Much of the talk at the 2018 CES centered on wireless speakers. But there wasn’t much discussion of the speakers themselves; it was more around the voice-command systems, such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, that many of the latest models use. Of course, I saw plenty of new wireless speakers using only Bluetooth, but most of the ones getting attention had Wi-Fi as well as some variety of voice-command.
As expected at this year’s CES, the high-end audio exhibitors were primarily restricted to one floor of the Venetian hotel -- and the exhibitors that were there didn’t even fill the entire floor (companies from other industries were located in some of the suites). But I was still able to find some interesting speakers on my first day at the show, including a couple that were offsite at the Hard Rock Hotel, where Harman (the parent company of JBL and Revel, among other brands) was exhibiting in addition to having a suite at the Venetian. All prices in USD.
The annual CES in Las Vegas is probably the best place in the world to experience a wide variety of headphones. Shows like CanJam probably have more high-end models, but the offerings at CES typically run from under $20 to well over $2000.
CES Unveiled is the first major event of the CES show, which runs through Friday of this week in Las Vegas. The 2018 Unveiled took place Sunday night, packing a predicted 1500 journalists and 100 tech companies together into a large ballroom at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. While a few large companies show up, it’s mostly small companies who might be missed in the maelstrom of CES’s main show floors.
The attendees at the ALMA International Symposium and Expo (AISE) 2018, held this week in Las Vegas, are mostly audio product design and testing professionals. Having heard and tested almost everything, they’re more skeptical of new technologies than attendees at an ordinary audio show might be. So when a friend of mine who’s a veteran of the audio measurement industry insisted I go hear a new speaker technology being demoed at a suite in the South Point Hotel, which hosted AISE, I figured I’d better go. I’m really glad I did.
When I saw a seminar titled “What’s New in Headphone Technology” on the schedule for ALMA International Symposium and Expo (AISE) 2018 -- an audio convention aimed at engineers and product developers that precedes the January CES in Las Vegas -- I naturally thought I’d be hearing about such topics as advanced digital sound processing and new methods of noise canceling. But there wasn’t a word about electronics. The presentation, by Mike Klasco, president of consulting firm Menlo Scientific, dealt entirely with new materials that could improve headphone performance.
The Association of Loudspeaker Manufacturing and Acoustics (ALMA) hosts its annual convention, the ALMA International Symposium and Expo (AISE) every year in the days leading up to CES, held each January in Las Vegas. AISE 2018 kicked off today at the South Point Hotel with a full slate of seminars targeted at audio product engineering and measurement professionals. During the first day alone, I found myself involved in more fascinating discussions about audio than I’d normally experience in a year’s worth of audio shows.
It’s November 19, 10:30 p.m., and I’m in my hotel room writing this article, knowing that the same thing that happened last year just happened again -- we weren’t able to cover all of Audio Video Show (AVS) the way we wanted to. I wish we could’ve done so much more . . .
Companies featured in gallery below: Symphony, Gold Note, Trenner & Friedl, Fezz Audio, Aurelia, Amare Musica, Fram Audio, Tri-Art Audio, Buchardt, Luxman, Ubiq Audio, Muarak, Eryk S Concept, Audio Hungary
Poland isn’t exactly a nexus of the headphone biz, perhaps because neighboring Germany plays such an outsized role in that industry. Yet Warsaw’s Audio Video Show 2017 did reveal a couple of Poland-based companies striving to make their mark in headphones or headphone amps, as well as a couple of big-name products we haven’t yet had a chance to report on. Here are the new headphones, earphones, and headphone amps we saw, with prices listed in euros (€), US dollars ($), or Polish zlotys (zł).
Companies featured in gallery below: Boenicke Audio, Sigma Acoustics, Gauder Akustik, Döhmann, Thrax Audio, Holophony, Closer Acoustics, Shape of Sound, Yayuma Audio, Monolith Audio, Genuin Audio
Companies featured in gallery below: Metaxas and Sins, Sonus Faber, Audio Research, Blumenhofer Acoustics, Mytek, Zeta Zero, SoulSonic, Natural Sound, Esa Loudspeakers, Furutech, MySound, Dynaudio, Pivetta
“Aida is Aida and it’s timeless,” Sonus Faber industrial designer Livio Cucuzza told me. His statement goes a long way to explain why the newest version of the Aida loudspeaker, which was unveiled in the largest display room at the Warsaw National Stadium location of Audio Video Show 2017, looks pretty much the same as the one that debuted in 2011. “Cosmetically, no big changes—just updated the front and rear baffles,” he added. He also said that in addition to the Red and Walnut finishes of the existing Aida, the new model is now available in a dark-brown Wenge finish, which debuted at Munich’s High End 2017 in the company’s Homage series.
At the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest in Denver, Colorado, there are always lots of products that don’t fit the categories I usually focus on, but which merit audiophiles’ attention nonetheless. Here are the most interesting ones I found, from headphone pads and AC regenerators to things that are way too complicated to describe in one sentence. All prices in USD.
A big part of the 2017 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest is the CanJam show, which focuses on headphones and headphone amps and accessories. CanJam filled a large ballroom and a section of the main floor at the Denver Marriott Tech Center in Denver, Colorado. Here’s the second part of my coverage of new headphones and earphones at RMAF, with all prices in USD.
Here’s the second part of my coverage of the new audio electronics introduced at the 2017 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. All prices in USD.
The 2017 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest showcased a wide variety of new audio products shown for the very first time in public (or at least for the first time in the US). Of course, there were lots of new amplifiers and other audio electronics on display. I probably saw only a fraction of them, but here’s the first batch of electronic components that most caught my interest, with all prices in USD.
Here’s the second part of my coverage of the new speakers introduced (or demoed for the first time in the U.S.) at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, which took place last weekend at the Denver Tech Center Marriott in Denver, Colorado. All prices in USD. To see the first part, click here.
The 2017 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest has just wrapped up as I write this. It’s one of the best places in the world for audiophiles to hear the latest in speakers, and even though my time at this year’s show was rather short, I did get to see and hear quite a few interesting models making their debut in the US (or in a few cases, worldwide). I’ve already covered Focal’s new Kanta No2 speaker, and here are some of the other interesting new models I saw at RMAF. All prices in USD.
The 2017 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, held at the Denver Marriott Tech Center in Denver, Colorado, incorporates a separate headphone show called CanJam, an event that also takes place in six other cities around the world at various times of the year. The RMAF edition of CanJam is probably the biggest headphone show in the world for audiophile headphones, countless samples of which were on demo in one of the Marriott’s large ballrooms and in other locations.
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