You know that stuff I said about how pointless the pre-show press conferences are? Well, not always—not, for example, when Jim Thiel has been busy. At last year's CES, Thiel practically levitated when he began describing the challenges of re-designing his CS3.6 floorstander, which has been in production since 1992. He described what he'd keep in the CS3.7 (first-order crossover; three-way design; short-coil/long gap motor design; coincident tweeter and midrange, time coherence;and aluminum diaphragms) and then he began waxing rhapsodic about how completely open that left his imagination.

"Its first audible resonance is effectively above 20kHz&mdash;that's above the operating range of some <I>tweeters</I>."

I've always said that cables might be the most important component in a system&mdash;after all, without 'em, you don't get much sound out of the whole schmear. <A HREF=http://www.avegasystems.com">Avega Systems</A> is doing its best to make a liar out of me with its Oyster wireless loudspeaker.

If one component is omnipresent this year, it's the iPod. You may find this hard to believe, but there are actually companies making iPod accessories these days&mdash;actually, it's hard to find companies that aren't.

Others, not so much.

Basically, the press conference day is crowded and noisy and pointless. Even worse, they play irritating techno music at you for what seems like hours.

To be honest, I didn't give it much of a chance. I mean, especially after Jim <a href="http://www.thielaudio.com/">Thiel</a>'s captivating presentation on the new CS3.7, the Philips press conference seemed like so much noise and swirling lights and fake boobs.