Anything exciting at CES?

The best at CES : VENTURE !

I spent an hour at Venture room and still couldn't believe on what i heard. Their speaker "Caractere Diamond" was shocking me,sorry i only describe in one word about their sound "IMPOSSIBLE".

They used their amp and small passive preamp,i saw the designer of Kharma shacking his head and looking around to see every detail of the speakers and the black box(Power Conditioner).

But the price is unbelieveble $71,000 for the speakers !

brian cheney's vmps rm-40's (retail $4300) won best sound of the show , using, among other things, a modded art di/o dac...

doug s.

Home from CES last night at midnight, several things that stuck in my mind:

Musical Surroundings room:
Clear Audio turntable with Clear Audio Insider cartridge.
Ayre Amps
Avalon speakers
Aesthetix Io phono.

Kirksaeter Audio room:
Kirksaeter Silverline 90 bookshelf speakers
Monarchy amp, pre and CD.
I brought a reviewer from Absolute Sound and a Ex Fi magazine guy into this room and ask what they thought these cost. Both guys guessed in the multi thousand price range.

Show special and best dealer cost, $350.00. All three of us attempted to buy a pair of these tiny speakers, but everything in the room had been promised by the second day of the show.

Wilson Grand Slam, Karma, Rockport and Soundlab rooms were all at the Tuscany. Each impressive, very different, each with serious flaws (show conditions) and the occasional magic that "peeked out" to let you know they are world class.

Ken from Convergent (CAT) and I got to know each other very well at this show. His amps sounded terrific and after hours we auditioned a new cable, yet to enter the kingdom of high end audio. What I heard was amazing, clearly better than the most expensive Transparent Cable it replaced. The manufacturer has promised to talk with me about advertising images, maybe I will eventually be able to hear them first hand.