Finally, the Pioneer EX series speakers mentioned in my Day 1 report (below) were producing some of the best sounds at the show—at the Alexis or anywhere else. Thew demo here was 2-channel only, using the big S-7EX floor-stander. I found very little to criticize in what I heard, but hope to get the chance to review these speakers very soon in a full mulichannel array. I'm not convinced that Pioneer's decision to market these speakers under their own name is a wise one. US audiophiles have never made a beeline for Japanese speakers (though many of them are now listening to Chinese ones!!). But the speakers are actually a hybrid of Japanese manufacturing, British design (from speaker designer Andrew Jones, who also designed the up market TAD speakers that use similar but not identical drivers) and French (cabinet) styling. If you're in the market for a $9000 pair of speakers, or a surround package built around them, they definitely deserve a listen. I'll have more to say in an upcoming review. .—TJN

Conrad-Johnson has two new home theater components to go with its current CAS200 6-channel preamp. The latter offers no processing, but instead relies on the Dolby Digital and DTS processing in most DVD players. To go with this, an updated universal DVD player will be available both from C-J and McCormack (essentially the same player, but with different face plates). It's an extensive updating of the previous McCormack player, using premium parts, and will be called the Conrad-Johnson Edition of the McCormack UDP-1. The price will be $3995. There will also be a MET150 multi-channel power amp ($8500) in the spring, with 150Wpc into 8 ohms and single ended triodes used for voltage gain, with solid-state output stages.—TJN

The line of speakers from the Italian company Bolzano Villetri may not have been the best sounding at the show (though they may have had the must unique sound) but they were certainly the most unusual (obvious from the photos), and possibly the most gorgeous as well. Briefly, they consist of drivers firing upward and downward, in most cases two woofer-midranges and two small tweeters. The resulting sound fires out on all sides, for a (nearly) omnidirectional sound. The largest floorstander shown, the Great Torre, is priced at $9000. The slightly smaller Piazetta (love those names—sounds like a small pizza) goes for $6000 (its 6.5-inch woofers would likely be a good match for a subwoofer), and the short Cantora center is $3000. Also shown was a smaller line of speakers using similar technology in less complex enclosures (no prices available yet). But even those were beautiful.

Italians just don't know how to build ugly speakers. One of the best sounding, and best looking, speakers I heard at the show was the Callas Tebaldi from Opera. It's expensive at $18,000/pair, and if you ask about a matching center channel they'll likely whack you on your cabeza, but it did sound sublime. From the front you only see a pair of small metal cone drivers and a tweeter. But there are four woofers on the side and four tweeters on the back of its elegant veneered and lacquered cabinet. Unfortunately, the batteries on my camera gave out before I could get a picture that does them justice. —TJN

Shown is the Bolzano Villetri Cantora center channel speaker.

Dali was featuring its flagship MegaLine driven by McIntosh components, and they sounded spectacular. But at $42,000/pair, they have to. In the real world, the new Dali IKON line offers a complete range of speakers, including center channels, surrounds and subwoofers. The large floor-standing IKON 6 ($1595/pair) sounded very promising. All the models employ a ribbon tweeter; most are 3- or 4-way designs (only the smallest center channel is 2-way).—TJN

Before I got to the Alexis, however (more blogs to follow), I stopped off at the Hard Rock Hotel, where NAD and PSB were holding court. The NAD Masters Series (pre-pro, multichannel amp, universal player, and some 2-channel pieces), should finally be available early this year. At the demo they were driving some new PSB speakers, the VisionSound Series. It consists of an on-wall or table-mount VS300 LCR ($749 each) and the VS400 floor-stander ($999 each). The VS300 is available this month, the VS400 will ship soon.—TJN

Most of Hitachi's current line was announced last spring and is already in the shops. But two new developments will find their way into new models this year. A new blinking backlight system, which will show up first in 37- and 32-inch models, is said to significantly clean up motion blur.

The second is a 55-inch, true 1920x1080 plasma panel. Expect this one in late 06 or early 07. The photo here is a screen shot from this plasma. Keep in mind that there are a lot of steps between screen and published photo in a screen shot, and it can provide only a rough idea of what is happening at a given moment. As good as it looks, the actual image looked way better.

Optoma was flooring everyone with one of the few operational prototypes of a 1080p, 1-chip DLP projector. The H81, which is expected to sell for $10,000 when it hits the shops this summer, threw a superb image sourced from 720p movie trailers stored on a Mac computer's hard drive.

In another room, Optoma also showed its new H72, at $4000 1280x720 DLP (and expected to street at near $2000). The trailer from King Kong looked particularly impressive. Though a close look revealed the projector's limitations compared to the H81, they weren't at all bothersome, particularly at the price.—TJN

Epson has a new 1920x1080 LCD chip, and was showing it off to the CES crowds in two new PTV models, a 55-inch and a 65-inch. Both looked stunning while showing fish paddling about (Stereophile's John Atkinson once referred to fish videos as the video equivalent of audiophile music recordings). The sets should be out in—all together now—March.

Epson's flagship separate projector, the 800, looked very good (apart from some slight grain which might have been either a sharpness issue or evidence of the LCD's screen door effect) on a 100-inch diagonal Steward Grayhawk screen. When asked if that new 1080p LCD chip might find it's way into front LCD projectors sometime in the near future, his response was, "you bet your bippy," or something equally technical.—TJN

The CineWide feature is available in many Runco models, the least expensive of which is the CL-610 (without the Autowide feature). CineWide with Autowide at its least expensive is available in the CL-810 at $26,000.

In the Vidikron booth there was a similarly impressive CineWide setup, this one using the $32,000 (including lens) Vidikron Model 90. The Vidikron setup used a wide aspect, slightly curved screen from Stewart Filmscreen and a high definition server from CodexNovus.

While I saw no evident limitations, in this configuration, from the l280x720 resolution of the demo'ed Runco and Vidikron projectors, I'm anxious to see the first 1920x1080 projectors equipped with this feature.—TJN

We haven't looked at any speakers from Klipsch in some time. They announced a fourth generation of their Reference Series, including five floorstanders, three bookshelf models, three center channel designs, three surrounds, and six powered subwoofers. Someone has been busy. Prices range from $199 each to $2498/pair.

Wilson Audio demonstrated its new Duette bookshelf speaker, first shown in static display at CEDIA Expo 2005. At $10,950 per pair, they aren't for the faint-hearted, but came off surprisingly well in an ABC comparison with a pair of Krell standmounters and B&Ws flagship 800D. The small Duette (which is actually slightly larger and more substantial-looking than it appears on the shelf in the photograph) should be shipping early this year.

Speaking of Krell, that company showed several new models in its very high end EVO line, including the EVO-707 pre-pro ($18,500). It includes 8.4 (!) channels of amplification, HDMI switching, 12 channels of digital room equalization, and is software upgradeable. —TJN

The photograph shows Samsung's SmoothMotion, as mentioned in previous CES blog. It really does appear to work as advertised.—TJN

Samsung launched a bewildering range of new plasmas, DLPs, and LCDs. Meanwhile, its on-line press kit provided no useful information (promising instead a 10-minute download, at 1:30AM, for an image only, with no clarifying text). So I'll just leave you with a few juicy tidbits. Their 83-inch LCD looked remarkably good, but is available to order only, at $150,000. The more real-world 40-inch model shown also had a strikingly good image, but no price was available. Samsung has developed several new technologies for its sets, including SmoothMotion The SmoothMotion image really did look better to the degree visible in the photograph. —TJN

Meanwhile, over at the TI booth, a prototype Samsung DLP PTV using LED illumination was being demonstrated. While the idea has potential (no detailed explanation of the technology was offered), the color looked cartoonish. Of course, they were showing Madagascar, but nevertheless, the effect was too exaggerated. —TJN

While Marantz demonstrated the latest update to its VP-12S4, 1280x720 1-chip DLP projector, it also showed a black prototype of the upcoming VP-11S1, a new 1-chip 1920x1080 design. No delivery date or price was announced, but we'd be surprised to see it ship before next September's CEDIA show. —TJN