CES 2008.(RAMBLINGS)(Consumer Electronics Show)(Brief article)

As far as I could tell, little changed from 2007. Major companies like JBL, Infinity, Onkyo and Yamaha skipped the show entirely preferring to show at CEDIA. The press corps must have multiplied ten-fold with all the internet websites and bloggers. As a result, the high-end music rooms were overflowing. The fact that almost all the high-end equipment was being demonstrated on three floors of the Venetian hotel (CES organizers made the change from the spacious Alexis Park last year) did not help matters. Even if an intrepid soul could work through the crowd to secure a prime listening spot, it was next to impossible to get listener-selected music played. My specially-prepared CD-R was an especially hard sell for more than a minute or two (playing chamber music is a good way to clear a room). It is easy to make a speaker sound good by using specifically selected material the manufacturer has chosen. How the speaker sounds with your source material is the key at a trade ...