CES SHOW REPORT 1999

The 1999 CES Show was a mixed bag of sorts.On one hand you had stunning new technology from major companies,and on the other hand you had many small companies which seemed light years behind in development.Sony's plasmer/liquid crystal 16:9 TV was awesome.For a plain old NTSC picture it had depth and realism which I've never seen before in anything(not even PAL/SECAM).The Vega HDTV's were great but there was something about the Sony plasma which made you want to keep watching it no matter what was showing.

Panasonic displayed a Computer to TV converter which looked good (even on windows).For under $500 USD it's great.It also turns your existing mouse and keyboard into a remote controlled item (very neat).

In contrast, the High End Show at Alexis Park started off very slowly.On the thursday it was so quiet,it seemed like the end of hi-fi.However things picked up on the weekend when the crowds came in.Many familiar exhibits from previous years plus some new companies.At times I thought it was like an art show.Anything with a nice aluminium chasis and front panel seemed to have high asking prices.(a sort of ,well if Krell can do it so can we attitude).One valve amp looked gorgeous and sounded lovely.The one output valve that it had per channel was $50 USD.The driver tubes added up to another $200.How then could you ask $19000 for them????Have you ever seen what $19000USD of valve parts gets you???There was no supposed magical wire inside or in the transformer,just a lovely chasis with a huge price tag.Speakers seemed expensive in many cases(It seemed like their attitude was, if Wilson audio can build a big box, we can to and charge $30000 to do it).After looking at some of them I felt like I should be charging $7000 for our $1000 minitowers!!!

Burmeister had a huge speaker for $60000 USD,it sounded quite good,but they insisted on playing a percussion piece (on the Sunday morning).Some normal music would have been great.As it was, there was a loose turn on the voicecoil on the right channel and at certain frequencies, the offending driver would buzz.Aggghhhhhhh!

The highlight though was how good 96Khz 24bit DVD sounded.The Lorna Hunt DVD from classic records was fantastic.Just a cheap Pioneer 414 DVD player plugged into a preamp seemed to make any display sound good.In fact if you heard it then walked into a cd room you would notice a major downgrade in the quality of the treble with standard cd.The only time I felt really good in a cd demo was if the transport was a CEC TL1X.But considering how much you would have to spend to get good quality cd and compare that to a DVD player cost,plus the fact that no matter what you did with the cd the DVD was still alot better,I came to the conclusion that the high end cd market is nearly finished.DVD has taken over,not just in movies(where laserdisc has been dead for nearly a year),but also in high end audio market.

The St Tropez Hotel next door had a rival hi fi show which overall was much better than Alexis Park..I heard the latest Wilson Audio speakers in the C.A.T. room and they sounded lovely.The rooms seemed to be better acoustically,although the standout exception at Alexis Park was the Innersound hybrid electrostatic (Boy do these electrostatics go loud!) which definitley proved that if you had a good enough product it would sound good at Alexis Park.

The DTS demo at the Hilton was great.Software was easily obtainable at Alexis Park (including some new releases that were not available in shops i.e.DTS version of Dancing with Wolves).The new DTS cd 5.1 remix of Lyle Lovett's "Joshua Judges Ruth" .Billy Myers"Growing Pains" and Diane Krall are standout items.With so much fun to be had with DTS music discs and 96KHz 24 bit DVD music discs,I can't see any point in continuing with Gold cd releases.Classic records seem to have the same idea,they were clearing out all vinyl and cd's and going into the new 96/24 bit technology.Let's face it 96/24 costs about the same as an audiophile cd ,but it slaughters it in sound quality.I think the only place left for cd is in the car or in portable systems.Actually there were AC3/DTS decoders for the car,but I think finding a spot for the centre channel might slow things down a bit.

Reading the latest Absolute Sound issue 116 Feb 99 I was a little amused reading Dan Sweeny's multi channel music article.He didn't know what DTS titles were available.5 minutes on the web at the DTS website tells you everything about software and availability!!!

I have more to add about the show,but I will do that at a later date.(like next weekend) below are shots from last years show.I'll throw in some new shots soon(although I must admit that most of the people below haven't changed much in looks).

CES PHOTOS