I spent the last day of the show tying up loose ends and
tracking down a few manufacturers that I had missed in the previous days. Audiophile
Systems, which distributes Arcam, Cambre, dCS, Nordost, Nottingham Analogue, and Piega,
was showing at the Mirage across the street from the Venetian. I made my way over there
where the new Arcam FMJ MS250 music server was on display. We first saw Arcam’s music
server a few years ago and thought that the company had stopped development of this
project.
The FMJ MS250 will be available in two to three months and it isn’t just a music
server/CD player anymore. It has Internet-radio capability and independent analog volume
control for four zones. All you have to do is add amplification (and speakers, of course)
and you have the control center and source for an audiophile-quality multizone system. It
will have a 400GB hard drive and two USB ports for adding additional storage. Being an FMJ
product from Arcam, it should provide excellent sound quality. The FMJ DV29 DVD-Audio
player was one of the finest-sounding digital source components that I have ever had in my
system. Pricing for the FMJ MS250 is to be announced.
Finally, I have to say that I think moving the high-performance audio exhibits from the
Alexis Park to the Venetian is an improvement. Even though the displays were divided
between the Sands/Venetian meeting area and the Venetian’s Tower hotel rooms, the
overall quality of the new venue is vastly superior. And the sound in both the meeting
rooms and tower hotel rooms was more than acceptable. I heard some excellent sound from
TAD, Vitus Audio/Focus Audio and NuForce, among others. I look forward to coming back next
year. See you all there.
***
Today I finally made it to the Venetian, where the high-performance-audio exhibits are
housed for the first time this year. After two days at the Convention Center, the relative
calm of the Venetian was a welcome change. Some of the exhibits are located in the
Venetian’s meeting rooms, while the rest are in rooms on the upper floors of the
hotel’s tower. The main problem is that you have to travel through the casino to go
from one area to the other, and the elevators to the Tower rooms create a traffic
bottleneck. Also, the exhibits in the meeting rooms are spread over three floors with
large sections of each floor remaining unoccupied.
Still, the Venetian is a more professional-looking and appropriate venue for
high-performance audio. To be honest, the Alexis Park was getting a little run down and
wasn't really a location that you would associate with a prestigious high-end-audio show.
The Venetian also offers many more dining options for business lunches and dinners or for
showgoers simply looking for something to eat. The choices at the Alexis Park were
basically limited to the restaurants in the Hard Rock Hotel across the street, although we
do miss the $7.77 steak-and-shrimp gambler’s special at Mr. Lucky’s.
It was nothing like what they used to have at the Alexis Park, but there were some
software sales amidst the exhibits at the Venetian. Chesky Records and 5.1 Marketing (DTS)
were selling audiophile CDs, SACDs, DVDs, and DVD-Audio discs in the San Polo area of the
Venetian. Purchasing a disc was simple enough. I received an invoice from the Chesky booth
and took it to the cashier located only a few feet away. I paid for my purchase, including
sales tax, and took the invoice that was now stamped "PAID" back to the Chesky
booth to receive my SACD. I picked up a copy of New York Time, one of the titles in
Chesky’s New York Sessions series of multichannel SACDs. Chesky discs always have
impeccable sonics, and John Crossett recommended this disc, which features Christian
McBride, Javon Jackson, Jimmy Cobb and Cedar Walton. The total cost of my purchase was
$16.16 -- still a pretty good deal.
***
Yesterday I was disappointed by the picture quality of many of the 1080p
flat-panel LCDs that I was seeing from newer manufacturers. Today I found the LCD panel
that I would purchase if I were spending my own money -- the Sharp Aquos LC-46D92U. The
new Aquos D92U series improves upon the current D62U series mainly with its FineMotion
Advanced 120Hz frame rate. This process is said to add an extra interpolation frame of
video to reduce blur. Judging by the demo of side-by-side panels, it works. The video with
the higher frame rate was noticeably smoother. Compared to the D62U series of panels that
were also being displayed, Doug Schneider commented that the new D92U series panels looked
"less digital."
I am sure that Sharp’s high-quality HD video loop that was being used with the
D92U panels had a lot to do with their spectacular picture quality. I would be curious to
see how they perform with a standard-definition or upscaled video signal from a DVD
source. However, I have always liked the picture quality of the Sharp Aquos LCD panels,
and the latest generation appears to have noticeably improved upon the previous one. The
46" LC-46D92U has a suggested retail price of $4200.
I was extremely impressed by the stunning HD picture quality of the Aquos D92U LCD
panels, but Doug and I were both struck by what can be had on a more modest budget. While
visiting Infinity speakers, we noticed the picture quality of a 720p Samsung DLP RPTV that
was being used for the demo. The upsampled picture of King Kong from a Harman Kardon DVD
player was a little soft, but otherwise extremely watchable. In our quest for the state of
the art, we often lose sight of real-world considerations -- sometimes literally. A good
720p DLP rear projector or 768p flat panel and upsampling DVD player should be available
for under $2000. Doug and I both agreed that we could live with such a setup -- but I really
want that new Aquos.
***
The first day at the Las Vegas Convention Center is always daunting. Fighting through
the crowds, Doug Schneider and I set out to find the latest innovations in audio/video
gear. Amongst the myriad of computer and cellular-phone manufacturers, I was struck by how
many companies now sell flat-panel video displays. This section of the market was once the
exclusive domain of large manufacturers such as Sony, Panasonic, Samsung and Sharp. Now it
seems that everyone is selling them.
