Anthony Di Marco

Denny’s again! Dammit!

So began my last day at CES 2006.

The final day of the show is always about rushing around and filling in the blanks in our show coverage. We go by rooms that we missed in the hustle and bustle, and reshoot pictures that didn’t come out. Jeff Fritz and I started right at 9:00 and didn’t stop until 4:00, when the show end.

Our first stop was THE Show at St. Tropez. I wasn’t surprised to see many of the rooms closed. No doubt many bodies had halted after multiple late nights and early mornings of eating, drinking and troubleshooting malfunctioning equipment. My own body felt tired, worn out, and sore, but not because the SoundStage! Network team was out partying. After a long day of shooting and taking notes, our job turns to posting show coverage, which is when the real work begins. Hopefully you have enjoyed what we have done. After all, we do this because, like you, we like this stuff.

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There’s something nostalgic about a Denny’s Grand Slam breakfast. It reminds me of when I was a poor inebriated college student with the munchies at 2:00 in the morning. Still, two consecutive days of breakfast at Denny’s is two days too many.

I worked off my carbohydrate-induced buzz searching for Standout Demos around the Alexis Park. Sadly, this is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. In many cases, poor sound quality is not the fault of the products but the venue. Trying to cram a six-foot tall speaker into a 12' x 12' hotel room flies in face of physics, while the constant ingress and egress of people distracts constructive listening. In many rooms I had to ask multiple times that the volume be lowered. I expect this approach at a low-grade electronics store, but not from fellow audiophiles who should know better.

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Four hours of sleep and I was ready for another day. Once show coverage for Thursday was posted, Marc Mickelson and I made our way over to the Alexis Park, where things get interesting and more intimate. Motel rooms are converted into listening rooms, and hundreds of amplifiers test the local power grid.

There are numerous power-conditioning products on the market. Some are designed with solid engineering principles in mind, while others are...not. A branch of Bryston, Torus Power manufactures the largest power conditioner I have yet to see, the A120–HFB-A5AB. It also shows some solid engineering under its hood. A gigantic Plitron-designed toroidal transformer allegedly supplies up to 100 amps of balanced-output current, and with the unit's ZeroSurge technology, the A120–HFB-A5AB can protect a single room or be connected to a circuit-breaker box for whole-house suppression. At $8000, the A120–HFB-A5AB presents a sizable investment for someone who wants that extra bit of protection. However, your ears and eyes will have to decide whether this block of steel and electronics will outperform what you already have.

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I began my stay in Las Vegas with a ribbing from the SoundStage! Network crew for walking five miles from McCarren Airport to our hotel. What can I say? Waiting an hour in the taxi line and paying $20 for the privilege didn’t seem like the better choice. A word to the wise: before you decide to venture on foot beyond McCarren International Airport, make sure you find someone who knows where the sidewalk begins. Otherwise you may find yourself dodging taxis on Tropicana.

As for products, you may think that my interest revolved around Krell’s new Evolution-series electronics, MIT’s $25,000 speaker cables, or AAD’s handsome 7001 Reference loudspeakers (shown above, $9000/pair). But none of these interesting and grossly expensive products interested me as much as NAD's Masters Series electronics. It wasn’t just me, though; we were all daydreaming about the well-built Master Series products showing up on our doors. It looks like NAD has a colossal winner on its hands. For me, it was nice to see the company that many of us cut our audiophile teeth on pushing the performance envelope.

Day one ended with a Carl’s Jr. $6 Burger, a taco salad, and a chocolate shake while watching the tail end of The Last Action Hero. No, Honey, I didn't travel 3000 miles to eat a burger and watch a movie. Make that 3005 miles.