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CES Impressions Part 2

Posted by Jeff Day (R) on January 12, 2003 at 00:49:55

First of all, I just want to say thanks for the nice posts regarding my Part 1 posts, I really appreciate it. You know, those posts, rubbing shoulders with audio pals, and renewing old acquaintances reminds me what a swell bunch of folks the audio community is made up of.

A quick backtrack to Thursday for a moment before I get started on Friday & Saturday: the absolute highlight Thursday for me was the Audio Asylum dinner at Cozymel’s restaurant, which purveys fine Mexican food with old world ambience. Rod headed up the group of escapees and we hoofed it down the street to Cozymel’s – none of that limo nonsense for us, no sir, you can’t have a proper escape from the Asylum without making a run for it. The chow line was pretty long so there were a few rounds of beverages to get innards warmed up in the chilly night air while we waited. When the buzzer went off on the dinner pager after a lengthy hour wait we hustled in to our table and ordered up some really first rate Mexican food. We traded stories about the halls of CES and THE Show and then wandered off topic to the best way to deal with telemarketers when they call, which turned out to be one of the all time funniest conversations I have ever heard. I laughed so hard I was beet red and my cheeks cramped, and I don’t mean the ones I was sitting on. Many thanks to Rod and the AA inmates for an absolutely wonderful evening; this is one fun bunch of guys!

I forgot to mention Gordon Rankin’s Wavelength (http://www.wavelengthaudio.com) room in the Day 1 report. Some of you know I am a big fan of Gordon’s work and I have been enjoying Custom 45 amps Gordon made for me a couple of years now to power my Duos. Rod’s a Wavelength guy too; if I remember right he’s got the Gemini 2A3/45 at home. Gordon was using the Rethym loudspeakers powered by his latest 300B creations, the Triton Blue ($12K) that crank an amazing 16 watts from a standard 300B without running it stratospherically hot, his ultra cool Sine New Century Edition remote control battery powered tube preamp, and – surprise! – a 47 Labs digital front end! It was interesting how many people were using 47 Labs digital rigs for their front ends: 47 Labs of course, but also Ron Welborne, and a number of others. That should tell you something. Hint, hint: Hovland preamplifiers also appeared in a lot of systems, ditto Tenor OTL amplifiers, because all of these are relatively flexible, musical and bring out the best in a lot of different systems. On another note, I was bummed that Gordon didn’t bring one of the way cool single ended guitar amplifiers he makes along to show off to everyone. I am an acoustic guitar player, but I would love to hear a Stratocaster or a good archtop plugged into one of Gordon’s guitar amps. Maybe you could bring one next year ‘eh Gordon? Please? Or better yet, let’s get Tuck Andress or Bob Brozman to come to next year’s CES and play in the lounge at the Alexis Park through one of Gordon’s amps. What do you think Gordon?

Day 2 started out with a chuckle when I stopped in the San Remo gift shop for some Altoids. The cashier noticed my Asylum badge and asked me with a smile if I was out on parole! I told her I wasn’t on parole, rather I had just now escaped, and she better watch out ‘cuz I was going to be lurking around all day!

I hopped on the Gold Tower elevator and headed up the audio exhibits on the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors. As I walked by Ron Welborne’s Moondog Audio room I heard convincing music wafting out the door so I quickly turned in. Ron was producing a very musical experience in his room through his big Maya horn system with the new AER drivers and his Yota 2A3 amps, his line stage, and the aforementioned Flatfish and Power Humpty from 47 Labs. Ron’s rig is definitely one of my favorite Lowther-like based systems and produces some real bass without resorting to powered subs (other faves being the Medallion, the Rhythm, the Carfrae Little Big Horn, and the Lamhorn, none of which made an appearance this year).

Classic Audio Reproductions (http://www.classicaudiorepro.com) had the big T3.1 speakers playing music in a relatively small room at the show, but they didn’t seem to be hindered at all by the diminutive room, and played music wonderfully well. The guys were nice enough to let me play a couple of cuts off Greg Brown’s album ‘Covenant’, and I have to say it was outstanding. When you see these speakers in pictures it is hard to appreciate how BIG they are, and how wonderfully made they are. Even their smallest speaker, the 5.1, is truly imposing in person. I don’t think there is a single speaker at the show that I saw that exudes the sense of fine craftsmanship and quality the way the CARs do, they are truly remarkable. The drivers also have adjustments to fine tune them to the room, which is a great idea. They are 97 dB efficient, so you have a lot of amp choices you can use. Of all the speakers at the show, regardless of price, the CAR speakers topped my list of speakers that I would be willing to lay down my hard earned money for. Here’s the reason why: I sing and play music nearly every day on my acoustic guitar at home, so if a speaker can only do hi-fi tricks and not really play music in an emotively convincing way it’s not going to make me happy for long. Ask yourself this question: could I hook up a Stratocaster or a vintage electric archtop guitar to my speakers and make real music with them? For almost every home audio speaker in existence the answer would be NO, you couldn’t use them to play live music, and not just because they’re too wimpy, but because they wouldn’t sound right tonally. With the CARs the answer is YES – the CARs could play real live music wonderfully well. I’m not saying they make recordings sound like live music, but they come closer to making me feel like I feel when singing and playing my guitar than any other speaker at the show this year, save one (which I’ll tell you about in a moment), and that’s worth paying my hard earned money for. To heck with getting a new car, I can get by with the old one for a few more years – I want new CARs!

You might be wondering what speaker stood at the very top of my personal podium at this years show. For my tastes it was the vintage 1960’s Siemens horns in the Lamm (http://www.lammindustries.com) room hands down. These big horns were about ten feet tall and fifteen feet wide each! There are a lot of small auditoriums that don’t have that kind of stage width! They had two 12” or 15” (not sure) drivers in each bass horn, paired with a mid-range / tweeter horn to cover the rest. They are a smaller version of the horns they used behind the screens in movie theaters back when, scaled down to fit in a home – a big home at that. They were discovered in Japan by David, purchased at a moments listen to just one of the speaker’s bass horn, and then taken apart and shipped over from Japan and set up for the show with a dedicated room which was specially built into a San Remo conference room to demo them to the show goers lucky enough to come into the room. The planned Vitavox corner horns they were going to use remained in a corner unheard. Maybe next year huh guys? Nothing in the speakers has been altered from their original manufacture, and with the Lamm gear they were absolutely stunning and played music better than any other system I have ever heard. The tonality was so natural and true to life it was enough to make a person weep and I nearly did—my eyes literally teared up listening to the majestic beauty of the big Siemens. Witnessing these Siemens speakers tells me that speaker building hasn’t advanced at all since 1960, in fact if you consider most speakers it has regressed considerably. Even Terry Cain, who makes extraordinary horn speakers, told me at Bob Crump’s after hour’s AA party that he thought the big Siemens were the best sound of the show. That’s extremely high praise coming from the normally reserved Terry, and he knows his stuff. I just want to say thanks to David and Mario for making it possible to hear these musical monsters, it was truly a Herculean effort to build a room and assemble the Siemens in them. The trip to CES was worth it just to see these speakers. Wow! If anyone was to make modern versions of these things, and you had the room to put them in (I don’t), I can’t imagine you would ever leave the house again. Hey, maybe the CAR guys or Terry Cain would like to take a crack at a reproduction? They’re probably the only ones in the USA that would have a chance of pulling it off. Whew! I am totally blown away! I ran into David and Mario in the coffee shop of the San Remo on the way out to catch a plane on Saturday and they invited me to New York to do some more listening. New York’s a long ways from Washington State but it would be worth it to hear these amazing speakers again!

So what do you do if you don’t have room for a pair of Siemens vintage horns, CARs, or Cain & Cain because you live in a studio apartment? You visit Yoshi at 47 Labs. As I was getting on the elevator I ran into Yoshi and told him how much I admired the OTA cable kit for its sensible price and state of the art performance (not to mention the rest of the 47 Labs gear). Yoshi told me they have new ultra thin ribbon interconnects and speaker cables that are even better, and only slightly more money. I followed him back to the 47 Labs room to check them out as Yoshi warmed up the gear for a day of show goers. These custom crafted cables and interconnects have built in terminations unlike the OTA, but use the same design principle that holds the bare connecter directly against the RCA for the best connection possible—there’s just less junk between you and the music. My tweaky side wanted to take home a pair to play with, but alas, that’s an exercise for another time. If I lived in a studio apartment the new line of 47 Labs gear would be my first choice. Heck, if I lived in an even bigger space I’d give them very serious consideration. The Konus Audio "Essence" speakers used in the room are thin and small physically with a tiny driver and a beautiful wood finish and a warm, dimensional and natural ease in playing music that delivers a surprisingly BIG sound combined with the full suite of the new Shigaraki series of components. How they get that much bass response and that big of a sound out of those diminutive speakers is a mystery to me. Yoshi told me that these are Junji’s reference speakers and I can see why.

Jim Smith’s speaker system was almost as big as David’s and Mario’s Siemens with the Avantgarde Trios and double stack of the new bass horns. This was the first time I have seen or heard the Trios up close, and they are gorgeous. I have to admit that those big bass horns are truly amazing. If you’re considering buying Trios you’d have to be brain dead to order them with the regular subs after hearing the horn subs. They play bass with all the definition, nuance, articulation, space and air that a midrange driver does in its frequency range—and that’s saying a lot. The big bass horns are expensive at $20K per stack ($40K for the double stack used at the show) added to the price of your Trios, but if you’re considering Trios that shouldn’t too big of a deal, just dump the condo in Florida and go for it.

After leaving Jim’s place and I stopped in and listened to the Art Audio Jota & Harbeth Super HL5 combo again. I continue to be amazed how well the combo of Jota and Harbeth Super HL5 play music, and I put it in third place on my personal show podium for 2003. The Harbeth 30 was also very close. I could easily live with this system for a long time.

I hoofed it out of the San Remo and headed for the Alexis Park to check out the gear I didn’t get to see on Day 1. I stopped in on Joseph Lau in the Antique Sound Labs & Reference 3A room. The combination of AQ1010 DTI 300B integrated ($2195) and the Ref 3A MM de Capo-I ($2500) was making glorious music that easily rivaled many of the big $50K plus systems and bettered most of them. I’ll tell you what, if you like great hi-fi, know that you can find world class performance at EVERY price range, this Ref 3A & ASR combo is proof positive.

I stopped in the Audio Note Japan room and almost coughed up a hairball looking at the stuff in there with its stratospheric prices. It is really beautifully made though. They had a framed print of a Bentley up on the wall between the speakers to show off the new Bentley authorized edition – I’m not kidding – of the top of the line Garrard 501 turntable painted Bentley maroon or whatever it’s called. I’ve really got the hots for that turntable! I wonder if they make it in Miata black?

I stopped in the Merlin and Joule-Electra room and talked with Bobby (Merlin) for a short time. Jud Barber (J-E) was no where to be seen, which was a shame since I missed chatting with him at last years show too. This now classic but constantly evolving combo was getting truly state of the art sound with the bonus of mighty fine music playing ability (actually it’s the other way around for me: it plays music and does the hi-fi thing too). So if you don’t know where your priorities are, don’t sweat it, just plop down your cash and get the Merlin & J-E combo and enjoy the best of both worlds. What amazed me was how deep and taut the bass was on the Merlins. Bobby switched in and out the BAM and there was no question that it works as advertised. Zoe Speaks’ album ‘Pearl’ was breathtaking on this system.

I went back to my room for a while to write down my impressions hoping to post them before I went out to Bob Crump’s after hour’s AA party. But no such luck. You don’t want to miss Bob’s party; it is the place to be, so I had to hoof it out before I could finish my notes. Last year you could measure a 120dB a foot outside Bob’s door, at least until the cops showed up and shut the party down. This year was a hoot as well, with the who’s who of audio bopping in and out. One of my most memorable images was of a bunch of guys singing pirate songs while quaffing microbrews along with the big Sound Labs and 800 watt Parasound monos and Blowtorch preamp belting out the tunes! Where does Bob find these amazing recordings? You didn’t think we sat around acting respectable at these things did you?

Ok, you’ve endured my rambling now for quite a while, so it’s time to bring it to a halt. I hope I was able to give you a sense of what it was like tromping around THE Show and CES. The good news is that you can get state of the art sound with tubes, solid state, digital, vinyl, high efficiency and other speakers in just about any combination you want and you don’t have to spend a bunch to do it unless you want to. I heard more good systems at this years show than any in recent memory. I’d like to say thanks to Rod, Stephaen and all the guys and ladies of AA for putting up with me for a couple of days. It was a hoot!

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