LATEST ADDITIONS

The Sooloos display comes with a built-in CD slot for loading your music onto the server. The $4400 Control:One touch-screen display/controller is pretty slick. The CD ripper is in the base—unobtrusively located, might we add? Once the disc is ripped, all of All Media Guide's metadata is automatically entered, so you could, for example, locate any recording in your collection with Phil Lesh playing bass. Oh wait—maybe we should have used an example with somebody who changed bands more frequently.

As we were walking out of DLS' room, we passed Supro Cables' display. "Are those Deltron connectors?" I asked.

DEQX's PDC3 preamp/processor (price tdb) combines an analog preamplifier with a DAC <I>and</I> measurement-driven DSP. In a hotel room with <I>zero</I> treatment, Jon Iverson and I were enthralled by the three dimensional soundstaging of a pair of B&W 805s and a pair of B&W ASW 700s. Nope, it wasn't because the CD player was fabulous, either&mdash;it was solid, but not audiophile approved.

This is the first year that the high-end audio exhibits are clustered in the Venetian Hotel and Casino. Emphasis on the casino part - to get to the majority of hotel room exhibits, we must negotiate about a quarter mile of hallway and casino to get from the shuttle stop to the elevators. The rooms themselves are nicely appointed, but several exhibitors are already complaining about the acoustics and the challenge of finding ways to make the two level suites music friendly. And on a personal note, the press room is back the quarter mile through the casino near the shuttle stop. End of gripe.

Stephen Mejias and longtime Primedia CES assistant Cynthia get the awards ready to be handed out later in the day. We'll have complete pictures and story later.

According to www.after50health.com "The classic part of a classical music is that it will not distract the attention of the listener and at the same time be able to instill relaxed feeling in the minds of listener."

No, that's a $2900 <I>painting</I> of an extension cord&mdash;and, God help me, I <I>want</I> it.