CES 2004 Best of Show

I did. Very good sound. I've always wanted to like Meadowlarks, but never have. These I liked.

I may be mixing and matching with THE Show, but the consensus in my group of the rooms we heard was
- Walker Audio with the Proscenium feeding Viva monoblocks driving Zingali speakers. One of the gang descibed it as sounding like 'sex' - he doesn't get out enough ;-)
- Cabasse with Audio Research front end and electronics
- Rethm (I'll put this in because everyone else really liked them, me somewhat less so)
- Innersound (as long as you keep your head in the sweet spot vise)

We start diverging from there, but I liked
- Avalon Eidolon Diamonds driven by Ayre gear
- Vandy 5A's with Audio Research up front
- Ref 3A Royal Virtuoso driven by very inexpensive gear (The whole darn room costs less than some of the source components being displayed, and sounded great)

Can't recall all the details, but also recall liking:
- Cain & Cain with Art Audio
- VonSchweikert VR4-Jr
- Thiphi inexpensive dimunitive HT setup with the processor built in to the center channel, just plug in a DVD and go.

What happened to Final Labs with their battery powered gear?

PS: I am also interested in checking out some pics of the fine models that complemented the shows. Is there such a site for that exclusively? >:)

By far, for me, it was the Halcro/Wilson room that impressed me. I don't think it was the equipment so much as the multi-channel recordings of classical music that was recorded by, and presented by Peter McGrath. I have never heard a recording of a singer that sounded so much like an unmiked, live recording (tenor from La Traviata). The solo piano recordings played at exquisitely soft levels was also breathtaking.

For something closer to the real world, I liked the sound from the Gershman loudspeaker ($14k), the JM Reynaud Trentes, a Triangle speaker ($6k), the smaller, non-monitor Alons, and a speaker with a Heil AMT driver. Although the upper bass seemed a bit lightweight, I really liked the Gradient speaker (open, airy sound of a dipole) and it is also compact and nice to look at.

On the pricier side, the TAD speaker was very interesting: explosive dynamics and very natural tone, BUT, extremely hard and metallic sounding on top (not nearly as bad as at CEDIA). The Overkill Audio speaker with a Manger driver was also interesting (dynamic and coherent), but it did suffer from being very directional from the upper midrange on up.

I liked the Mantra speakers a lot, but then I own Trios and am somewhat horn biased. The Pearls were very nice, I see why they get lots of votes. The TADS were maybe the most impressive box speakers I have ever heard, but they should be for the price. The Acapella violins were the sweetest highs as usual.