CES 2007

As Easily As A

Stephen Mejias  |  Jan 8, 2007  |  First Published: Jan 9, 2007

Before anything, I received an e-mail from a New York City friend, asking: "Can you smell that where you are?"

Apparently, in New York City, a gas line broke. Or was it thermal inversion? Something was causing a gas-like odor to drop over the city like a lid over a pot. In the New York City area, strange odors come and go, often never to be identified.

I'm alone in my hotel room, now, at 12:34am (EST), thinking about the length of this day, thinking of how this morning seems so far away, wanting to go to sleep, wanting to be forgotten as easily as a New York City scent.

But what, I ask, has that got to do with CES? After breakfast, which was very fine, I walked outside and onto Paradise Road, where I would try to catch a shuttle from the AmeriSuites to the Venetian. Shuttle buses to the Venetian come and go like mysterious odors around the New York City area, so I was glad to run into Ultimate AV's Shane Buettner, group publisher Angela Speziale, and digital sales director Jon Banner.

"You're going to the Venetian?" Shane asked. "You can ride with us."

We were soon stuck in traffic. What should have been a fifteen minute breeze was a forty-five minute endeavor. But time flies, as they say, when you're having fun.

"Are we having fun yet?" Angela asks. "Please let me know."

At the Venetian, I made my way up to the Home Tech suite, where I met with Cynthia. Cynthia works our booths. She greets readers, offers subscriptions, lends a hand. She helped me put together our Products of the Year award trophies. This was fun.

Angela, we are having fun!

In our suite, there is lots of water. Stereophile water. The jokes have been going around. You can imagine: "So, what does Stereophile water do for the soundstage?" Stuff like that. One winner held his Product of the Year trophy in his hand and joked, "I may come back later and trade this trophy for a bottle of water."

To this, John Atkinson replied, "You can be sure that every bottle of Stereophile water has been passed by the editor."

Angela, we're having fun!

COMMENTS
atalio's picture
Submitted by atalio (not verified) on January 10, 2007 - 5:14pm

My review of the Stereophile Water, Mk. CES 2007: Due to time constraints, JA did not have time to ingest the Stereophile Water (SW) prior to conducting chemical analysis (please see JA's pre-ingestion chemical analysis of the SW elsewhere in this review). So how did the SW taste? In a word: Refreshing. Compared to the Dasani, the clearer SW was purer tasting, with little or no edginess or aftertaste. The SW was vastly purer tasting than the Perrier, the latter being visibly cloudy, even murky, in comparison. I suspect that the visible difference was due to the Perrier's abundance of solid states. On the other hand, dynamically the SW did seem to linger longer after swallowing ended than did the high-end Fiji or Eldorado Springs. But, overall, no matter what food I was washing down with the SW, it left me thirsty for more. Like the audio cable reviewed in this issue, I can firmly say the SW is worth its weight in gold (or cable, whichever costs more per pound). Highly recommended!

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