Sonneteer Morpheus Music Centre music servers at CES 2011

I have a lot of miscellaneous pics from the CES convention, and I'll share them with you a bit later.

The first few pics come from the Sonneteer room, where they were displaying their new music server, the Morpheus Music Centre. One of the reasons I attended CES was to see what was going on in the world of music servers. My brother and I build custom music servers for many of our local customers, and most of our solution involves software rather than hardware. It was interesting to get my brother, who has been an IT guy for a very long time, to give his impressions of commercial servers. He had some interesting observations, which I'll discuss later as well.

I spoke at length to Basil Bahrani of Sonneteer, and their solution is to offer as many possibilities to the consumer as possible no matter what format or source becomes popular. Their modular approach and the feature-laden server is impressive and packs a lot of versatility in a compact, attractive and easy-to-use design. It was fun to play with their server and to revel in both its excellent user interface and its sleek technology. Of all the server solutions I saw at CES, I liked this one the best.

Plus they had their servers hooked up to the excellent Penaudio speakers from Finland. I have plenty of seat time with their Serenade speakers and always found them to be supremely satisfying in every way. In other words, the sound quality of this simple yet gorgeous system was musical and could easily drag this anachronist into the 21st century.

Plus, I dug all of the cool colors for their remotes! Oh, and I'm still very sorry for spilling my coffee on their carpet. Oops. I'm a klutz, but I can still mount and align a cartridge in minutes.

DeVore Fidelity at CES 2011

I've been a huge fan of John DeVore's speakers for quite some time. While I was at TONEAudio, I had the DeVore Fidelity Gibbon Super 8s on hand for six months and truly fell in love with their ability to project a gigantic soundstage. Then I had the Gibbon Nines for another six months, reviewed them, and then gave them back to John with a tear in my eye. When my parents visited me in Washington State a couple of years ago, I had the Nines in my system and my dad turned to me and said, "Now I know why you do what you do."

I've been hearing about DeVore's new Orangutan speaker for quite a few months now. John often has a bunch of his audio friends over to the DeVore factory in Brooklyn for a night of listening; these gatherings and the room itself are known as the Monkey Haus. For the last few months, John has been playing the Orangutans for his guests and they have been quite enthusiastic. Looking at these simple two-way boxes, you might be reminded of those Audio Note AN speakers...deceptively simple designs that produce a very high-quality sound. At CES, the Orangutans were nothing short of spectacular. As modest as they look, they will remind you of huge speaker systems that cost twice as much money (the Os will run $12K a pair).

These speakers may look simple, but the sound quality more than justifies the price.

Megasystems at CES 2011

The Consumer Electronics Show is all about putting your best foot forward and showing the industry what your company is capable of achieving. As a result, you see some pretty spectacular systems. While nothing quite trumped the Trenner & Friedl Duke/Rowland Research room, a few megasystems came quite close.

This system is from the German company Burmester, and their gear is famous for being very beautiful and ornate (more Italian than German in style). They're also known for being quite expensive. This state-of-the-art system included most of their premium line, and it sounded magnificent. For me, the Burmester sound is very meticulous and detailed and revealing. If you're looking for lush and romantic, look elsewhere.

Speaking of lush and romantic, the megasystem is from Kondo Audio Note and featured the legendary Ongaku amplifier, their new and quite massive turntable and a beautiful set of field coil loudspeakers. In the past, I've been frustrated by the inconsistency in the Audio Note setups at various audio shows...it's either the best sound I've ever heard or the worst. This time it was the former, and I was hypnotized by the gorgeous, fluid sound.

The system is from YG Acoustics. YG caught some flack in the audio press a couple of years ago for announcing in their print ads that their speakers were the absolutely best in the world. After a couple of years, however, people are starting to recognize that these huge aluminum speakers do offer a rarified level of performance. Even though this system was located in one of the big rooms downstairs at the Venetian (where the high ceilings are huge obstacles to achieving great sound), this system really sounded great and captured my undivided attention for quite a while.

One more system offered what I felt was first-class sound...the Wilson and Lamm room. Wilson speakers are not really my cup of tea since I prefer a slightly warm and romantic presentation. Wilson speakers are extremely revealing and often sound a little too relentless to my ears. Lamm amplifiers, however are a different story. I've never heard a Lamm-based system I didn't love, and this time was no exception. The Wilson Alexandria speakers were utterly captivating with the tubed Lamms, so this was easily the best sound I've ever heard from Wilson period.

Modwright Instruments at CES 2011

I got to meet up with my old friend Dan Wright at Modwright Instruments at CES 2011. I haven't seen him for a couple of years, probably since I reviewed the 36.5 preamplifier for TONEAudio. Dan has had a lot of success with his new power amplifiers, the KSA 100 and the KSA 150, and had received a lot of great reviews from the press. He had a system set up with the KSA 150, his brand new LS 100 preamp, one of his modded Sony SACD players and a Townshend Rock 7 turntable. Speakers were small aluminum bookshelf speakers with matching subwoofers. I can't recall the name but I'll try to find out as quickly as possible.

We listened to some Johnny Cash and I really appreciated the purity and simplicity of the sound. Johnny's presence in the room was eerily realistic, which was even more surprising since it was a mono recording. I've always liked Dan's gear, especially the 36.5 and some of his outboard phono stages.

I was intrigued with the new LS100, and asked Dan if it was his new flagship. He said it was actually his new entry-level model, replacing the old 9.0. I was surprised because the case for the LS 100 was actually larger than the top-of-the-line 36.5. It's the same case as the one used for the KSA 150 power amplifier. Dan prefers to use the larger case because there's more room for the tubes inside. Dan is definitely a guy who likes to tube roll; when I reviewed the 36.5, he brought me every conceivable tube that could work including some very rare industrial-grade tubes.

I have always enjoyed the blue glow that emanates from all of Dan's products, as you can see in the pics. I loved having his gear in my system because it always made my listening room look so calm and relaxing. Plus, it sounds great!

GIANT Boulder amplifier for CES 2011

Just when you think amplifiers couldn't get any bigger, someone comes up with something that truly makes you gasp. These monoblock amplifiers are made by Boulder, and they're literally each the size of a coffee table. These prototypes were basically empty cases, but the finished product will sport about 1500 watts per channel and weigh more than 400 lbs. apiece. They come mounted on a 75 lb. granite base, which you can see in these photos.

Price will easily be in the six-figure range. A representative from Boulder told me that the casework was exceptionally difficult to make. If you look closely, you can see that each box is asymmetrical yet sold in mirror-image pairs. These boxes are so big that I'm sure I could curl up inside one, and I'm not exactly petite. If you're looking for a big amplifier for your Cardas Clear Beyond cables, this Boulder might just qualify!

Joseph Audio at CES 2011

Right next to the Cardas Audio room at CES was the Joseph Audio room, where Jeff Joseph was showing off his new speaker, the Perspective. This slim floorstander fits nicely between his flagship Pearl2 and the premium bookshelf monitor Pulsar. I was able to hear both the Perspective and the diminutive but mighty Pulsars for some time, where they were driven by Bel Canto electronics and hooked up with Cardas Clear.

I told Jeff I couldn't believe it's been 20 years since I first heard his RM7s in an audio store in Maryland, just outside of Washington DC. I remember pointing to the little two-ways (which still exist in his line in an XL version) and asking about the company. The salesman replied, "Don't know much about them, it's a brand new company." After auditioning them, I almost bought them on the spot. The only reason I didn't was that I was po' at the time.

20 years later, Jeff and his loudspeaker company are still going strong, even though they've maintained a relatively low (albeit steady) profile. I've heard many of Jeff's speakers over the years at various audio shows, and I've enjoyed every model. Right now, my favorite is the Pulsar because I love really high-quality small monitors. I love the way they disappear in a room and image like crazy. The Pulsar, however, go very deep in the bass for their size. Jeff was even bold enough to play some pipe organ music for me (an organ-only version of Pictures at an Exhibition) and I was extremely impressed with their combination of solidity and delicacy.

The new Perspective, however, went even deeper. These are gorgeous speakers (sorry the pics are so dark, but the lighting in the room was on the sultry, seductive side), and extremely well-crafted. Jeff even upped the ante by playing vinyl on a Clearaudio table with one of those exotic strain gauge cartridges from Soundsmith. First of all, every cartridge should be lighted from within (it helps with cueing, and it looks awesome). There was just something about Jeff's room that was relaxing, classy and very satisfying.

I was also a guest at his wine and cheese event and went a little overboard with both. (I also ate more than my share of M&Ms). At the same time, I cracked open a bottle of Lagavulin single malt scotch and shared a couple of glasses with Jeff's brother David as well as a few others. So it evened out. Congratulations to Jeff on a fine new speaker!

Look what I got!

Jealous?

You can get one too at http://deanpeer.com/music.htm.

Sound quality is completely and utterly awesome. Nice, quiet pressing. Deep bass that will get you kicked out by your landlord in no time.