When it comes to trade events, the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is at the top of the heap, the king chili cheese, the largest, most complex, most extensive and far-reaching — a monolith of the industrial revolution and human ingenuity. Typically staged in Las Vegas the second week after the turn of the new year, CES draws over 100,000 and transforms the infamous Sin City into a playground for techno geeks, gadget hounds, widget entrepreneurs, wired-for-communication freaks and distinguished members of the media.
This year, Apple was, as usual, absent from the showroom floor as their own Macworld Conference and Expo in San Francisco always seems to take place at the same time. Nevertheless, with the state of the economy as a hot button issue throughout, thousands of square feet was still eaten up and branded by the likes of Microsoft, Sony, Toshiba, Samsung. Panasonic, LG, and Nokia — predominantly makers of audio and video devices, computers, software, smartphones and all the attached accoutrements, including lots of Apple-related accessories. The presence of media outlets like NBC Universal, Jeopardy, CNET and Yahoo gave the whole shindig a newsworthy, commercial sheen.
This was my first CES show and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I mean, I’d heard lots about it and all, but it almost seemed like an electronic fairy tale that I would never, ever experience. But this time my credentials were in the bag and my angle was clear: I was here for the music. And that wasn’t much of a stretch because music is an integral part of CES.
Product Previews
After an adventurous drive into Las Vegas, my photographer and I found our way into the Venetian/Sands Expo to claim our credentials. It’s a very important part of the process because it shows you’ve arrived and you’re ready for business. Plus you can now get into places the general public never hears about or sees. For us, it was up a floor and down the hall to CES Unveiled. What it boiled down to was a gaudy Venetian ballroom turned into a frenzied bullring filled with frantic journalists, lobbying for product demonstrations and feasting on shrimp, sushi, pasta, cheese cake and Corona.
Everyone knows media types are natural gluttons, so how could they not be expected to gobble down the comped munchies and snag the swag as fast as they could bring it out. We’re talking T-shirts, thumb drives, the occasional rechargeable battery (which may or may not have been up for grabs). Tables lined the ballroom’s perimeter, manned by eager and ambitious representatives offering an uneven consortium of electronic nuggets — GPS units, USB microphones, LCDs, software, phones, concepts, solutions and way too many ear buds.
Samsung was one of many companies pushing LCD displays
Seems like everyone was touting some sort of ear bud or ear bud-related gadget (a sort of accessory for an accessory). There was Shure catering to the audio professional, so their ear buds — available in four different colors — are engineered for high quality sound. But when you come across novelty ear bud products like Convington Creations’ Ear Bud Yo Yo and Small Fish’s BloomingBuds, the joke is on the consumer.
The BloomingBuds are snap-on embellishments you add to specially equipped ear buds. In other words, they serve no purpose whatsoever. On the other hand, the Yo Yo addresses the all-too-familiar tangled ear bud cord dilemma, which has caused countless delays in the lives of ever-so-vigilant and impatient music enthusiasts. To the delight of the press, Earbud Yo Yo inventor Julie Johnson Barkley repeatedly demonstrated the product’s pliability to efficiently reign in those pesky ear bud cables that often bind up in times of crisis. I thought about the hours I could save with this contraption and realized the true of beauty of CES.
Later, we dropped by DivX, whose digital video technologies transcend most computer-video platforms to the point of complete and unabated ubiquity. It may not be THE standard, but it’s a reliable, longstanding player with the kind of HD enhancements that appeal to computer-video viewers. As we would learn, DivX 7 for Windows deploys high-quality video from just about any device for just about any device. And the picture quality is superb. We knew we’d be seeing lots of high quality, high resolution pictures over the next couple of days, but this was a great way to start it off.
Lean and Green
Press Day — the day before the actual show opens — was an ear- and eye-opening experience for the techie in all of us. Scrolling through a list of press conferences, we decided to throw the dice and see what came up. After all, we were in Vegas. We invited time, distance, hunger pains and coffee breaks into the equation and picked four companies to learn more about: Monster Cable Products, Toshiba, Casio and Sony.
Press conferences are either stuffy affairs or three-ring circuses. The current economic climate cast a long shadow over the pageantry that often turns the dreary press menagerie into an unyielding spectacle, so it was up to the mild-mannered marketers behind the brands to brew up something equally enticing and pragmatic.
I was bedazzled by Noel Lee, the “Head Monster” at Monster. “I know none of you gambled because none of us have any money this year,” he joked as he rolled onto the stage, standing tall and proud on his Segway. “But we’re happy to be here.”
After reminding everyone of the company’s 30th anniversary, Lee acknowledged the struggling marketplace, but stressed a positive outlook on Monster’s commitment to expand and develop. “When things are going down hill, you have to fight to go up hill,” he said.
Rapper Ludacris and Monster Cable’s Noel Lee
Between numerous partnership announcements, Lee introduced a healthy selection of new products, including the affordable HDMI Basic cable package (sorry, I don’t yet have that much of a “need for speed” when it comes to HDMI); a host of GreenPower surge protection (“Consumers want green and we’re gonna deliver green”) and iTV PowerCenters products; and the Turbine headphones — ear buds Lee says are so good they actually call them “in-ear speakers.” I tried out a pair at the company’s booth the very next day, and was astounded by their depth, dynamics and range. “There’s nothing like it,” Lee. “It sounds like a big speaker with a sub-woofer.”
The Head Monster touched on the company’s Dr. Dre Beats headphones, which led to his “passion for music” declaration. I waited in vain, hoping for the blare of an electric guitar to seal the deal for my music angle. As I would learn, Lee is a musician and a producer, as well as the founder of Monster. His success with Monster has allowed him to indulge his passion with own record label, Monster Music.
As we were to find out, the company is behind the release of a special DVD and Blu-ray Disc version of rapper Ludacris’ album, Theater Of The Mind. Not exactly what my readers are waiting to go out and buy, the High Definition Surround (HDS) SuperDisc sound technology deserves ample praise nonethless. The surround sound mix was done by Lee himself. How could you resist?
To the delight of Monster and the visiting press, Ludacris came out and said a few words. “As an artist, I’m very passionate about sound, what’s very innovative, and what the future’s bringing as far as sound is concerned.” He spoke carefully behind dark glasses, every bit the star he is. “I feel like I’m making history being the first person to do something…to have the first hip hop album coming out in HD sound.” Before parting, Ludacris added he had “home theater” on his mind when he made the record. Really? How ludicrous is this guy, anyway?
With “home theater” on my mind, I soldiered through the Toshiba press conference, picking up bits and pieces on their snazzy Regza line of LCD TVs. We ambled over to Casio’s press conference where the company’s president and CEO Kazuo Kashio demonstrated a new “age” of digital cameras. I was getting off the mark, but how could I resist the free watch?
The Sony booth at CES 2009
I ended the day with Sony, whose press conference took place at their humongous Central Hall booth in the Las Vegas Convention Center. Sitting adjacent to the Jeopardy set, I listened patiently as Rick Clancy, host of the Sony Electronics Blog, started off the proceedings from the game show set. Then, out of nowhere, Clancy appeared on the stage before the press. He introduced the top brass, including Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Sir Howard Stringer, and then handed off the baton to President and Chief Operating Officer Stan Glasgow.
Like so many others that day, Glasgow touched on the down market, but added “Sony Electronics enjoyed higher than expected sales in several key product areas this holiday season.” He went on to introduce a wide array of LCDs, cameras, phones, digital photo frames, camcorders, and Blu-ray Disc players. Glsagow concluded his presentation by sharing a slice of heavenly, eco green-friendly products, such as the “Eco” Bravia VE5, built to reduce power consumption and equipped with a presence sensor that automatically turns the TV off when no motion is detected in the room after a set period of time. Ah yes, the trendy “going green” mantra is rampant around CES. It’s a step in the right direction and a positive distraction to the grim financial side of the business.
Music Makers
Day One of the show for so many was Day Only for us, so we knew we had to make the most of it. First, we planned to visit companies we knew — the music makers. Record labels had little presence, although Concord Music, who released Paul McCartney’s 2007 studio album, Memory Almost Full and the 2008 reissue of all six Creedence Clearwater Revival studio albums, shared a small conference room with two other reissue firms at the Venetian. They knew their place.
I had expected to see an influx of Guitar Hero and Rock Band products. There were signs that both games were heavily enlisted for in-booth competitions or to sell other wares, i.e., video games consoles and displays. But Activision and Harmonix, the companies behind the music game phenomenon, respectively, were nowhere on the show directory. Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos did, however, pop up at Billboard’s Digital Music Live!, one of the sideshow conferences, to discuss the impact and future of music-based games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band on the music industry. He also mentioned something about bringing the Beatles catalog into the gaming arcade. It’s unfortunate I missed that session.
Walking among the booths of the few musical instrument manufacturers on hand — Gibson, Peavey, Roland, Korg, Shure, M-Audio, Sennheiser, Samson — it was easy to recognize a love among CES attendees for playing music — whether it’s using a Gibson Les Paul Guitar or a Guitar Hero Wireless Les Paul Guitar Controller. Now that the average family can turn their living room into a concert stage, who knows what’s on the horizon?
Gibson’s Dark Fire Guitar
I wanted to see real instruments first, so we head over to the Gibson tent in the convention center parking lot. We were the first to arrive, so I got a chance to ask Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz what the company was doing at the show. “We have a huge amount of products,” he said. “Gibson is divided into a number of divisions, and all divisions have an island. So we’re just displaying the latest and greatest stuff. We also have over 20 computer set-ups where you can come and play and experience the products.”
And the main attraction? Juszkiewicz had two words: “Dark Fire” — the company’s second generation high-tech guitar. on that front, Gibson has taken a strong lead, blurring the line between the professional musician and the tinkering weekend warrior. Like its predecessor, the Robot guitar, Dark Fire is a marvel of an ax that self tunes in virtually any key on a dime. Utilizing Chameleon Tone Technology, the guitar can also be activated to play distinctive, preset tones — from the Classic Gibson sound to Texas Blues, Funky, Acoustic, Twang, even Metal. “Today is the first day Dark Fire is available to play,” Juszkiewicz said.
Early reports indicate that the Dark Fire’s expected holiday release was delayed due to technical difficulties. Gibson’s reputation for perfection and quality is ratified by the pile of back orders for the instrument. “We’ve sold a few,” Juszkiewicz assures me. “But this is the first time consumers can actually walk up and experience the product.”
After the day’s first Dark Star demo from Gibson’s Aljon Go, I suspect they’ll get a lot more orders at CES. Buzzing, we headed into the South Hall and came upon several booths bearing the names of familiar music makers. Roland had the room jumping with a half-dozen HD-1 electronic drums available to thwack and pound. Every would-be Ringo in the joint had to take crack, including yours truly. And that’s exactly what Roland was going for. Their list of CES product launches included the DT-HD1 drum lesson software package, so they were more than willing to take on a few eager students primed on learning a few drum patterns and techniques. Of course, you have to own a set of HD-1 drums to use the software, but why sweat the details when the show’s in town for four days.
A stone’s throw away from Roland was Peavey. With only a few guitars on display, The Mississippi-based electronics pioneer was primarily touting their Architectural Acoustics PHR Series of in-ceiling loudspeakers for residential, commercial and industrial applications. When it comes to diversification in the sound and audio industry marketing place, Peavey is iconic.
That was as far as we got with the music makers. We knew we had to venture beyond guitars and keyboards to an area previously unexplored yet consistently relied upon by our readers: consumer audio products. We’re talking delivery systems like receivers, MP3 players, speakers, headphones, ear buds (Oh no…not them again!) and even good old fashion analog turntables. We couldn’t resist the lure of other electronic toys as we hiked through the vast convention center. But our aim was clear and sound was our guide.
Speakers, Headphones and Ear Buds
B & W’s Nautilus loudspeaker
There’s a popular theory that big, bad loudspeakers — you know, the ones that notoriously shake the walls and drive the neighbors batty — are losing ground in an ear bud nation. Small and compact bookshelf speakers are the basis for most lame, middle of the road home systems these days, even those integrated with DVD players and TVs. All it takes is one late afternnoon crankfest with AC/DC., and those babies are cooked.
Indeed, The days of the bulky speaker cabinet are dwindling, and for many the only way to stay in the game is to succumb to the iPod accessory market and reduce your speaker form factor to the size of a paperback book. Fortunately, that hasn’t stopped a few loudspeaker players from cranking out space-eating cabs for a chosen few. Stalwarts like Altec Lansing have worked to maintain a longstanding reputation for superior quality with the solid and sturdy 200-watt Expressionist Ultra line. Bowers & Wilkins, on the other hand, dabbled with both the practical and nonsensical. Their tubular Nautilus line not only punches out the airwaves; it looks pretty wicked too.
As speakers morphed into conversation pieces, headphones and their kissin’ ear bud cousins sprouted like weeds from an aspiring cross-section of participants — electronic rabble-rousers like Monster Cables and Sony; microphone manufacturers like Seinnheiser, Shure and Audio-Technica; and the one that started it all — Koss. Like many from my generation, I spent countless hours listening to my vinyl copies of The Dark Side Of The Moon and Wish You Were Here on a pair of Koss Stereophones. They feel like home.
The story behind Koss is simple: In the late 50s, John C. Koss turned an aviation headset into a pair of Koss SP-3 Stereophones, and the world never listened to music the same again. Well, they did, but now they had the option of isolating the sound for their own privacy. Unfortunately, Koss held no patent on the technology behind their Stereophones, something that would have probably made him a gazillionaire. But the company that bears his name is still cranking out all kinds of Stereophones.
One of the founder’s sons, John Koss Jr., vice president of sales and marketing, showed us three of the company’s latest offerings. “This is the new QZ Noise Cancellation product from Koss I s available in March,” he said, explaining that the new fourth generation noise cancellation stereophone has passive attenuation to block out more high frequency ambient noise than most of other noise cancellation products. “It’s a really spectacular sounding headphone,” Koss said.
The Koss CC_01 Ear Buds
Next up was the CC_01 Earbud Stereophone. I had seen my share of ear buds at the show, and was fighting hard to contain my rage. The thing is, ear buds and me have a distance relationship. Maybe the Earbud Yo Yo eliminates the tangle, but what about the buds themselves? How on earth do you keep the damn things in your ears? Koss has a solution with the CC_01.
“What most people dislike about headphones in general is how they fit,” Koss said. “This is our first effort to make comfort a leading feature.” He showed me how you simply turn the Custom Fit dial to adjust the buds for a proper and personalized fit that accommodates the diameter of your ear.
The CC_01 also addresses the tangle epidemic with a more subtle approach. By using a tangle-free, padded fabric cord, you simply wrap up your player in the soft confines of the cord. The tangle-free cable won’t scratch your player’s LED screen, instead cushioning and protecting the device from fuzzy slayers and iPod predators on the prowl.
“In keeping in line with the idea of maximum comfort, this is the KDE250,” Koss said, holding a bright and shiny pair of space age clip-ons. Now, there’s an option I hadn’t explored: clip-ons. Although these look more like hooks outfitted with a mini sub-woofer assembly. It’s actually an adjustable transducer that blasts bass frequencies, while the smaller side-firing transducer handles the mids and highs. “This kicks out sound like an old $250 studio monitor,” Koss said proudly.
Although I’d had my fill with ear buds, nothing quite prepared me for Monster’s Turbine “High Performance In-Ear Speakers.” As Noel Lee had attested at the company’s press conference, the Turbine delivered bass tones like a sub-woofer. They may have been engineered with hip hop in mind, but I can’t wait to get a pair for my next Pink Floyd listening party.
At this point, I realized we needed to look at the engines that drive sound to speakers, headphones and ear buds. It was time to see some rock solid output devices.
Media Players, Receivers and (gulp) Turntables
After a few years of market dominance, you’d think Apple’s iPod would have worn out its welcome. Not so fast buster. When you talk about convergence, the iPod is at the heart of any configuration drawing. When you look at the massive CES accessory market, iPod-related speakers, ear buds, headphones, adapters and docking stations are around every corner. However, with Apple absent from the CES roster, any new medications of updates to the iPod itself was losing a lot of eyeballs, and setting the stage for other digital media players to claim the throne.
Microsoft’s Zune digital media player
While passing by Microsoft’s looming magnificence, I cited a group of colorful Zune player huddled beneath a glass case. The Zune looks similar to your standard, garden-variety iPod, but also includes an FM tuner, wireless capabilities, Windows compatibility, access to music, video, gaming, and a sleek sense of style. When it comes to digital, the add-ons are adding up.
All along, I figured the biggest and boldest challenger to the iPod would be Sony. How the Walkman got snuffed in the original MP3 player stampede should be left to the history books. But in the midst of total digital delivery saturation, Sony has pulled an ace from it sleeve with a new Walkman lineup that focuses on aesthetics.
Not to be outdone by the likes of Koss in the comfort zone, Sony’s NWZ-W202 is a headphone style digital music player that completely eliminates the need for ear buds. You simply wear the lightweight player around your head and never look back. Not only is the sound decent, but the NWZ-W202 supports WMA and various other MP3 formats. In other words, you’re not locked into iTunes hell for everything you want on your player.
It was while we were at Sony that we decided to step it up and see what they had in the way of full-blown home AV receivers. To our delight, Sony’s Bill Kennedy was there to answer each and every question about the company’s newest entry into the receiver sweepstakes: the STR-DA 6400 ES Series Home Theater Network AV Receiver.
“This is Sony’s first networking receiver that allows us to go out and navigate content on the local network.” Kennedy announced. What? Where the hell have I been? You mean, you can now wire these suckers to the Internet? Not only that, you can stream music, photos and video from a PC plus or access online music content without a PC.
So why would you want to play low-fidelity MP3 files on a 120-watt receiver like the STR-DA 6400? Sony’s Digital Legato Linear (DLL) audio scaler takes standard definition MP3 audio files and upscales them to 192 KHz for higher quality audio. Next question…
Sony’s STR-DA 6400 ES Series
Home Theater Network AV Receiver
But how do you navigate though all the content? Kennedy pointed his remote at the LCD above. “We have a very unique GUI that allows me to easily access all that content, and overlay it on an HDMI source.”
On-screen icons enable you to navigate connected servers for music, video and photos, as well as access to the Internet for additional content libraries from Rhapsody and Shoutcast Internet Radio, which offers over 20,000 Internet-based radio stations.
Kennedy went on to outline a host of additional features, including control compatibility with a PlayStation Portable handheld device and CAT5 connectivity to a second zone. What he didn’t mention was that the ports on the back panel includ a phono input. For all the hoopla surrounding HD, HDMI and digital in general, it’s nice to see room for an old analog standby.
And that’s when it hit me. In the halls of CES, could there actually be a rallying cry for analog. I keep hearing about this great resurgence of vinyl, but where on the showroom floor could a guy find a decent turntable that wasn’t being used by a scratch-happy DJ? We only needed to look as far as the suites a-top the Venetian tower.
So we caught the elevator to the 29th floor to see what all the fuss was about. This was what truly separated the novice, casual listener from the hardcore AV purist. Here, companies demonstrated the impact of their audio and home theater systems in suitable environments far removed from the madness and mayhem of the convention center.
Marking their 60th Anniversary, McIntosh Laboratory is known in audiophile circles to manufacture some of the highest quality audio products in the world. At CES 2009, they took a step backwards by reissuing two legendary components — the MC75 monoblock tube amplifier and C22 preamplifier. MacIntosh has made a few modern enhancements to their products since, but it’s their retro technology that fascinated me. I imagine these two could warm up a room and still have enough energy left over to take out the garbage. For a solid state kid like me, I wouldn’t know where to start.
A couple doors down, a spinning turntable caught my eye. Or maybe it was the vinyl copy of Steely Dan’s Aja breezily slapping the airspace. I ventured into the suite of Musical Surroundings, and found myself staring at some of the most spectacular turntables I have ever seen. These were precision machines with reduced friction, greater speed stability and additional isolation that start at around $2,500 and head clear upwards to as much as $150,000. Price didn’t seem to matter because I was in a room any music lover could die in. What a way to end the day.
Heading back to our hotel through the North Hall of the convention center, we realized we missed out on the latest audio products for cars. Sounds like an angle for next year.
Musical Surroundings turn the tables!
