[Tuberoller]

hey Guys,

I'm here and I got a huge boner.This place is so cool.I'm hangin' with Tyll and Todd from Headroom and they are both super cool.I'll be meeting a few other head-fier's tomorrow and I'll take a group pic.

There is a lot of new gear with great implications for headphone audio enthusiasts (you,me and us).There are a few new headamps from ASL,Creek,Sumiko and prototypes from Rogue Audio and Cary.The Cary unit was inop but the Rogue unit looks and sounds promising and Mark Osborn is allowing me to take it to my room tomorrow night for a listen.I met and talked with Joe Lau and will get a chance to take an extended listen to the new Twinhead Mark II,MG Head Mark II and MG32 OTL.I'll post pics when I get home Monday night.There are at least ten new SACD players on the horizon(I'll post pics of this stuff too) from Creek,Musichall,Opera,and Upsampling players from Roksan,Arcam and a few others.There is also some cool new vinyl stuff from Musichall,Thorens and Clearaudio.I will be bringing some gear home and and making arrangements to procure some other gear to audition.Todd is working really hard to get his vinyl business going and I wish him all the luck in the world.He is getting in as I'm getting out and I hope you guys can see fit to do business with him.

Sony has kept the lid on the SACD releases because of delays in pressing the large quantities of new titles.There are many rumors floating around and I'm sure you have all heard the the new titles include the entire Bruce Springsteen catalog.......let's keep our fingers crossed.There are few other new SACD releases as well as some reissues of great music on Audiophile Vinyl.

I'll get all the details to you guys later and I'll get news of some really amazing new portable gear from Panasonic and Philips when I get back to you guys again tomorrow.

I'm not safe in Vegas without my wife.


Tuberoller

 

[mbriant]

Thanks Tuberoller. Keep those updates coming!

 

[Ari]

Hey Tube !!!!!!

All the antenas are rotate to your direction now !!! Keep us up-to-date !!!

Good luck !!

Ari

 

[KR...]

Awesome!

Make sure to take pics of all headphone related stuff!

Here is another report :

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/ces2003/thursday/

 

[KR...]

Also check out the THE show report with lots of HOLY **** photos and products

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/theexpo2003/thursday/

 

[Tuberoller]

Quote:

Originally posted by KR... Also check out the THE show report with lots of HOLY **** photos and products http://www.enjoythemusic.com/theexpo2003/thursday/

I saw all that stuff and I can tell you the pics do not do them justice.

 

[Jeff]

Any awesome, cheap gear coming out?

 

[RoninDiesel]

iRiver is releasing a 10-20gb harddrive:

 

[wallijonn]

come on guys, where's the report? it's 12am in vegas isn't it?

tuberoller, did you meet up with Gerg at CES?

 

[TimSchirmer]

Man, I really wish i could've been there with you guys, but costs of college got in the way. Perhaps next year...

Anyways, have fun tuberoller, and be sure to staple that wallet shut!

 

[Vertigo-1]

Arcam making another CDP??? If it's a flagship one, my wallet may be in trouble...

 

[Old Pa]

Tuberoller: Now in this group Head-Fi picture how will we recognize you? Oh yeah, the huge boner. Never mind . . . .

 

[Tuberoller]

Well,It was a late night cap to a very long day.I learned a lot and saw so much stuff.there is so much junk out there.The great new gear kind of gets lost among the crap.I will attempt to sift through all this gear to offer some thoughts on stuff that pertains most to our hobby and offers some real exciting prospects for better performance or value.

Todd,Tyll and his kid shoved off for the long drive back to Bozeman and I wish them a safe trip.Those guys are great and Tyll's son a is an outstanding young man.I had a lot of fun with them.I met two other head-fier's but foolishly forgot to get their head-fi screen names.I hope they read this and ID themselves.Sorry.

I got to spend some quality time with ASL's new amps and wrote my impressions in the amp forums.I also got to see and photo the new Creek amp.It is a replacement for the OBH-11 SE.It has a Silver face and is in a longer,slimmer case.Roy Hall was clueless to any circuit changes,but swears that it is completely different than the amp it replaces.I will have one for the Chicago meet in April.Price of the Creek OBH21 Special Edition is $350.00.

I also got to see and photo the new Sumiko head amp.It looks nothing like the Creek amps in person,though earlier photos gave that impression.It is larger and has a very nice, high gloss black faceplate and multiple inputs and outputs.The twin volume controls have very nice knobs and are stepped.this is a very high quality unit and I will attempt to get one for the Chicago meet.This will be introduced in about a week and priced at $250.00.


I didn't see many new phones but the new lower Priced Senns are great little folding phones that actually sound really good.Tyll allowed me to listen to the higher priced model at $49.00 and it is better sounding than any of the Koss phones and folds away in a super-slick compact case.

Koss did have one new phone that was dead at the demo booth.I took a pic and will post it later.

there are a lot of new sources and some new Compact CDP's from Panasonic and Sony.Pana has a few slick new players but none has a line out and none were in final production form.Pics are forthcoming.

There are a bunch of new SACD players coming but only a few were operational.I took pics of all that were possible.Some makers such as NAD were not allowing pics and did not make official anouncements of new products.The NAD was not really that impressive and was way,way overpriced.The Musical Fidelity SACD was really neat looking,but when the rep warned that I may not like the sound I knew I was in for a big disappointment.I was shocked that MF could do this so wrong.I also photo graphed the very first stand-alone SACD DAC from TEAC.This is a very nice looking piece.The Cary SACD player was not operational and I am entirely dissapointed.I took pics of most of this gear as well.

The most disturbing thing I have discovered while here in Vegas came during my visit to the Las Vegas Hilton where the Hong Kong Businesses were displaying.There is an alarming amount of gear that is simply being rebadged and repriced.I saw one DAC that was identical to a much higher priced unit that was being sold by a high-end manufacturer as his own design.not many folks make it to the exhibits at the Hilton and this remains an industry secret,I guess.I found that I can offer an entire line of tube amps and preamps with my own distinct cosmetics and brand name for as little as $25,000.I find this disappointing on many levels.I applaud the business prowess of the Asian businesses but I am really upset by the lack of creativity of some of American companies that rebrand products in this manner.

Sorry for the rant.I'll post all the pics and specific thoughts on a lot of this gear when I get home.Did I mention that there are a bunch of new turntables and cartridges?Well now I did.

 

[KR...]

Quote:

The most disturbing thing I have discovered while here in Vegas came during my visit to the Las Vegas Hilton where the Hong Kong Businesses were displaying.There is an alarming amount of gear that is simply being rebadged and repriced.I saw one DAC that was identical to a much higher priced unit that was being sold by a high-end manufacturer as his own design.not many folks make it to the exhibits at the Hilton and this remains an industry secret,I guess.I found that I can offer an entire line of tube amps and preamps with my own distinct cosmetics and brand name for as little as $25,000.I find this disappointing on many levels.I applaud the business prowess of the Asian businesses but I am really upset by the lack of creativity of some of American companies that rebrand products in this manner

You mean Red Rose? I thought everyone knew about that

 

[gerG]

CES was a blast!

Well, a tiring blast, anyway.

Trip highlights:

Catching up with Todd, and finally meeting Tyll and Tuberoller. Unfortunately I was so worn out that I couldn't muster a headphone meet. Pity, since I had the DT880s and the HP910s with me. I also met up with another audio-afflicted gent who's online name I did not glean. I trust that he will add to this thread and clue me in!

The Sennheiser display was awesome. What an amazing product line. All of their products were in attendance, and all were active. Unfortunately the volume level was set at "really loud". This was a requirement due to the absurd noise floor in the convention center. Remember, this is a collection of 3000 exhibitors all trying to stand out from the crowd. The exception at the Sen booth was the HD600 display, which was hooked up to a Headroom Max. Sweet!

Etymotic was there. I learned that they have sized their ER6 to match their attenuator modules. Translation: I can procure a set of custom ear-moulds, then plug in my choice of ER6, ER9, ER15, ER25, etc. Cool! My immediate question was "how about the ER4...". Russ replied "no" before I could even finish the question. Seems that they get a lot of that, which probably means that they are working on it (I conjecture wistfully).

Being of a loudspeaker mindset, I auditioned the wares of many designers. The only one which really amazed my somewhat jaded ears were the Pipedreams. Image, dynamics, insensitivity to room position, they had it all! I want very badly, but the cost is a bit high (ok, a lot high). These were the only speakers that I ran across that kept me in my seat. I had a tough time prying myself out of that room. Mind you, I didn’t listen to everything there, but I did listen to several sets of 20k$+ systems, and nothing else even came close to the impression of the Pipedreams.

JBL S9800 horn speakers. Beautiful design, dynamic sound, and controlled dispersion. Otoh they had peaky sound and a very hefty price tag for the sound quality.

Turntables, turntables, turntables! It is like a new technology is emerging, with increasing quality and falling prices. I like it!

Seas has some new car drivers out. Very nice.

Morel’s new high end tweeter is a beauty. I can’t wait to try one.

Driver technology continues to improve. Some of this is driven by the car audio market, but we all benefit. Adire has a voice coil technology that they used in a 12” sub driver, along with a vented subwoofer design, to generate amazing levels of bass out of a small sonotube enclosure. They wouldn’t tell me what the VC design was, since the patent is pending.

Pass labs had a beautiful speaker with curved sidewalls (all the rage this year) granite top and front baffle, and a finned aluminum heatsink back to dissipate the heat from the built in amps. Gorgeous looks, but the sound was mediocre at best. They (the speakers) did not like the room that they were in. I asked the presiding reps if we could take them outside. “Yes, if you can carry them” was the answer. I was rounding up volunteers when they told me that the deal was just for me. Crap, those things weigh 300# each!

Eggleston Works loudspeakers. Simple and straightforward design, and it just works.

Lumenwhite speakers. Gorgeous, intelligent, gimmick free, and no freaking MDF! All curved and laminated maple hardwood. They use Accutron ceramic drivers, and they sound goooood.

I got to touch a Philips 963sa! I had to push through a bunch of people to get to it, but it exists! They young lady representing the parent company wanted to know what I was doing, and I informed her that I was only trying to prove the existence of a proverbial unicorn. She told me that shipments had been delayed due to negations over issues with the Faroudja chipset, but all was now well and shipments had begun. I hope so!

Disappointments at the CES:

Every f’ing loudspeaker in that place was overpriced (imho)! This is audio inflation run amok. I don’t know who cracked the 10k$ barrier first, but since then it has been a race for highest priced model on the block. I just don’t see the value, but maybe I am missing something.

McIntosh. Actually they had one of the most elaborate, beautiful, and impressive installations at the entire show, complete with a BMW (5 series, I think) out by the pool with a ton of their mobile audio gear on board. I was under-whelmed by the car system, by the XR30 speaker system, and by everything else that I heard in between. Not an image to be found.

Surround **** everywhere. Speaker systems which could not even muster a decent stereo image replicated themselves around the room to create an amorphous din that I do not like. Ditto for bi-polar and di-polar speakers. Just not to my tastes, I guess.

Las Vegas. To quote Stitch “Bluuuch!” I will say, however, that the car audio part of the show really belonged there. Talk about a bunch of glitzy chrome plated larger than life tacky fantasy crap, that was it. Don’t get me wrong, there was some very good gear there, along with some very fine rolling stock (the F360 Modena is one of the most beautiful cars ever produced, in my book) but the race to cram the most watts coupled to the most raw driver surface area between a set of tires has gone well beyond the silly mark. Using a small percentage of the gear available at that show one could actually assemble a formidable sounding mobile system, and I am sure that someone has. Unfortunately I did not find it due to time limitations and poor signal to noise ratio.

In the end it was a huge relief to get back in my own car, fire up some tunes on a decent sounding stereo, and hit the road.

Photos to follow.

gerG