A Terrific Tube Preamplifier From Korea, And A - Ultra High Fidelity ...

ut the tone of the warning seems wrong
when aimed at companies that are spending
a lot of money to be there. Before
the show opened, some exhibitors told
me that the same seal would be applied
to the washrooms in the exhibit rooms.
Didn’t happen, happily.
There were protests from journalists
too, whose work was hampered by the
radical cutback in the size and facilities
of the press room at the Venetian. The
pretext was that the conferences had
been moved from the Venetian to the
plentiful empty space at the Convention
Centre, and therefore journalists would
be fewer in number. Perhaps, but the
many events on press day (the day before
the show opened officially) were still at
the Venetian, and the press room was
swamped. Add to that the fact that bloggers,
who used to have their own press
room, now had full journalist status,
and the competition for sulfuric coffee,
stone-like bagels and Ethernet connections
led to near riots.
As for me, I found an alternative:
a set of quiet tables with Italian coffee
and butter croissants, as well as high
speed Internet from which I could do
daily updates to the UHF site. No, I’m
not revealing where they are, because
it’s nice and quiet and I’m hoping it will
stay that way.
Still, the perception that CEA
doesn’t consider high end hi-fi to be an
important part of its mandate (which any
number of CEA spokespeople will deny)
opens the door for the “alternative” high
end interloper, known as T.H.E. Show,
to gain in popularity. Sure enough, a
number of high-profile exhibitors had
chosen the lower-cost show down the
way.
In 2009 no one was terribly optimistic
about the future of T.H.E. Show,
which was still way over at the Alexis
Park, where CES had once been but was
no more. It was lonely there, among the
tumbleweeds blowing down the corridors
(figuratively, anyway). This time
the show had gotten into the Flamingo,
an easy walk from the Venetian. No
shuttle buses were needed.
But the Flamingo presented its own
challenges. T.H.E. Show had been a
major event at Alexis Park, but it was lost
in the bustle of the much larger Flamingo.
I had difficulty finding it,
and hotel employees I
accosted hadn’t heard
of it. I finally found a
small sign, which led me
to it. However I toured
the entire show before
discovering that there was
another floor downstairs
where the registration
table was! I did register,
but by then I was ready to
move on anyway.
Incidentally, CES is
open only to people with
some connection to the
electronics trade, with
credentials to prove it,
but there seemed to be a
lot of “consultants” milling
about, not to mention
authors of blogs whose
existence had been heretofore
unknown. Perhaps
they were there for the
coffee and bagels. T.H.E.
Show, on the other hand,
is now also open to members
of audio societies.
Will it eventually open its
doors to the general public?
That question has been noised
around for a long time, and old CES
hands (like me) may recall that, in its
final year, the Summer CES in Chicago
did have a consumer day. It didn’t draw
big crowds, and it wasn’t popular with
exhibitors, who suspected that the visitors
who were asking about dealer prices
weren’t really dealers.
If you look at the photo on the previous
page, you’ll figure out that, for all
the talk about the tribulations of high
end audio, the big money at CES came
from the big multinationals, and especially
those who were presenting video
products. A high-end audio company
might have a hotel room, or even two
rooms, but at the LVCC some exhibitors
with recognizable logos had exhibits the
size of small towns. More on that in the
pages ahead.
I was there for both, of course. Highend
hi-fi is a niche, and always has been,
but in home theatre quality products
are a niche as well. Finding them in the
midst of the noise is my job.
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 19
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