SoundStage! CES 98 - Daily Coverage

SoundStage!
CES '98 Daily Coverage Notes
Friday January 9, 1998 - Day Two
'On the Spot' reporting from Las Vegas, Nevada
The world's best audio reporting is on SoundStage!

Daily Coverage by Doug Blackburn and Doug Schneider
Digital Photography by Doug Blackburn using a Kodak DCS-210 Zoom Camera

The Genesis Team, happy about delivering a number of new speakers in time for CES. Flanked by the new $7,500/pr APM-1 speakers are: speaker designer and Genesis founders Arnie Nudell and Paul McGowan, with Mark Schifter, Genesis V.P. at the right.

Mel Schilling of Camelot Technologies shows the new 24 bit CD Player, the Morganna 24. Estimated retail price $2,194. It will play any CD, 16 bits up to 24 bits with no resolution loss at any sampling frequency from 44.1K (CD standard) to 96K, one of the possible upcoming high resolution audio standards.

Several members of the Dunlavy speaker family. The circa $8,000 Sigma 1 is the wide, tall speaker just left of center in the photo. CES is the debut for this new product.

From the left:

SC-III
Sigma 1
SC-II
SC-1 which is also available as the SC-1 AV for HomeTheater duty

John Dunlavy sits in front of his 2-way switch box which permits listeners to quickly switch back and forth between 2 Dunlavy speaker models. You could hear how similar the speakers are tonally as well as how speaker performance improves as you move up the speaker line. Improvements tended to be most obvious at the frequency extremes.

Even the staff at the CES registration desk at the Alexis Park Resort Hotel was supporting SoundStage! by wearing our tee shirt. Shown here is CES employee Roslyn.

Melos Audio Technology showed the new MAT-100 push-pull amplifier (top left, shown without protective cage over the tubes). This amp delivers 100 full range watts to a wide variety of speaker loads. Price is expected to be $1,895.

On the shelf below the MAT-100 is the new SHA-2 preamp. Added features and performance will make Melos' SHA-2 a price-performance leader at $1,595.

Joe Reynolds of Nordost holds their new $109/meter Solar Wind interconnect, their new $600/2 meters power cord (blue), and the excellent $1,150/meter SPM Reference interconnect (lavender).

Nordost again was doing their pattented "you can hear the difference" demo changing between different interconnects in their line and changing between a stock power cord and their new power cord... yes, you could quite easily hear the difference.

Scott Hall of Electra Glide, showing the brand new Fat Boy power cord valued at $1,900. Not cheap but at least you can say, "my power cord's bigger than your power cord." Doug Blackburn says, "Send me Fat Boys."

Shot of the new Genesis APM-1, $7,500/pr. Watch SoundStage! for upcoming reviews of Genesis speakers.

The sound of this speaker on drums is powerful and very low in distortion.

500 watt woofer amp
240 pounds each
4 ohms nominal
90 dB efficiency
Just over 5 feet high
titanium midrange cone, metal cone mid-bass couplers, aluminum cone woofer, circular ribbon tweeters

Unison Research had a tough time selecting just one new product for a photo from a number of new ones. This shot shows the Pentode 35 amp on the left, 35 watts/ch stereo from 2 EL34s per channel. On the right is the unusual Feather One Preamlifier. Having no power supply, it can be run from the Pentode 35 amp or by purchasing a seperate outboard power supply. Sculpted Bahia hardwood is used on the front panels.

Pentode 35 - $2,495
Feather One Preamp - $1,595 (no p.s.)

Green Mountain known for building speakers with phase correct 1st order crossovers and molded front baffles, was showing their new small 2-way monitor, the Continuum 0.5, $1,450/pr (w/o stands). They were using the 0.5s with a pair of Continuum 12 SW subwoofers (expected to be $2,000 to $2,500 for a pair). There is no crossover or amplifier in the 12 SW. The -3dB point for the 12 SW is 30Hz.

VAC (Valve Amplification Company) at a morning press conference announced new home theater products incorporating... valves... tubes, wherever possible. The dramatic apprearance of the new products is certain to gain a lot of attention for the products. The silver legs allow the components to be setup individually or "docked" as shown.

The "Most Colorful" award goes to the new Italian Viva company, Imported by Fanfare International. The blue enclosure-less speakers are the $12,500/pr Quintetto, a 4 way, 6 driver design. Black acrylic end caps finish the red Viva Aurora amps ($18,000/pr), 21 watt S.E., zero feedback.

The Viva amps look so cool we couldn't resist another photo. These are smaller models. The Linea preamplifier and Sintesi integrated amp (12 watts/ch). Estimated prices are close to $6,000 for each. Viva's colored center sections are fabulously well painted formed aluminum.