Anything exciting at CES?

The Las Vegas C.E.S. 2002 & T.H.E. Show/Expo 2002 Magical Mystery Speaker Tour Report

You can find the full report at: http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/speakers/messages/72340.html

*Our* "Best of Show"

Aero Audio room: Acapella Campanile, Capitole CD player and amplifiers,
Acapella - Campanile. Audio Aero stereo and monoblock amps (Capitole Power Amp and Capitole Transtrac) and Capitole CD player. Nirvana cables. 'You are there!' sound. Our lives are now divided into pre-Acapella and post-Acapella. The first few seconds of hearing (some female vocalist on) them, not really paying much attention (except to their somewhat unique looks), it was like my brain did a double take - my ears told my brain that there was someone actually in the room singing. The soundstage is as much more present and solid than the pipedreams, as much so as the pipedreams are above ordinary (high quality) speakers. This extra-ordinary 'solidity' is present about, say, 30-60% of the time. The rest of the time the solidity is closer to what the pipedreams offer. (I am assuming that the speakers were largely responsible for this).
In addition to this is the dynamic capabilities of the speaker. We play the Frisell CD (Quartet, track 1) because we have heard him in concert a number of times, and most playback systems just completely fail to capture the dynamic envelope of even a single note. They *all* sound compressed - every other speaker we played this on (Exquisites, Pipedreams, ...), sounded compressed compared to live Frisell music. This system (I cannot be sure which component or combination of components is responsible), was close enough to the real Dynamic that it would take more time than we had at the show to determine the differences.
We did not have time to do an extensive evaluation. But to some extent we do not have to. It was just so much better than anything else in the areas it excels in, and at least competent in the others, that we thought it was way and above the Best of the Show.

Kharma Exquisites, Lamm, Walker Proscenium Gold Signature turntable (Classical music on turntable only)
Kharma Exquisites, Lamm amplification (biamped with Lamm ML1-1(?)s), Walker Proscenium Gold Signature turntable. Larger room (25x30x12ft ?). A little bright/foward, not involving (perhaps the speakers were not broken in?). Went back a different day. Played Miles Davis, Kind of Blue, 1st track (So What). and Girl from Ipanema. OK sound, not very involving, not much of a soundstage. Then an orchestral classical piece was played on the turntable... *WOW*. Soundstaging, authority, involvment.

Sound Lab room: The Sound Lab U1 speaker, Purist Audio Design, Wolcott
Sound Labs U1. Unfamiliar amplification. Oh! This is what all the fuss is about... Detailed, pleasant, engaging yummy sound, able to play many genres of music. If we did not have a wall of windows looking out on pine trees and deer and the rocky mountains that these large, black panels would almost completely obscure the lower half of, these would be our choice for our personal system.

Accoustic Dream room(s): Lumenwhite, VAIC, DCS.
Lumenwhites - We saw these in 3 different systems:
a. Lumenwhite 'Whitelight'. Edge amplification. We went to this room to see the amps, based on the good reviews in TAS. They seemed musical and quick footed, hard to tell w/o knowing the speakers better. And what speakers! Five ceramic drivers - fast fast fast. This might have been the best system of the 3, but there was some smearing of notes in time - I suspect it was the cables (you know: the highs arrive first, the mids and lows stroll in on the weekend?). There is some question about how much bass these speakers really have - and this has to do with the character of the speaker as a whole: do they emit sound with a leading edge *sharper* that what the input signal is indicating? These can almost assault the senses they are so violently quick. But on vocals, they sound natural enough - with lots of detail and texture. We were later shocked to learn that they list for $38K - the fit and finish is not comensurate with this price.
b. The smaller 'Whiteflame' Lumenwhites. VAIC Classic 52-B Monoblocks amplification, DCS upsampling, Wadia 860 CD player, Accoustic Dreams cables (when in production, < $1000!). Detailed, harmonically rich, very engaging. One of the better sounds of the show. Bass was present and accounted for on these smaller speakers as well as the (slightly) larger ones. It is a very, very tight bass, however. If these speakers were not so damn expensive - this would be a *great* system for a smaller room.
c. The (slightly) larger 'Whitelights' again. Large VAIC 52-B monoblock amps. Different CD player. Same sound as that in the room with the smaller speakers.

Inner Ear room: Tannoy Churchills, Tenor Amplification, Aero Audio Capitole.
Tannoy Churchills (Inner Ear room). Aero Audio Capitole CD player directly into Tenor amplifiers. Warm, engaging, pleasant. If the Churchills had some more resolution/detail in the treble and were not so 'beamy' (almost like some horns in this regard. We had also heard these at Audio Unlimited, and so were familiar with their sound), we would just buy this system and be done with it. But they don't - the beaminess could be perhaps dealt with in a large room by sitting outside the sweet spot (i.e. pointing the speakers almost straight ahead), but the lack of detail is something we, personaly, do not want to live without (I do not want to stress this too much - it is just that after living with the Dunlavy SCIVs (which have very little detail) for a few years, we are perhaps over-compensating by prefering a *very* detailed sound).

Piega room: C40 speakers, Aloia equipment.
Piega C40 - Aloia amplification. This sounded... different. Am not sure why. It *might* be a new advance in totally boxless sound. Heard them on 2 separate occasions. Very detailed, dynamic and musical high mids and trebble. Lacking some dynamics in the very low end. Played Girl from Ipanema and a Beethoven quartet (Quartet in B flat major op. 130 Emerson String Quartet). These speakers are similar to the lumenwhites, though somewhat more musical and 2/3 the price. I would guess it would take some serious listening to really determine all of the more subtle differences. This technique of replacing large woofers (was B&W 801N the last one?) with 2 medium size woofers (was B&W 800 signiture the latest) has now progressed to using 3 mid-ranges to generate the lows (and well.. the pipedreams use uncounted many). This creates very fast, tight bass, but somewhat lacking in the dynamic punch plus followthrough that larger woofers provide.

We (my wife and I) really enjoyed the Acapella Campanile speakers (along with the Capitole CD player and Capitole amplifiers, Nirvana cables) in the Audio Aero room at the Tuscany. Very impressive dynamic response and the solidity of the soundstage were both head-and-shoulders above anything else we heard there (or anywhere else for that matter). The speaker has an ion tweeter, horns, and conventional cone speakers for the bass.

Wish we had also listened to the Venture "Caractere Diamond" speakers Gendut3 heard - sounds like another great, 'unknown' speaker.

Lorne, I'd say Dunlavy SC5 or SC6's with, as you say, an Avantgarde horn grafted on the side :-)

If I may, can I ask why you "weren't impressed?", as we are considering ordering a pair of these...

The phenominal dynamics can be explained by the 4 large cone drivers and the horn - the Avantgarde also has terrific dynamic capabilities.

But the extraordinary solidity of the soundstage *might* be attributed to the ion tweeter (perhaps it is able to communicate the minute reflections of a singers voice off her arms and body) *or* it could have been the Capitole amplifiers (they do seem to make outstanding products).

Can I ask what equipment was driving the speakers when you heard them?

And (this is a funny question to ask) do you like the pipedreams? Some people (like the person (Brian) above) do not like them - so I can only conclude that whereas some people rely heavily on positional cues from their music (we are of this ilk: the solidity of the instruments is enough such that the thinking part of the mind is relieved of the task of reminding itself that there was originally a stage upon which there was a physical person making the music being listened to); others rely more heavily on other, different audible cues to piece together a pleasing musical experience.

Lornecherry: Thanks so much!

I suspect the bass is a little weak (compared to, say, big wilsons). They are 92db efficient. I've seen a waterfall graph of their tweeter, and it is absolutely amazing.

I also would love to hear the tenors with the pipedreams! All they had at the show was Marsh and Plinius, both solid state, and VAC.

Fatparrot: I heard the pipedreams in all 3 rooms at CES/Show, and thought their character was quite evident in al three (I agree that the Plinius room was the worst sound of the three).

Re: Avantgarde - I was refering to their dynamic capability. Live music is quite dynamic and I would like my speakers to be able to reproduce this aspect of the sound. I have found that, in general, highly efficient speakers are much better at this than low efficiency speakers.

Re: The Moon Dogs. Yeah, I went back to hear these a second time, being impressed the first time as well. Unfortunately, they were playing them too softly to tell much (except that the bass was somewhat reticent when played softly :-). They only go down to 40hz or so, which is a negative for us. What did you think of the Inner Ear room with the Tenors and Churchills?

Re: The Capellas. Thansk for your impressions. I(we) thought they did darn well considering, as you say, they had very little room in which to work (what, a 1 inch clearance between the tops of the speakers and the ceiling? :-) And so this was actually a plus for us - that they could produce decent sound in such an environment.

Re: the overall sound at the CES/Show... I think some of you people are too picky! :-) Most of the systems we hear at high-end dealer showrooms are no better (and often worse) than those we heard at the conference.

And I think the character of a system *should* show through regardless, and if it takes extensive setup and tweaking to get something to sound good (not great, just decent) - then, how do I say this, the system is inherently unstable: any slight change will make it sound bad again. And, personally, I do not want a 'persnickety system' - but maybe that is just me :-)

Thanks for your perspective on the Acapellas. I did not think we were the of the type that go for 'lush and polite', but I guess we do own Extremas... :-)

I am sorry we did not get a chance to get back to hear the Rockports after you guys got them setup the way you wanted them.. **sigh** Hopefully next time we will be slightly more efficent with our CES room traversal algorithm.

I also thank you, Albert; you were the second person to correct my mistake in the trip report - I will post a corrected version over on the Asylum after awhile (this can't be the only, factual, mistake we made).

However good or bad the Sound Lab room sounded - the speakers potential showed through clearly, and we were suitably impressed (and, given that they are the M-1 and not the U-1, the price/performance ratio is amazing).