T$S.

It was the 40th anniversary of the Consumer Electronics Show. To emphasize that fact, the CES provided alumni ribbons that attendees could attach to their ID badges. Mine (self-selected, the show doesn't keep detailed records) read "30+ YEARS."

Here this latest iteration went, starting with my arrival at the Sands Expo Center. The show is now back to having two main sites in Las Vegas. They cut loose the Alexis Park and the high end audio exhibits are now mostly at the Venetian hotel which attaches to the Sands Center, itself full of technological goodies (except for one large section housing the Adult Entertainment Expo which operates independently of the CES and is based on a different category of goodies). The other CES location centers on the Las Vegas Convention Center and includes a mall of specially constructed exhibit spaces along with the Hilton and Renaissance hotels that flank the center's three halls.

Sunday, January 7, 2007

12:20 pm

The show hasn't opened yet, but technically I'm already a day behind. On Saturday, there was a State of the CE Industry address, a sneak peak at audio and home theater, and the CES Unveiled press welcome in the evening. That's not a lot to fill a day with, so I regularly choose to skip Saturday. It's two days before the official kickoff of the show anyway.

Sunday, as opening day minus one, is somewhat busier. It's called Press Day and indeed press presentations are the order of the day. They take the form of audio-video presentations in meeting rooms away from the main exhibit areas because the booths, suites, and other exhibits are not yet ready for prime time. Carpentry and wiring are still going on at the various venues.

At these conferences, the sophistication level tends to be only slightly elevated from what you may recall from AV presentations at your high school. The content is different, of course. These are full of sales figures, product announcements, and projections of great business growth in the coming year.

This year, I checked in at the Thomson and Samsung events.

Thomson is the current parent of RCA, Jensen, AR, GE, and, of course, Thomson brands. The first part of the presentation emphasized the word "current" since Thomson has agreed to sell its entire accessories line (which includes RCA, GE, Jensen, and AR branded products) to Audiovox and is now looking for a buyer for its RCA audio-video product line.

There was a bit of a gasp from the assembled press when Thomson announced its intention to cut the RCA brand loose. I don't see the divestiture as a big deal. Thomson is not the first owner of the venerable RCA brand. The fact that it won't be the last is not terribly surprising, significant, or in any way to be lamentable. It appears that with a couple of GE exceptions, the Thomson brand will be the only one to remain with the company and yet precious little was shown that actually said Thomson on it.

In fact, as the presentation rolled on, it became increasingly difficult to keep track of who would be actively marketing which items under what brand names. But various products, whomever the parent company ends up being, were well-considered and apparently well-designed. The digital TV reception devices were particularly good to see.

As most T$S readers are aware, the days of terrestrial analog TV broadcast are numbered.

In 2009, over-the-air VHF and UHF TV channels will be shut down and the only over-the-air broadcasting will be digital (DTV). Some of this will be in standard definition, some in high definition, but it will ALL be digital.

According to the Consumer Electronics Association, there are some 20-million TV sets in the US that are still being used with antennas to pick up analog TV signals from local broadcasters. When all those stations flip their analog switches to "off," there won't be anything for those antennas.

The solution, of course, is a DTV accessory that will tune in the digital signals and do the conversion necessary to allow those millions of doomed TV sets to display them. This is a familiar way to bridge technologies. People in the mid-20th century bought UHF converters to allow them to view channels above 13 on their VHF-only TV sets.

DTV tuner boxes have been around for various years, but they've been priced as luxury items and sold along with tunerless large format wide screen TV monitors. When the capability that such boxes provide become necessary for casual TV viewers--people who want to continue to pick up the occasional over-the-air-broadcast in the workshop, in the pool side cabana, on the back porch, or in the RV, four- or even three-figure price tags won't do.

These new DTV tuners from Thomson look like they could fill the need without breaking the bank. Thomson is cagey about the retail price of the most basic offering in a set of three. About its DTA800 digital-to-analog TV converter box, Thomson says only that "Retail availability and suggested retail pricing will be dependent on retailer interest in this new product category."

The other two, the RCA DRC-8335 and the RCA Teleceiver are more certain to hit the market and have suggested retail prices attached to them.

The DRC-8335 combines both a digital and (unaccountably) an analog TV tuner and a DVD recorder in one unit. Thomson said it would be available now with a retail of $249.99.

The Teleceiver is a DTV tuner designed for use with laptop computers. It receives digital over-the-air TV signals and feeds them into a USB. The Teleceiver will retail for about $149.99.

Those are certainly $ensible figures.

So is the price of the new Acoustic Research blackVault 2.1 audio system. (We're still at Thomson, by the way, although the AR brand will end up with Audiovox.) As you might guess from the capital letter in the middle of the model name, the blackVault is an iPod-ready system. Its universal dock works with all but the oldest iPods. There's also an auxiliary input that will let the blackVault work with other (presumably 1/8 inch plug-equipped) audio sources.

The blackVault is a three-piece system: two satellite speakers and a central woofer box that houses the amplification, the iPod dock, and the auxiliary input. The system will retail for $149.99 and, get this, the amplifier is vacuum tube powered. "The vacuum tube revives the look and feel of a classic audio system," says the press release, and praises "the warm tones of tube-amplified music."

Note that the description says "the vacuum tube." Yes. This is a one-tube, two-channel amplifier. The release even mentions "a spare vacuum tube" as one of the included accessories.

The specs claim only I watt per channel output from the amplifier. That I watt x 2 is shared by the three speaker units through a passive crossover network. The specs also state that the blackVault will deliver 96 db SPL at 3 feet, a rather impressive number for a one-tube system.

I didn't stay long at the Samsung conference. It was mobbed and the preliminary video presentation that played while people were looking for seats (and many, myself included, not finding them) previewed little of significant interest.

One video segment did catch my eye, if not my imagination. It was an ad for a new Samsung personal portable product. The opening scene tracks through various city blocks populated by folks walking around with glass fish-bowl spheres over their heads, in obvious reference to the isolation of iPod listeners. One couple found that smooching on a park bench less than enjoyable with their heads inside glass.

One guy screws up his courage, takes the glass ball off his head, smashes it on the ground, and starts listening to his music by using a new Samsung portable with tiny speakers! Samsung, in other words, has looked back about a half century and effectively rediscovered the portable radio. What an amazing world we live in.

Monday, January 8

1:00 pm

The show has opened. I've kept two appointments and browsed the Thomson booth. (It's curious to call an installation that has the area of a good-sized loft apartment as a booth.)

I checked in at Sunny Cable first. They were at the Venetian in CES's new high performance audio section and, never minding the company name, they were featuring a new three-way speaker system that involved some horn loading. They showed it as a 5 channel theater-type system flanked by two 18 inch subwoofers that go down to 15 Hz.

As you might imagine, the bass response was the most distinguishing feature of the system. Yet there was not as much punch as I expected to hear and feel. I'm guessing that the mid-bass (around the 150 Hz resonant frequency of the average human chest cavity) was somewhat lacking.

The demo had a lot of sonic depth but very little presence and practically no sense of surrounding space, even on live concert hall classical music performances. Maybe I was seated too far forward to pick up the contribution of the rear channels.

Oddly, Sunny Cable used regular DVD software for source material. That probably didn't cause the disappointing sonic effect, but it did effectively demonstrate the need for HD video for large screen presentations.

From the Sunny suite, I tried to rush over to the Las Vegas Convention Center, but rushing was not possible on this first day. The express shuttle line was a half-hour long, that's about the same as the time one would spend walking the distance at a good clip.

So I arrived about 15 minutes late for my meeting with the Dolby Labs folks, but they brushed away my apologies and showed off their latest ideas for everything from high definition and Blu-ray media to cell phones.

Dolby is always at the CES in spite of the fact that the company manufactures no consumer electronics products whatsoever. It's strictly a technology development and licensing company that started out with noise reduction system for cassette tape and has expanded beyond all expectation.

No matter how far Dolby goes, however, its focus has remained exclusively in the audio domain. Although some sort of Dolby processing is on every commercial video tape and video disc, none of the processing directly involves the video part.

Dolby does claim, however, that "the better the sound, the more involving the experience" because research shows that "perceived video quality actually improves with great sound." ... and the girls in the chorus sing--Amen.

Back in the day, Dolby processing came in two flavors of noise reduction for audio tape: Dolby A for professionals and Dolby B for consumer applications.

The latest Dolby developments include Dolby True HD (lossless audio that provides up to eight discrete full-range channels to accompany HD movies on Blue-ray or HD-DVD), Dolby Headphone and Dolby Virtual Speaker (to simulate a 5.1 surround experience through headphones or as few as two loudspeakers), and Dolby Digital Recorder, Dolby Digital Stereo Creator, and Dolby Digital 5.1 Creator (providing ways to record original or converted surround sound with personal computers, DVD recorders, and personal video recorders).

Dolby did have some demonstration gear on hand and I was very impressed by what I heard in one of their rooms. It was stereo music emanating from the Sharp SD-SP10 audio system, a one-piece surround and stereo system. Well, actually, it should be two pieces, but the Dolby folks for some reason didn't have the woofer section. Even without that, the sound was quite listenable, clean, and involving.

(I went to the Sharp booth the following day to see if I couldget a demo of the complete system. They couldn't find one at all.)

I've gone through a few of the one-box surround offerings without being terribly impressed. This one did impress me. It retails for $299.99 at Sharp's online store. I haven't been able to find any other place, either online or brick-and-mortar, to buy one.

Dolby Headphone appears to be related to Dolby Virtual Speaker. Dolby had on hand various products that used the headphone system. The one that sounded the best to me was the add-on JVC SU-DH1. It's a very compact device that weighs 3.5 ounces with two AA batteries installed. You hook it between your audio source and a set of headphones and can listen with various sorts of audio enhancement. Dolby Headphone modes include DH1 (studio environment, just a little bit of added space), DH2 (a bit more space like a typical home listening environment, and DH3, (very spacious theater or concert hall environment).

In addition, the adaptor will supply three Dolby Pro Logic II settings. Movie setting is for Dolby Surround reproduction, Music mode is for two channel sources like CDs, and the Auto setting allows the device to make its own determination of whether Movie or Music is the better way to go for any input.

The JVC SU-DH1 sells for about $130 and if, like so many people these days, you do a substantial amount of your listening through headphones, it's definitely worth checking out. On the way out of the Dolby booth, I spotted Thomson right next Door, so I stopped to check out that one-tube AR system and get further explanation of Thomson's plans.

I got a quick full-volume demo of the AR black Vault and I would guess that the 96 db SPL figure is accurate. The thing really cranked, even in the open space of the exhibit. And the louder it played, the better it sounded. Go figure.

Then I asked what Thomson was going to be left doing after finding a company to take over the RCA audio-video brand. It will, apparently, be mostly business-to-business products, with very limited consumer presence.

Continuing on, I happened to pass the Yamaha booth and stopped to listen to Yamaha's new YSP-1100 Digital Sound Projector. To be quite honest, this thing grabbed me by the ear and made me stop. It's definitely the best single box surround sound simulator that I've ever heard. Even more impressive was the fact that I was hearing it in a fairly open booth setting without much in the way of walls and ceiling that Yamaha's published description says are used to help the YSP-1100 do what it does.

Here are some numbers on the YSP-1100.

It's 40 inches wide, 4 inches high, and 8 inches deep. There are 40 small upper range drivers and two small woofers on the front panel. The box contains a separate digital amplifier for each speaker. The ones for the little speakers are rated at 2 watts each. The woofer amplifiers put out 20 watts each. (The woofers are only 4 3/8 inch diameter units. Yamaha makes a powered subwoofer, the YST-FSW100 as a recommended accessory. I assume I was hearing the system with full bass provided by at least one of those subwoofers operating.)

The YSP-1100 supports five modes for putting sound into the room: 5 beam, stereo, 3 beam, stereo with 3 beam, and even MyBeam. That last one shoots the sound to a single listener at a specific position in the room "to avoid disturbing others." You might call it a virtual headphone mode.

To accomplish all this the YSP-1100 relies on a small microphone that supports Yamaha's IntelliBeam system of automatic system calibration.

The YSP-1100 have various inputs and outputs on the back panel and would seem to prefer acting as the main control center of an audio-video system and not as a speaker array driven by an AV receiver.

As I said, the cinematic sonic presentation was impressive. Music sounded almost as good. (The system has music listening settings for concert hall, music video, and jazz club as well as one sports setting and three movie settings.)

There's a YSP-800, too. It's smaller, has fewer speakers, and more limited assortments of inputs, modes, and format options.

The YSP-1100 has a suggested retail of about $1700. You might find it online for as little as $1000 with the YSP-800 selling for somewhat under $800. The matching subwoofer can be had for under $150.

A hike over to the Hilton got me to the KEF suite where they were demonstrating the latest KEF Reference Series with justifiable pride. I started jotting down appropriate adjectives as soon as I entered the demo area and ended up with a list that included "confident," "relaxed," "honest," and "poised." I could have added "luxurious" but "extravagant" didn't occur to me even though my bank account (even with the inclusion of credit cards) would not care to fund a purchase of the full-blown KEF Reference home 5.1 installation I was enjoying so much.

Since I was at the Hilton, I dropped by the Harman International suite that featured Infinity speakers. Before the show, I received an email from the Infinity division that reported an interest in greening up their design and production by using alternative materials. I thought I might see and possibly hear some of the products that came out of this work. But it turned out that they hadn't gotten as far even as the production of concept prototypes.

They did have on hand samples of the materials they are looking into. One of the more surprising was insulation from recycled denim as a possible replacement for other sound absorbent materials inside speaker enclosures. They also are looking at bamboo plywood and structural paper form as possible materials for enclosure construction. Other ideas are to use Xorel fabric as a much more environmentally friendly replacement for PVC-based fabrics, and engineered real wood veneers made in China from reconstituted timber.

At this point, I headed back to my own room. It was late in the day and I wanted some time to rest up before the Showstoppers evening event at the Wynn.

Monday, January 8

6:30 pm

Showstoppers is a sort of mini-show at CES. The organizers solicit sponsors and invite the press. The sponsors are various electronics companies that are willing to ante up for the opportunity to have direct contact for a few hours with working press only. This year there were about 130 of them.

The sponsors display selected items from their offerings in more compact spaces than those at the main CES sites. These booths occupy a large banquet hall at the Wynn and the sponsors' contributions pay for the food and drink that flows into the hall throughout the evening.

The quality of this year's spread of edibles fell somewhat short of last year, but no matter. Although the fancy sustenance is a major draw at Showstoppers, the real rewards for press attendees are similar to those that encourage the sponsors to participate.

We get up close and personal views of what a select group of manufacturers are showing without having to compete for attention with the masses of buyers on the main show floors. And we get exposure to a lot of interesting products in categories that our usual beats might not lead us to.

I'll start with a few of the audio items that caught my eye and ear at Showstoppers and wrap up this installment of my CES diary with some non-audio technology that I expect you'll find as interesting as I did.

At the top of the audio list is the Soundolier Duo, a loudspeaker built into (or disguised as) a torchiere lamp. One full-range 5 1/4" driver fires upward at the curved surface of the circular lamp holder and shade. The sound, therefore, radiates from the unit with 360 degree horizontal dispersion, a sound pattern that I find very effective in creating a realistic soundstage.

The large and noisy banquet hall was not the best place to evaluate a speaker's performance, but under the circumstances the Duo seemed to do a nice job with John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme." But there's more to the Duo than a satisfactory speaker with unique design.

The Duo is set up for wireless connection to a sound source. To achieve that, you need to add an optional transmitter called the Maestro. The transmitter can take a signal either from amplifier speaker terminals or from a 3.5 mm stereo jack output. (You'll supply your own cables in either case.)

You can use the Maestro to send to either one Duo for mono listening--there's a mode switch on each Duo--or to a pair for stereo. For stereo use, the mode switch tells each Duo whether it should pick up the right or left signal from the Maestro.

Each Duo also has an easily accessible level control, a dimmer for the lamp, and power switch that sits on the floor adjacent to the lamp base for turning the internal amplifier (power not specified) on and off.

The wireless ability can make a pair of Duos a handy choice for rear channel reproduction in a home theater setup. No need to run wires, they'll look good flanking a sofa, having the rear channel signals somewhat elevated is generally a good thing, and the 360 degree dispersion pattern should keep the Duos from calling too much attention to themselves when serving rear channel duty.

The Duo speakers are sold separately for about $300 each. The optional Maestro wireless transmitter module goes for about $100.

Klipsch was there, too. It's a little odd too see that name on an iPod docking system with 2.5 inch woofers, but the company always seems to get things right and the new iGroove SXT does a good job of allowing Apple's personal listening device to produce traditional out-loud audio.

The iGroove SXT even has an S-Video output so that the signals from a video-equipped iPod can be routed to an external monitor. And Klipsch will sell you an optional bracket so you can mount your slim iGroove on the wall.

In addition to a performance level that exceeds typical iPod docking devices, the iGroove looks good. The iGroove SXT should be available now with a retail about $150.

The other Klipsch compact offering this year is a new DVD home theater system using Dolby Virtual Speaker technology to produce a 5.1 surround experience from a 2.1 speaker setup. The CS-700 system uses a wireless subwoofer along with the two satellites and that wireless signal can also deliver full range audio (CD-quality, Klipsch says) to other products in its new KlipschCast line. One of those is the RoomGroove, which looks a lot like the iGroove and sports similar specs.

The CS-700 will carry a $1,299.99 MSRP and the RoomGroove will cost $349.

ZVOX showed two new single box surround speaker systems that are sized to complement flat panel video displays. They're compact (one thin enough to wall mount under a similarly installed TV), fully amplified, and claim "built-in subwoofer" performance.

ZVOX, by the way, was co-founded by Winston Burhoe. His career started at AR and continued at KLH. He founded EPI in the late '60s where he came up with the inverted dome tweeter, and later designed speakers for Genesis and of course Burhoe Acoustics.

The ZVOX 525 is the larger of the two and uses four 4"x6" long throw woofers. It uses four 3 1/4" full range drivers in mono mode for voice clarity and four more of them to generate stereo and surround. The 525 measures 34" wide and 16" deep so it should fit under most flat video displays and inside most media cabinets. Suggested retail is $799.99.

ZVOX's wall mountable system is the 425. At 37", it's a little wider than the 525, but it's only 5" deep. Its complement of full range drives includes three for the mono service and two for the stereo/ surround service. The woofers are 4" long throw units and are mounted to be side firing. ZVOX says that this helps avoid wall vibrations.

If you haven't heard of Retrevo yet, you've got to give it a try. It's a search site (www.retrevo.com) that is customized for searches relating to consumer electronics. The company says that it is the first "dedicated vertical search engine" on the internet.

From my various visits both at the demo booth and later, the thing seems to work marvelously for all sorts of purposes: pre-purchase research, shopping sites (including "daily deals"), support after a sale, product reviews and manuals, and links to blogs, forums, and other electronics discussions.

Now for a couple of non-audio items that grabbed my attention at Showstoppers.

How about an easy-to-operate, ready-to-go, moderately priced, high performing, compact radio-controlled helicopter? It's the Picco3 marketed by Hobbytron. And from watching it in action in a crowded corner of the Showstoppers room, it has "fun" written all over it.

But it turns out you may have to wait for a while and adjust your sights before you get one. After the show, I learned of a renaming of the product. It's definitely not going to be the Picco3 when it comes out. It might be called the Hornet3 but maybe not.

There are apparently legal issues involved that relate to another RC mini-copter called the PicooZ. That one has been around for a while and there have apparently been a lot of knockoffs with similar names (PicoZ and PiccoZ among them). Obviously Picco3 was a little too close for comfort.

Hobbytron says that they are engineering their copter from top to bottom and that it will be a "hobby grade" rather than a "toy grade" product when it comes out.

I wasn't able to get a projected price for the Hornet3 (or whatever it might be called) when it becomes available. They did say that given the better quality than other RC mini-copters, it would likely cost a few dollars more than usual $30 or $40. Watch www.hobbytron.com for developments.

Finally, CarMD has a DIY in-the-driveway method for diagnosing your vehicle when the dreaded Check Engine light comes on. For $89.95 you get the CarMD tool, plug it into a receptacle on your 1996 or newer vehicle, and let it read the codes that are causing the Check Engine light to illuminate.

The connectors for the system are located within the front seat and dashboard area of all vehicles. The company's website (www.carmd.com) will show you where the one is for your vehicle.

The tool itself has three LEDs to indicate overall results. You don't want to see the red one lit up (unless you're using it to check out a potential person-to-person used car purchase).

For greater detail, you log in to the MyCarMD part of the website, upload data that the tool has saved in its memory, and get your report.

Some repair shops will charge as much as $100 to run a scan so one use of the CarMD can put you a few dollars ahead. The number of uses is limited to once a month for the detailed reports on up to three vehicles that you register when you sign in online. You can get unlimited red-yellow-green indications from the tool itself.

That's it through Monday. Next time out: (TADA) Tuesday, with some ancillary and follow up reports.--TK