When I say that this past&mdash;and <I>last</I>&mdash;Summer CES in Chicago was dead daddy dead, I'm not talking about fewer high-end exhibits and attendees than ever before. I'm talking I walked in the front door of the Chicago Hilton and almost puked from that smell of dead, mealy meat that hits you in the face and kicks-in the gag reflex. The smell of death you can taste even if you're breathing with your mouth. In most religions, it's a sin to let something that dead just sit there without at least spreading some lye on it to kill the stink. I once cut a man for misadjusting the VTA on my cartridge, and that man lying on my listening-room floor with an Allen wrench still clenched in his hand wasn't as dead as this last SCES.

Since he joined Snell Acoustics in the mid-1980s, Kevin Voecks, their chief designer (footnote 1), has been involved in the design or redesign of the entire Snell line, from the minor revision of the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/378snell">Type A/III</A> (incorporation of a new tweeter), to the complete redesign of the Type C (now the CIII). Snell Acoustics is located in Massachusetts, and although Kevin spends a good deal of time there or at the measurement and analysis facilities of the Canadian National Research Council (NRC) in Ottawa, he does a great deal of his conceptual and preliminary design work, as well as his listening, in Los Angeles, where he makes his home. I visited him there last summer to gather a little insight into his background and loudspeaker design philosophy. I started by asking Kevin when had he first become interested in loudspeaker design...

Since he joined Snell Acoustics in the mid-1980s, Kevin Voecks, their chief designer (footnote 1), has been involved in the design or redesign of the entire Snell line, from the minor revision of the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/378snell">Type A/III</A> (incorporation of a new tweeter), to the complete redesign of the Type C (now the CIII). Snell Acoustics is located in Massachusetts, and although Kevin spends a good deal of time there or at the measurement and analysis facilities of the Canadian National Research Council (NRC) in Ottawa, he does a great deal of his conceptual and preliminary design work, as well as his listening, in Los Angeles, where he makes his home. I visited him there last summer to gather a little insight into his background and loudspeaker design philosophy. I started by asking Kevin when had he first become interested in loudspeaker design...

Since he joined Snell Acoustics in the mid-1980s, Kevin Voecks, their chief designer (footnote 1), has been involved in the design or redesign of the entire Snell line, from the minor revision of the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/378snell">Type A/III</A> (incorporation of a new tweeter), to the complete redesign of the Type C (now the CIII). Snell Acoustics is located in Massachusetts, and although Kevin spends a good deal of time there or at the measurement and analysis facilities of the Canadian National Research Council (NRC) in Ottawa, he does a great deal of his conceptual and preliminary design work, as well as his listening, in Los Angeles, where he makes his home. I visited him there last summer to gather a little insight into his background and loudspeaker design philosophy. I started by asking Kevin when had he first become interested in loudspeaker design...

"Tomorrow we'll go over to <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/593">Larry Archibald</A>'s house and pick up the Threshold amplifiers."

"Tomorrow we'll go over to <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/593">Larry Archibald</A>'s house and pick up the Threshold amplifiers."

"Tomorrow we'll go over to <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/593">Larry Archibald</A>'s house and pick up the Threshold amplifiers."

"Tomorrow we'll go over to <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/593">Larry Archibald</A>'s house and pick up the Threshold amplifiers."

"Tomorrow we'll go over to <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/593">Larry Archibald</A>'s house and pick up the Threshold amplifiers."

"Tomorrow we'll go over to <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/593">Larry Archibald</A>'s house and pick up the Threshold amplifiers."