[John Casler]

Hi All,

Just a quick update for those wishing to drop in and hear VMPS in Las Vegas this year.

The VMPS room will be in the St Tropez, room 1607.

I have just cleared it with Big B, that we will be offering a few "SHOW Specials" for anyone who orders their speakers at the show. (so bring your checkbooks   )

Also we will be offering the Show models at a great price too!!

So when you arrive at the show, look up me, Brian, or your VMPS dealer if he is there, and we will all know what is on special.

Also I have a whole new CD of Reference Cuts to play, that I have been putting together over the years.

Or bring your own.  You'll find that many rooms won't let you play any "un-approved" cuts since they might be too demanding or make their speakers show their flaws.

Well VMPS says "Bring em on"

Hope to see a lot of you there.

[Brian Cheney]

Be prepared to surrender your good CD's for the time necessary to burn a cut or two.  That's how I get all my good material.

We take requests, so bring them on!

[shokunin]

So what is VMPS bringing to the show??  Rm40's? Rm30's?

[RGordonpf]

Hey Brian,

Tell Shirley that I have some new 'chick music' for her to listen to - some romantic love songs by a german group called Rammstein.  Not as good as Titanic, but she might like them better than Gladiator.  Since she liked the soundtrack to "Conan the Barbarian" last year, I found a vinyl copy.  It sounds much better.  Are you bringing a turntable this year?

See you in 9 days.

Happy New Year.

Roger

[Sedona Sky Sound]

Emily and I will be at CES from Thursday until Saturday. For anyone that would like to hook up with us during that time, feel free to give my cell phone a ring: 512-585-9888.

Julian
www.sedonaskysound.com

[Sedona Sky Sound]

Well, Emily and I just made it back to Austin. The 24 hour drive from Las Vegas to Austin is tough but overall it was worth it. We hit every room at Alexis Park on Thursday and then spent Friday hitting about 90% of the rooms at THE Show.

With the three RM40s in the Trinaural configuration, the VMPS/SST room sounded very good this year. It still comes no-where close to sounding as good as in our demo room here in Austin but that is to be expected given typical show conditions. IMHO, the RM40 system definitely sounded head and shoulders better than the RM30s last year at Alexis Park.

The VMPS room was definitely one of the best sounding rooms at either location. There were a few others that I think were comparable but most were order of magnitudes more expensive (and of course there were several order of magnitude more expensive systems that sounded considerable worse as well).

My one paragraph recap of the show is that products at both shows this year seemed to fall into one of two categories: ridiculously over-priced components ($20k-$100k+) and audiophile budget components (<$3k). Except for the VMPS speakers, there really seemed to be relatively little in the middle (ie., less than 20% of the total components). While the expensive components had marginal improvement over previous years, the improvement in budget components has been pretty significant. Exceptional cabinetwork and good soundstage is now the norm in budget speakers and not the exception. The products from China, Taiwan, and Korea are definitely redefining the market and tended to be every bit as good as those I heard from Italy and Northern Europe even though they were 1/3 to 1/10 the cost. Just my personal observation. I am sure others will wholeheartedly disagree   .

OK. I am about to fall asleep at the keyboard. I will try to make more coherent comments about the shows once I have had some sleep in a warm house in a horizontal position (the nap in the car at the Arizona rest stop just didn't cut it).

Julian
www.sedonaskysound.com