K that I wish would have gone away, in addition to the usual non-rolled off top end that makes the speaker simply sound too bright for my taste. I could go on with example after example but the take home is the same. Why anyone in the "high end" eschews EQ as unworthy or not necessary is just ridiculous, and the proof is in the well-intentioned by highly flawed sonic demonstrations found broadly throughout CES.
To be fair I should also mention that EQ is not always the answer. For example, the big Wisdom system was impressively DSP'd but in my opinion sounded horrible because they were using class D amplifiers to drive the panels. I listened to the beautifully recorded EMI Ashkenazy/Kissin Prokofiev 3rd Piano Concerto (3rd movement) and while the piano sounded decent, the orchestra was a mush of ill-defined squeeching that I attributed to the electronics and not the speaker.. However, when I played the same piece on the new Sonus Faber Aida speaker at the Audio Research booth, the sound was just glorious, yet there was no EQ in the system!
But by and large, most of the CES demos could have benefited substantially from some modest EQ. The great mystery is why that remains to be the case year after year.
Let’s go back to the ARC Sonus Faber Aida. I spent a lot of time there. I brought my own demo disc that was graciously played, but the “killer piece” for me this year was the Prokofiev piano concerto mentioned earlier. Track 7 (3rd movement) was simply not worth playing on most systems unless the system was capable of handling dramatic orchestral fundamentals and explosive transients of the piano. The Sonus Faber did this with aplomb and to my ears, there wasn’t a close second at the show. It made, for example, the Magico Q7 sound like a PA system (and a 40K more expensive one at that- go figure!). The Aida was simply magnificent. In a nutshell, it sounded like music, and that was the key to its beautiful sound.
There were only two other speakers at the show that did this piece justice. The first were the Hansen. (not sure of the model-Prince something or other- price about 68K?). Next was the new Rockport (30K) playing in the VTL room. These are both very compelling speakers at their price point. They were both beautiful in that they rendered full-tilt orchestral music honestly.
I also enjoyed the “behind the screen so you couldn’t see them” Magnaplanar display. Wendell Diller pulled another rabbit out of his ass by playing a pair of $600/pair direct from Magnelanar speaker to good effect (although he was using a Bryston 28 amp to do it).
While the Sonus Aida clearly captured my heart, the other contender for best of show (in a weird way) for me was the $350 show special Sonawall speaker Steve alluded to earlier. It was a two satellites and a sub system for $950 retail ($350 at the show) that blew many of us away for what is was. I love giant killers and this was a good one.
