HarleyMYK Does CES 2004

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HarleyMYK

HarleyMYK Does CES 2004
« on: 10 Jan 2004, 06:04 pm »
or maybe I should title it "Speakerman in Las Vegas".  I only had one day and walked Alexis Park from 9:30 until a little after 6PM.  I will write more later but here are the photos.  Sorry they aren't better in some cases.

HarleyMYK's Audio Porn Photos

***See writeup below***

IanATC

EXCELLENT!!!
« Reply #1 on: 10 Jan 2004, 06:47 pm »
Excellent bunch of pics!!! :D

You have more pics posted than some commerical sites do!  

I can't wait until stereophile comes out with the CES issue.  They will *NOT*  show all the brands you have.  They will show the same few brands again, and come up with the same excuse.  "oh, so many vendors."  blah blah.

Thanks for posting them!

Cheers

F-100

HarleyMYK Does CES 2004
« Reply #2 on: 10 Jan 2004, 07:31 pm »
HarleyMYK,
  The pictures of the VMPS RM30 looks great, especially the closeup shot of the cabinet. Did you get a chance to listen to them?

abqhudson

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Did you listen to the Pass Rushmore?
« Reply #3 on: 10 Jan 2004, 10:13 pm »
Comments?

Thanks.

Jim

Hantra

HarleyMYK Does CES 2004
« Reply #4 on: 10 Jan 2004, 11:05 pm »
Good stuff Harley.  Which rooms really impressed you most?

Also, anyone know what that is in the Totem room?  I thought they were exhibiting with Plinius.  I am not familiar with the amp they were using. .

Sa-dono

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Re: Did you listen to the Pass Rushmore?
« Reply #5 on: 11 Jan 2004, 01:36 am »
Quote from: abqhudson
Comments?

Thanks.

Jim


Hopefully Mike doesn't mind... Here's a comment he made, at first regarding room treatments, in the VMPS Circle:

Quote from: HarleyMYK
It was a mixed bag.  For instance, Pass uses none, so that they can claim that they recreate what consumers may have in their home.  FWIW, Pass had perhaps the best sound I heard at the show.  Their active speakers (with built in amps) were $45,000 a pair.

HarleyMYK

HarleyMYK Does CES 2004
« Reply #6 on: 11 Jan 2004, 06:27 am »
OK, here goes a narration of the pictures in the gallery linked to in the first post of this thread HarleyMYK's Audio Porn Photos.  I have referenced the numbers in the titles of the pictures (NOT the Gallery’s sequential number) before each paragraph.  Everything is just what I heard with the specific equipment and the specific room.  Some of the speakers may sound different in another room or with other gear or to someone else.  YMMV!

I am not connected in any way with any of the manufacturers.  I probably saw 5% of the rooms and 10% of the significant displays at the Alexis Park Hotel.  I did not get to T.H.E. show.

01 – 03
The Manley Labs room.  I saw EveAnna as I walked in.  They were playing Ray Montford, Shed Your Skin (as were many of the demo rooms).  They were using their big heavy expensive tube gear with Coincident speakers.  The sound was both warm and detailed, but the sound came from the two speakers and there was not much imaging for me.  I was impressed by how monstrously big and heavy the equipment was.

04
Lovely Opera speakers nicely angled on a base with different sized spikes in front and back.  Significant room treatment, but alas there was no imaging (for me).  Otherwise the Opera had a very nice sound with great detail.

05 – 08
The Meadowlark, Rouge, Acoustic Zen room had incredible imaging.  My test cut was Savannah Fare You Well from Jimmy Buffet, Far Side of the World.  In the violin solo, I could almost see the instrument being cradled left to right and up and down.  Unfortunately I found the bass coming from the Nighthawks to be boomy and uncontrolled.

09 – 12
The cut-away speaker in photo 09 caught my attention and I walked in.  Isophon is a German speaker manufacturer with a pair of internal firing woofers facing each other.  Very nice looking floor-standers with nicely controlled bass.  But to me the sound was a little congested and fatiguing.  Beautiful upstream gear.

13
The Adam speakers had a very natural sound.  They were playing some great sounding SACD.  I asked to switch to 2 channel with just the floor standers (the model is the “Pencil”).  The salesman demonstrated how much distance from the wall impacted the bass – it was a huge difference.  We compromised at a moderate distance from the wall.  It was my favorite sound so far that day.

14 -15
The Quad room immediately outdid the Adam room.  Great detail, nice imaging, plenty of controlled bass in a completely untreated room – very impressive.  The sound had a smidgen of metallic or shrillness, but just a hair.  The tube amps mellowed it out well.  I asked MSRP and was told that the 989 “room partitions” were $8500 a pair, the 240 monoblocks were $2000 each and the CDP with volume control and remote was $1500.

16 – 17
The Polk audio room featured a pretty expensive setup for $900 a pair LSi9 monitors.  The speaker cables probably cost more than double the price of the speakers.  They were driven with a 7 channel Sony DA9000ES.  Lots of room treatment (bass tubes and side wall treatment around seated ear level).  It sounded very, very good – even in two channel without the sub.  Fantastic for the price!  Great imaging, significant bass, although limited as to how low it could go without the sub.  Based on this setup, if I had a brother-in-law who wanted to go get speakers for less than $500 each at Good Guys, the LSi9s would be easy to recommend.

18 - 20
I really wanted to like the Gallo Reference.  To me this setup sounded only OK --YMMV.  The speakers were much smaller than I had expected.

21 – 24
These monster speakers from PASS were my favorite of the day, but also probably the most expensive I heard ($45,000 for the pair).  These are active speakers with four amps in each one along with four active crossovers.  The room was totally untreated, yet the sound was detailed, musical, with accurate imaging and controlled full bass – this sound had it all.  At higher volumes, the room became a problem.  If I had tens of millions, based on just what I heard today, this would be my amp – speaker.  See http://www.passlabs.com/prodlit/rushmore.htm for more.

I then went and had a great free lunch by the pool.  Another one of the unanticipated pleasures of the day.

25 – 29
Next to VMPS and the RM 30s.  A very attractive speaker.  I spent about 15 minutes listening to them and could not get them to image.  They covered the spectrum of sound very well, with great bass.  I went out to chat with John Casler, and Brian asked me what I thought.  I told him, and he said “just wait until Sunday afternoon – we’ll have then right by then.”  When I came back in Brian was behind one of the speakers with a soldering iron.  I stood by the side and the imaging was totally there.  I then sat in the sweet spot and they sounded much better – great imaging.  Brian mentioned that he had been fiddling with them extensively.  In all fairness, I need to make a trip to El Sorbante again and compare them with the RM 40s after they are sorted out.

After that I chatted with AZRyan and his lovely wife.  I think Ryan said he thought the 30s were even better than the 40s.  Certainly they are a lot easier to talk the wife into.

30 – 31
Usher was playing the $2100 a pair 6311’s.  These were their little 2 way floor-stander.  Nice full controlled bass, great detail -- sounded awfully nice for the price.  However, from here on out, I did not trust my judgment as much, as I was getting burned out.  This listening is hard work and I am not used to doing it for so long!  Anything I say from here on down is going to be less authoritative (as if anything I have said up to now should bear any credence).

32 – 37
These speakers are the SELA from MEL, an Italian company.  They were lovely understated smallish floor-standers.  Kind of a less is more sort of thing.  Nice detail, sweet midrange.  No deep bass, just a very pleasant and easy to listen to sound – just what I needed for a break.  The pictures do not do them justice.  These would look so nice in my living room and would be very easy to live with.  They have no US distribution yet, but the MSRP is $5700 for a pair.  If they had said $1500, I would have tried to take them home.  I posted some pictures of their other gear and a list of what the heck it is.

38 – 39
My vote for the best sales / marketing goes to Totem.  Fabulous Native American theme in their room setup.  They had a corner suite, to grab plenty of traffic.  The salesperson said she had a CD designed specific to each speaker.  I assume that is to show off its strengths (or perhaps ignore its weaknesses).  I was not able to play my demo CD on the Forests shown here, as she was demo’ing the speakers to some other folks.  I went into the other room, which was set up with the Winds for HT.  The salesperson played my demo disk there, and it did not sound good – but again it was set up for 5.1 and I had a Redbook 2 channel CD.

42 – 43
No, I was not blown away.  It was OK, but I didn’t even write anything down.

44 – 47
I briefly met Mark and several principals from China - including the developer of the Reference Series (Mr. Pu?).  I learned Mandarin 30 years ago at UCLA, and tried a little with him.  I am very rusty, but he did not laugh at me.

Although I got to listen to the Reference 3, it was impossible to tell what it sounded like. The room was way too tiny, totally crowded with gear, and there was a ton of noise coming from next door. As I told the developer: Speaker so big, room so small.  
48 – 51
Nice time to chat with Kevin from DIY Cable.  Also Danny Wiggins.  I could not give the new MTM prototypes a decent listen in the room with everyone talking and such.

52 – 53
The ProAc Response D38 was a very easy speaker to listen to.  No fatigue pretty nice detail – pleasant.

54 – 56
The Von Schweikert VR-4jr had all sort of detail and bass, but sounded heavy.  Sort of the opposite of the ProAc.

57 – 58
The Westlake Lc265.1VF speakers are interesting in that they have coax drivers.  They sounded very nice.  I felt like there was nothing wrong with these speakers.  Maybe they did not go down very low, but they sounded fine.  Nice imaging, detail, and controlled bass.  You will need to judge if they sounded $7000 good (closer to $9000 with base and muff).

59 – 62
This was a room I just fell into.  They are Firebird Sound (FBS).  They were demonstrating their high fidelity wireless transmission.  Despite the wireless transmission, the sound seemed darn good (realize I had been walking the show now for almost 9 hours).  The small black box is the wireless receiver (from a transmitter outboard of the preamp) and the two silver boxes were 100 watt digital amps.  The speakers were of Onix finish quality with a taper in the back like the rockets.

63 – 65
From Divergent Technologies - ASL and the Reference 3A – the sound was lovely.  Yikes it’s getting late.  I have a shuttle scheduled to pick me up in 15 minutes.

66 – 71
OK, 5 minutes to listen to my demo cut in the Merlin room and shoot some photos of their gear (where is my drool bib).

Made it back to the pick up area for the shuttle bus.  I had paid $9.00 at the airport for round trip transportation with an outfit called CLS.  They brought me over to the hotel in a stinking little diesel bus.  To my surprise a huge white stretch limo pulls up and the guy calls out my name.  Sure enough, he has a little CLS badge.  The last unexpected pleasant surprise of the day.

lonewolfny42

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HarleyMYK Does CES 2004
« Reply #7 on: 11 Jan 2004, 06:43 am »
Thanks !! Nice job !!!  :D

nature boy

HarleyMYK Does CES 2004
« Reply #8 on: 11 Jan 2004, 01:52 pm »
Harley,

Thanks for all the great pixs from CES and THE SHOW.  You have a good eye with your camera, best quality pictures I have seen. :thumb:

You folks must be on aural information overload by now, but if you get by the Two Bald Head Guys room and can get some good pictures of Eastern Electric's new CDP it would be much appreciated.   :notworthy:  

Thanks again for helping us schleps who couldn't make the trip feel like we were there.  

Regards,

NB

HarleyMYK

HarleyMYK Does CES 2004
« Reply #9 on: 11 Jan 2004, 05:21 pm »
I only flew in for the day (Friday).  Got up at 4:50 AM, was on the prowl at the Alexis Park around 9:20 AM and left the Alexis around 6:15 PM.  Back home a little after 10 PM.  **I never got to T.H.E. Show.**

Southwest had oversold both flights and even though I was at the gates at least an hour before the takeoffs, I was in the last 20 to get boarded.

The pictures were all taken with a Olympus 3040 on fully automatic.  They were shrunk from 3.3 megapixel jpegs to .25 - .5 megapixel jpegs (and cropped, rotated, and brightness adjusted in some cases) with the new Microsoft Office Picture Manager in Microsoft Office 2003.  I have always used this product for fast and easy low quality editing and this version is a big improvement with (almost) real time brightness and contrast adjustment.  I use PhotoShop and QImage for higher quality results, but they take more time.

lonewolfny42

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HarleyMYK Does CES 2004
« Reply #10 on: 11 Jan 2004, 06:05 pm »
Quote from: nature boy
Harley,

Thanks for all the great pixs from CES and THE SHOW.  You have a good eye with your camera, best quality pictures I have seen. :thumb:

You folks must be on aural information overload by now, but if you get by the Two Bald Head Guys room and can get some good pictures of Eastern Electric's new CDP it would be much appreciated.   :notworthy:  

Thanks again for helping us schleps who couldn't make the trip feel like we were there.  

Regards,

NB
Agon has pictures http://forum.audiogon.com/i/ces04/f/1073619565.jpg and this http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/ces.pl?twobaldguysaudi&&ManuView

jackman

HarleyMYK Does CES 2004
« Reply #11 on: 11 Jan 2004, 06:19 pm »
Hey, those are Omega speakers!  I was going to post that picture. Thaks for beating me to it.  I wish I could have attended CES.  Maybe next year.

Jack

nature boy

HarleyMYK Does CES 2004
« Reply #12 on: 11 Jan 2004, 07:17 pm »
Harley,

Wow - a true CES/SHOW warrior.  Thanks again and get some rest, your pictures were a lot better than most of the other show coverage I saw.  Cheers.

Wolfy,

Thanks, I have been following the goings on with pix posts at Enjoy the Music, Soundstage!, Audio Asylum, and AudioGon.  It is really great to get a sense of new equipment offerings, although I think we get the best of the best here through our manufacturer posters.  :D

NB

IanS

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HarleyMYK Does CES 2004
« Reply #13 on: 12 Jan 2004, 07:22 am »
I was there as well and hit a very different set of rooms, but I also walked by the Firebird room and had a listen.

I thought it sounded quite good.  There was no obvious problem from the amps at all.  It would have been better if I had known the speakers a bit better, but thats how these shows are.  Certainly one of the better rooms I heard, though certainly not the best, which I felt was the JMLab-Jeff Rowland setup.  That was truly magical.  And it was cool to see the tiny 500W digital amps cranking along in a very effortless manner.  

Great pics!

-Ian

HarleyMYK

HarleyMYK Does CES 2004
« Reply #14 on: 13 Jan 2004, 02:05 am »
It would be interesting to A / B / C the Reference 3, The Firebird, and the RM 30s in a reasonable room with the same equipment.

IanS

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HarleyMYK Does CES 2004
« Reply #15 on: 13 Jan 2004, 02:22 am »
I wanted to check out the Ephiphany Audio setup with the GR reseach line sources, but I didn't realize they were at the San Remo hotel.  They're a little closer to my price range, from what I can tell.  Even the reference 3A's are like $4k, right?  

I just realized that the Focal-JMLab speakers are $35k!  Wow, for that much they better sound damn good.  

I would like to have done an A/B comparison of a bunch of speakers there.  For example, I heard the Thiel 2.4's and the music was so bad I couldn't listen.  It was an example of why some people don't let you bring music to listen to.  But Thiel speakers are always in the category of speakers I would not bother buying, because for that amount of money, I could get something I prefer.  

I liked the Triangles quite a bit as well.  They really are somewhat electrostatic-like for dynamic drivers.  I would have preferred to hear something a bit lower end though.

-Ian