2008 Consumer Electronics Show Report

Close to 150,000 industry insiders attended the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas from January 7th-10th, including your intrepid reporter, Phil Gold. The CES is the biggest show of any kind in North America, and puts a severe strain on both the transportation system and the hospitality trade. Lines for taxis and hotel buffets can be up to an hour long, while public transportation or driving is frequently an exercise in frustration.

CES covers many fields from iPods and cameras to computers and musical instruments. A huge amount of space is devoted to In Car Entertainment. This is the place for manufacturers to meet distributors and dealers, for companies to spotlight their latest products or give sneak previews of upcoming gadgets, and to get the word out through the press whose numbers grow every year.

Audio Video is concentrated at the massive Las Vegas Convention Center where Sony, Panasonic, HP, Samsung and others have a huge presence. High End Audio has largely migrated to the Venetian Hotel, but some manufacturers exhibit at the Hilton Hotel and others rent palatial suites at unadvertised locations where attendance is by invitation only. In four days, one reporter can only scratch the surface of such a vast event, and this article does not purport to represent the best of CES or even the most relevant. Rather it covers the rooms that caught my eye for one reason or another. Maybe I know the people, they're Canadian, I just like the sound, or perhaps they just serve the best coffee. Here goes.

We start with B&W, the world's largest speaker manufacturer, making their first appearance at CES in fifteen years to highlight their first Mobile Audio sound system in the gorgeous new Jaguar XF. B&W worked with Alpine to produce the best in-car sound I've experienced.

B&W also showed a new iPod based sound system, the aptly named Zeppelin ($599 US). Many other companies including even Focal and Krell are supporting the iPod now.

New from Sony is the Blu-ray based Home Theatre PC - the VGX-TP25E/B ($3000 US). Many smiling faces were seen around the Sony booth as Blu-ray now looks to be winning the format war for high definition video following Warner's January decision to drop support for Toshiba's rival HD DVD format. Many in the industry are pleased that a winner is emerging - the uncertainty was killing sales.

What better to show those Blu-ray discs than the latest plasma displays! Pioneer's prototype Project Kuro 50" screen is only 9mm thick and offers the blackest blacks imaginable. Meanwhile Panasonic offers the world's largest plasma screen at 150" with a resolution of 4000 x 2000, but you'll need a six figure budget to secure yours.

New from Thiel is the THIELnet system for wireless home theatre sound. The main advantage here is simplicity of installation while maintaining Thiel's renowned sound quality. Of course it's not completely wireless - now you have to run a power cord to each wireless speaker. A number of industry rivals are developing similar products. Is it too much to ask for the industry to get its act together to support a common standard?

Peterborough's Bryston introduced an 8 channel Hybrid class D amp with a 5 year warranty, the D250 Zone amplifier ($5695). As always with Bryston, build and component quality is superb. A higher power (D500) and lower power (D130) version will also be available.

Click here to read Part 2 of this article.