CES 2003: Which products impressed you?

Gaudio_eek, only on rare occasions have I had a chance to compare my hearing and tastes with fellow audiophiles, so I was a bit apprehensive about posting my impressions. It gives me great assurance your experience was similar to mine, now I know I can rely more on the reviews I read on Audiogon and that my ears aren't completely different from others'.

Gumbei, I was at Blue Circle with Gilbert early and late on Friday. I have a couple crazy pictures also. He introduced me to Kevin as Sugarbrie, so Kevin knew also. George Stanwick of Stanalog Audio knew me both as me (I've referred him business) and Sugarbrie, but did not know the connection.

I also liked the sound I heard at Wilson Audio, Quad, Mission, Music Hall, Thiel, Van den Hul, Dr. Hsu's subwoofer demonstration, and many others.

It was also fun to get talk to folks like Bill "Conrad" and Lew "Johnson", Michael Chang (lightspeed), Steve McCormick, A.J. Van den Hul, Richard Vandersteen, Roy (Music) Hall, Dr. Hsu, and the son of Y.B. Andre (YBA) about the Passion Integre.

Gunbei, I took a lot of pictures so I can share them whenever they are available. I could not borrow a digital camera (spent too much on audio!) so had to use my normal camera. Will develop the pictures today and ask for the jpeg copies. I'm quite impressed by the synergy between the Talk Electronics and Spendor. Talk Electronics Thunder 3.1 Balanced also uses the Anagram Technologies chip and software. The new Unico CD player is also incredibly musical and was able to reproduce tons of texture. Wood sounds like wood and metal sounds like metal. Must be the tubes doing their job! It also handles crescendo nicely. Excellent PRAT.

Venture Audio room had the most impressived looking and sounding amplifier and speakers.

The Monster Gamut amplifier was impressived,but not the sound. (with pipe dream speakers)

The best sound was Audio Note KONDO from Japan. MAGIC.

Sugarbrie, Kevin and Gilbert were complaining about the huge breakfast they had Saturday morning and how mortified they were that they had to take a cab for the half mile trip back to the Alexis Resort. I'm trying to think of a diabolical way I can manipulate the digital photos I took of them.

It was the first time I saw the Hermes 2 but I forgot, was it Gershman speakers that was sharing a room with Kora?

I missed the Audio Note room as well!