Wes at the CES: Special
On-the-Spot Feature
January 9 update
Normally when I visit the Consumer Electronics Show, I walk
around the Las Vegas Convention Center feeling as though I'm out of sync with the mass
market -- especially when it comes to home theater. The major electronics companies show
products that offer features I just don't get.
Usually I assume that I'm just not in tune with the average
TV watcher.
This year, I'm not so sure. I smell flop sweat rolling off
the big boys.
Oh, they know that everybody wants a bigger, flatter
picture -- and everywhere you look there are newer, bigger, better flat-screen TVs. And
they are getting better and cheaper. In fact, flat-screen TVs may be the only
reason most of the major manufacturers had anything approaching a good year in 2003.
But most people are holding out for cheaper -- lots
cheaper. So, while the electronics firms are happy that people are buying anything, they
want to figure out another killer app that everyone has just gotta have.
Judging from this CES, they've decided to bet on recordable
DVD and wireless whole-house connectivity.
Both are cool, but I'm not sure I've got to have them.
The big corporations are banking on your completely
replacing your VCR with a recordable DVD player by 2005. Most people reading this will
already own a DVD player, and many of you will already have a TiVo or ReplayTV PVR.
But is the average consumer really jonsing for DVD-R?
Especially once you explain to him or her that it only records TV or home videos -- not Pirates
of the Caribbean?
If so, I'm not aware of it. Early on, I heard a lot of
people saying they would wait until DVDs had recording capabilities, but most of them gave
in when Costco began selling $89 DVD players. I can't imagine them replacing those
cheap'n'cheerful units with a $1000 DVD-R.
Not gonna happen.
I wonder the same thing about the wireless option. Have I
been secretly dreaming of streaming entertainment from my computer to my kitchen? Well,
maybe a little. I'd love to have the iTunes resident on my office computer at my disposal
everywhere in my house, but a run of CAT 5 cable can do that pretty easily already -- and
I still haven't even done that.
I firmly believe that whole-house entertainment is an
attractive option and one that people will buy, but I'm not so sure that this
version of it is the one that will compel them to buy it now.
So I wander about the 2004 CES wondering if there's
anything really new under the sun for home theater -- anything I've just got to
have. So far, the answer is a resounding no.
But I'll keep looking. Maybe I'll find it today.
January 10 update
"From small things, baby, big things will surely
come," or so Bruce Springsteen would have it, and when it comes to home theater,
manufacturers seem to side with the Boss. Or maybe it's just me, because it seems as
though the home-theater products I most got off on at the 2004 CES were all on the tiny
side.
I was intrigued by MartinLogan's Fresco ($995 each), which
were stylish, flat and, umm, small. Like all of ML's current offerings, the Fresco
has a bold curve running along one side (since you can mount the speaker vertically or
horizontally, it's up to you whether the curve is a side or the top), and it has a
surprise behind the grille cloth: a ribbon driver. ("The closest thing you can
get to an electrostat for the money," an ML spokesperson confided.)
I'd love to give you the particulars about its drivers, but
I was so gob-smacked by the construction of this little beauty that I forgot to take
notes. Suffice it to say that the ribbon driver is surprisingly heavy (all those magnets)
and the two dynamic midrange/upper-bass drivers were works of art. As beautiful as the
Fresco's different grilles were, I'm not sure I wouldn't opt to bare its guts for all the
world to see. It's that pretty.
And it sounded good, too -- lively and punchy in ML's
"typical living room" demo. Eye candy? Sure -- but I want candy!
T+A bills itself as the company "for people with eyes
and ears," and I don't think it makes anything that isn't strike-me-dumb beautiful.
They make tube amps gleaming with chrome, sexy high-end separates, and the coolest mini
HT stack I've ever seen, which comes from the company's High End R-series. It's a micro
system consisting of the $3350 DVD 820 DVD player, the $2150 PT 820 M preamp/tuner, the
$4595 DD 820 M 5.1 digital decoder amplifier, and the $2350 PA 820 power amplifier.
Wait! Don't write this off as just another pretty mini
system -- it has really interesting guts. The PT 820 M is an analog preamplifier/tuner
(two-channel) which, with the PA 820 M two-channel amplifier, functions as a nifty little
stereo rig -- albeit one that puts out a whopping 300Wpc (and up to 20A of current).
But it gets really interesting when you add the DD 820
digital decoding amp. That not only contains another three channels at 300W each,
but a fabulously flexible 5.1 processor as well. Since all of the M-system components use
T+A's proprietary equipment bus, connection and control are simple and intuitive -- and
when you use the system for two-channel operation, the digital circuitry is completely
separated from the analog innards.
The DVD player is pretty advanced, too, with dual lasers,
switchable filters, and discrete power supplies.
I simply love gizmos, and T+A's combination of high gizmoid
factor and stunning design has me drooling for a chance to put the M-series through its
paces.
Sometimes, however, you just have to abandon yourself to
the big thrill -- Halcro and Wilson Audio provided one of the biggest at the CES.
Technically not an HT demo -- there wasn't a monitor in sight -- the Wilson/Halcro setup
nonetheless showed the true potential of multichannel in the home. Driven by about a
zillion watts of bridged Halcros, a full complement of Wilson speakers (MAXX, WATCH,
WATT/Puppy 7s) simply took me to wherever the music was. It would do the same thing with
DVD, too, I'm sure.
But the point was not that it could make multichannel
commercial recordings sound good, which it did -- at least better than almost anything
else I've heard. (Most pop recordings, at least, are just downright perverse in their
insistence at putting stuff in the rear channels that just should not be there.) No, it
was what the system did with Peter McGrath's four-channel recordings of acoustic music in
real halls. The effect was subtle and profound. The music wasn't just in front of us -- it
surrounded us with its presence and energy. We were immersed.
After hearing that, I simply left the show. Nothing could
top that demo.
Imagine having something like that to go home to every day.
That would keep you going.
...Wes Phillips
wes@onhometheater.com
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