CES / T.H.E. Show 2007
Five Easy Pieces
Snippets from 2007 CES
    
Bonus Coverage By Phil Gold
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4. Electrostatics Made Easy

   

Electrostatic speakers have been around for many years with well-known players such as Quad and Martin Logan but Final Sound is making rapid inroads in this space, offering outstanding value for money and some real technical innovations. Not too much detail now, because Final's Marketing VP Ellen Minkels has agreed to send me a review pair shortly. Besides the outstanding sound in the small demo room, with or without subwoofers, what impressed me most was Final's patented Inverter technology. Where existing electrostatic designs move the audio signal across positive and negatively charged stator plates on each side of a Mylar diaphragm to "pull" the film and create the sound, the Final technology "inverts" that process by embedding the audio signal inside a sealed diaphragm. This creates sound energy that is stronger, clearer, far more responsive, and amazingly lifelike.

The members of the Final team, despite their Dutch nationality, were found at one point trying to teach an Italian singer Italian songs.

 

5. Husband and Wife Cable Companies

The husband is Siltech's Edwin van der Kley, and his latest product is the 6 figure Signature Loudspeaker SC1, with internal wiring by Siltech of course. The speaker is still in prototype form but sounded dynamic and relaxed in a large stateroom at the Venetian. It's not easy mixing electrostatics and dynamic drivers, but Siltech seems to have found the secret. The aim is to provide a full range speaker capable of extreme subtlety which keeps that finesse even at very high decibels.

The wife is Crystal Cable's Gabi van der Kley and here she is with her company's new speaker! Slightly reduced in physical scale, but that seems to be the signature of Crystal's product range - witness the power cord she's holding in her other hand. Gabi and I had a long chat, but not just talking about the product side, the audio jewelry. Gabi is a musician, a concert pianist no less, and she gave me two discs, one a CD, the other an SACD, both produced by the Crystal cable team, which I plan to use to test the EMM Labs CDSA SE over the next few weeks.

 

Five Easy Pieces?

Absolutely. It's a pleasure to meet the representatives of each of these companies, to get to know the people behind the products and the writing comes very easily today. The five pieces cover companies who are pushing the state of the art, full of people who are motivated by the love of music. I feel at home with these guys. And there are so many more...

 

Vegas

And now, a few parting shots of Vegas.

 

Good to see that the local authorities take health risks of second hand smoke seriously.

 

Thought you might like to see part of the lobby of my hotel (New York New York).

 

The food was good at the Tokyo Restaurant and so was the company (Denon)

 

The Revolution nightclub at the Mirage wanted to check my ID - worth the hassle to play on the magic psychedelic tables inside.

 

Finally, what hotel lobby is complete without a playful pet?

 

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