Whats your "best of CES 2008"

Your right, it was the Prince, thanks for catching that !

I had King on the brain because I picked up the literature for "The King V2," I wanted to read about their top model after hearing the demo. I wish "The King" was not so much money, I think $90K or something close to that.

I'm embarrassed to have not known about this speaker before now. It appears to have been nominated as best sound at several shows, including CES last year.

Just too much data to take in over the few days allotted to view all the rooms. Even harder for me, concentrating on photo coverage.

The most musical sounding room and the one that I couldn't stop listening to was the McIntosh room. I kept requesting the new James Taylor reissued Sweet Baby James album and just got lost in the music. Sure some rooms may have sounded more accurate or whatever adjective you want to use to describe them. But, as a listening experience I enjoyed McIntosh the most.

My "best of CES 2k8" room in the "megabuck" category would be the Sonicweld room. Credit also due Cryoparts and Locus Design Group. To my ears, the Sonicweld Pulserods were more natural-sounding than the dozen or so other, more well-known megabuck loudspeakers I heard.

In the "multiple kilobucks" category, I'd nominate Classic Audio Reproductions (with the field-coil midrange driver). Credit also to Atma-Sphere and Triplanar. Also liked the TAD Pioneer room and the Quad room (and a bunch of others, but I have to stop somewhere).

In the "kilobuck and under" category, I'd nominate Tyler Acoustics (don't remember what the electronics were, but Ty told me the system retailed for about ten grand).

Duke
dealer/manufacturer

Oh I totally forgot the Hansen room. YUP Albert, your right, the sound in there was excellent. Got me lookin closer at the Triplanar arm to replace my ET2 but....

#1 was the Vandersteen 5a room. These 22k speakers embarrassed types costing 10 times as much!

#2 was the Perfect 8 Technology Glass speakers (275k/pair)

#3 was Coincident Technology room

#4 was the top of the line Kharma room

#5 were the JAS speakers I heard right at the end with a familiar cut from Dead Can Dance. Those things cranked!

And all the manufacturers smart enough to bring small speakers/floorstanders that actually integrated into the room sounded good as well. How these manufacturers can justify cramming behemoths into small rooms deserved the poor sound they got! For heavens sake, spring the extra $100 on a larger room at the Venetian. VMPS room comes to mind--boom, boom, boom, had to leave the room....And don't get me started on the Burmeister room, yuck!

YG (remember, best speakers on earth, period) got "OK" sound from a tonal balance perspective, but somebody needs to teach them how to set up a system. Speakers were placed some 16 feet apart and we were 8 feet back. No center filled image to speak of! Soundstage was poor. But, the free cd they gave away made up for all that!

I did not care for the 340k demo from Sound Labs either. Wait till you guys see some pics from that room. And they had 4 speakers crammed in there for a surround demo!

Did not care for the Sanders speakers, but I'm in the minority there as my friends loved them. Vocalists sound like they are singing through sheets to me. Everything is veiled. Not open enough or lively enough for me. I heard the same thing with the Quads and the Chinese King Sound electrostats, so my ears must just not like that whole topology.

NFS room was awesome!! Need to get one of those projectors stat!

Overall I was dissapointed with the sound at the Venitian, I think the guys at Alexis and Tropez were getting a more cohesive sound. Also, people were playing things waaaay too loud most of the time which did not help the sound of their setups. If your getting bad sound--turn it down or off and run a static display!

Rant over....