Checking out the “other” show

At least we won’t have to go as far afield for coverage this year. T.H.E.Show is no longer where the cows graze, at the Alexis Park, but at the Flamingo, right on the Strip, and just a little south of the Venetian, where CES has its own high end exhibits. And in truth it wasn’t the disaster area it was last year.

However the trouble with being in a hotel as gigantic as the Flamingo is that you become all but invisible. Even hotel staff didn’t know anything about it, and visitors were left to wander the halls hoping to find, finally, some sort of sign. Even so we didn’t find the registration booth right off, and it was all too easy to visit the 4th floor exhibits (read: nearly all of them) without picking up a badge and contributing to T.H.E.Show’s survival. Hint: it’s in the basement.

We’re sorry to say that, as happened last year, a number of T.H.E.Show exhibitors seemed too dispirited to work the crowd, or sometimes even to show up (in Vegas the bars never close). It happened in a number of rooms: no one looks up if you walk in, music is playing at an insignificant level, and the only words spoken are one side of a cell phone conversation. What sort of company spends money to book a room, ship and set up gear, and then staff it with losers like this? That was much more common at T.H.E.Show than at CES, and it applied to some major names.

Oh, the speaker at right? It’s part of the David Wiener Collection, and it’s a sight to see. Flawlessly fashioned from milled aluminum, the speaker contains eight small woofers (with an amplifier for each group of four), two midrange drivers, and a tweeter. Also included is an Aphex Exciter, a circuit popular in some recording and broadcast circles, which adds extra harmonics (i.e. distortion), and which has never excited us. It can be turned off, fortunately. The leftover aluminum is used to build the heaviest and best-looking iPod docks we’ve yet seen, one of them capable of sending music wirelessly to the main speakers.

Crystal Cable was back this year, with a much better installation than last year. It was then doing demos using inexpensive gear, in an attempt to show how good it could sound with the right cables.

This time the system included a Dr. Feickert Analogue turntable with Ortofon arm and cartridge, electronics from AMB (Abbington Music Research), and speakers from Raven Design. And, of course, Crystal Cables, the same ones as last year. It was a much more convincing demonstration, worth an extended listen.

Peter Ledermann had brought his always impressive Soundsmith gear, some of it in wood cabinets, as usual. Especially impressive was his latest phono cartridge, which uses a strain gauge (like the ones in expensive bathroom scales) as the generating element instead of the usual magnetic circuit. The cartridge requires, and comes with, its own phono preamp, for a combination price of $5500. Not only does it light up, as you can see in our picture, but it includes its own adjustment for vertical tracking angle.

 

On The Beatles’ A Day in the Life, it was lively to the point of being frightening (and that was despite the tiny Soundsmith Monarch speakers, with sound many times larger than their physical size). Likewise with Hugh Masakela’s Stimela (from his Hope album). Peter’s turntable had a second tone arm, allowing him to play his other new bt more conventional cartridge, the Sussorro. One visitor expressed a clear preference for the more familiar sound of the Sussurro over the clear and expansive explosiveness of the strain gauge pickup. Certainly both are worth a listen. Nonetheless, the sound of the strain gauge  — and the rest of the system too, of course — was especially memorable at a show where not all rooms are at their best.

 

Keith Herron was playing an entire system bearing his name, except for a VPI Classic turntable. He’s shown here with his newest product, the VTSP-3A preamplifier (the one on the top shelf, $6550).

The system sounded most attractive, rendering a cornet tone very close to what you might hear in a jazz club. The violin tone on a recording of Paganini concertos was rich, smooth and lovely as well.
In the Reference 3A room we heard, once more, the Episode speakers, which are reviewed in our current issue They share the cover, as you can see at The Reading Room).

They were being driven by the latest from Antique Sound Labs, the integrated KT-88 tube amplifier, the AQ 1001 Mk II. It seemed absurdly affordable by the standards of most of what we had heard, at $1950. The sound was very fine, which was no surprise. The source was an emmLabs player, which certainly didn’t hurt anything..

 

Notable, and not just for looks, was this tube monoblock from AudioNote in the UK. The entire system was from AudioNote, including the turntable and the large corner-placed speakers. We liked the sound. The Japanese AudioNote company had its own room at the show, with quite different products, but mysteriously was not offering to play them.

Roger Sanders is a regular at T.H.E.Show, and this time he had brought his new 10C hybrid electrostatic speakers, the largest we have heard from him. They cost $13,000 with a digital electronic crossover and an amplifier for the woofer. You supply your own amp for the main electrostatic panel. Crossover frequency is user-adjustable, but Roger had set it to 172 Hz.

A number of rooms were using computers as sources, both at T.H.E.Show and CES, but none was more interesting than Sonic Studio’s Amarra. It’s software, not hardware. Installed on a Macintosh computer, Amarra bypasses Core Audio, using iTunes only as a front end, and enabling 24/192 playback (on the $995 full-blown version) or 24/96 (on the $300 Mini version). A Firewire DAC is recommended. We’ve asked to review it.

 

We were happy to see the return of NFS, the creation of a group of local audiophiles (the pseudo-corporate name stands for “Not For Sale”). The two rooms were dramatically lit with BlissLights, and were filled with pretty good gear (a VPI turntable, Sonic Frontiers preamp, Adcom amp modified for tube drivers, and large DeVore speakers), and exceptional sound. We wish that the companies that claim to want to sell products would go to as much trouble.

We didn’t see Mike Maloney, the founder of T.H.E.Show, and his Scientific Fidelity room was empty, but we saw his picture. He will be coming to sign copies of his new book on investing in silver and gold.

He must have decided that this where the money was!