The old-style HRS rack, the Audio Aero Prestige monoblock amplifiers, the prototype Audio Note transport… all have gone to the show - and we are following.

We will update our show report as often as possible during the show, and of course the full report will follow the show by a few days.

This year we are flying, using an airplane, because last year a blizzard kept us from driving, which is what we usually do. Of course, this year it is in the 50s and 60s all the way…

The LAMM ML2 monoblocks are now on the Marten Coltranes, where the Prestige amps (and later the EDGE Signature One amps) were until recently. First impression was Wow. The solidity of the images with the Lamm is just astounding - and entertaining. I feel like a kid with some of this music as it wafts back and forth between channels. Yeah, I guess I am easily amused - but not to death (seriously, I have not tried that CD yet, although it is infamous for such playful aural tennis court activities).

The pair of Valhalla interconnects you see streaking across the floor in the forground are the cables that connect the output of our phono-stage, the Lamm LP2 Deluxe, in the other equipment rack in this room to the Coltrane system.

Sometimes we like to play vinyl, either the Brinkmann Balance or the Walker, on the Coltrane system. Kind of have to avoid stepping on (or worse, tripping on) the cables, but what else can one do? You gotta get the music to where you gotta hear it - and we can’t let the SoundLabs have ALL the fun!

Anyway, packing for Las Vegas… Camera? Check. Camera accessories? All dozen of them, check. Laptop? Check. Laptop accessories? All dozen of them, I hope they work in the hotel and we don’t get too many viruses from the hotel network, ….check. Demo CDs? Ooops. Almost forgot those.

I hope something sounds good there. I know a lot of people are thinking they are just going to exhibit at the RMAF show now.

And a lot of exhibitors do not care if their rooms sound good or not - counting on their sales and marketing team to woo the dealers to carry their equipment. Kind of sucks for those of us who go there to hear things. But I guess a lot of these equipment manufacturers have dealers who take the same approach as well - wowing with jargon and sales instead of presenting their customers with a good sound. It may be a nasty thing to point out - but it seems like that is just the way it is - our industry is no different than any other in this respect.

In contrast, here, we wow people with music and smiles - Boulder does not have much use for salespeople, anyway, and we aren’t good, and don’t want to be good, at the lie-till-they-buy shtick…. Our approach works for most folks, but, amazingly enough, I think some people actually prefer the hype and confrontational hostility of your typical dealership - it is what they have come to expect. We just confuse them.

Lately though, people are starting to learn to expect something different, something new: to just click and buy…and this sea change seems to have no end in sight. So then CES, whose very existence is for manufacturers to display their products to dealers, signing up the dealers to carry these products, will have what purpose when there are no more ‘dealers’?

Yummy.

These pictures are found on the Swedish Statement website and the new Marten Design website.

Every time I close my eyes I see these speakers. I do not know about all of you - but I like eye-candy. A lot. And some things just imprint themselves on the minds eye and won’t let go.

Hmmmmm… Is this my mind’s way of trying to tell me something? I could get into a LOT of trouble following this line of thought…

The actual system to be shown and heard in Las Vegas at CES 2006

The subwoofer tower and the main speaker tower

Another CES is upon us. At CES we are not exhibitors and get to play tourist - albeit ones that take a lot of photos and write a lot of notes about what we are hearing - but this is much more relaxing than being exhbitors. And fun!

This year we ARE going to make it to the main conference center exhibit halls - where CES proper lives. Every year we say this half-heartedly, but this year it is with full heart. We want to check out some of the new high-definition video front projectors and a couple of other, top-secret for now (hee hee hee), audio products.

At the usual high-end audio part of CES are a number of new products we are looking forward to seeing and hearing. And at the top of the list has to be the new Marten Design Coltrane Supremes:

Here we see prototypes of the Supremes. This system uses Lamm hybrid amplifiers to drive the speakers, however at CES the Swedish Statement room will demonstrate (in Suite number 2007 at the Alexis Park Hotel):

“Bladelius Beowulf amplifiers: $37,500
Bladelius Gondul version 3 multiplayer: $14,000
Jorma Design Jorma Statement cables: $71,800
Marten Coltrane Supreme loudspeakers: $250.000
Nordic Concept, Artist Signature turntable: $18.000
WOO Design furniture: $11.000

Total: $402,300″

Yeah, this might qualify as a statement system . And for those of you wondering why we do not have a quartet of the Supremes here at Audio Federation, well, we just do not have the room:

Seriously, we should do a photo montage of our rooms here at the Belfry - although this is a 4-bedroom house, 2 bedrooms are chock-full I am not kidding to overflowing offices, one we sleep in, and one is our small listening room. Our livingroom and rec rooms are listening rooms. And yes, we (mostly me, I will admit) talk about converting the small dining room to a listening room, as well as the bedroom - at which point we would instead sleep in the walk-in closet. It would work, I just know it…

OK, back to CES…

The Swedish Statement room has its own website

The speakers are certainly something special, check this out:

“…Marten is now the first loudspeaker producer in the world to use Accuton’s 5cm diamond midrange in the Coltrane Supreme. Each of the Supreme’s two main speaker towers employs one diamond tweeter, one diamond midrange unit, one ceramic lower midrange unit and four woofers for the upper bass. The two bass towers employ six 9-inch woofers each, and a 2000W power amplifier. The cabinets are made of carbon fibre laminate and wood. The integral stands are made of polished stainless steel, and use cones and pucks from Black Diamond Racing.

“…The Coltrane Supreme is a four-cabinet system, consisting of two main loudspeakers and two dedicated subwoofers. The cabinets are made of extremely rigid, light, and stiff carbon fibre laminate with a Kevlar honeycomb in between. The main loudspeakers have a frequency range from 100 to 100,000 Hz. The crossover is a fully balanced, active, fourth-order design, with digital room correction possibilities below 100 Hz. The subwoofers have a frequency range from 15 to 100 Hz.

“Each main speaker tower employs four 7-inch ceramic upper bass units, one newly developed 7-inch ceramic lower-midrange unit, the world’s first 2-inch diamond midrange, and one _-inch diamond tweeter. Each subwoofer employs six newly-developed 9-inch, long-throw ceramic bass units with extreme low bass capabilities. All drivers employ neodymium under-hung magnet systems. “

Ah, one of the good things about the impersonal nature of the net - you all can’t see me drooling.

Finally, here is another view of the prototypes:

We already know how good the Jorma design cables are - they are the only speaker cable that we think might be better than Nordost Valhalla (read between the lines of what all the other cable manufacturers say, Valhalla is darn hard to beat). And now they have come out with a statement cable: The Jorma Design ‘Prime’:

Jorma Design (no photos yet)

“The newly-developed cables that Jorma Design will be contributing to this project are made of top-quality materials: gold, copper, transparent Teflon and walnut, all fine-tuned to get their best possible result. The cables have completely new conductors that were developed especially for this project, by a small European producer that really had to push its limits. The manufacturer had to change its machines to be able to make these conductors, and it took more than half a year to test them. The screens are made of extra-sturdy copper, and the cables make use of Bybee Slipstream Golden Quantum Purifiers. “

We have not heard the other components that are used in the Swedish Statement system… but soon, very soon now, just 16 more days….