CES 2017

"What are your thoughts on this year's CES?": A multi-dimensional question that means many different things to the many different people who share the high-end audio realm. For my first attendance at the annual Consumer Electronics Show, I had a mission: to compile answers to this complex question and fit my findings on a visual medium, a time capsule of sorts. Is this the last year of CES? Was the low attendance in the high-end audio segment at the Venetian just a temporary lull? Or could it be a turning point for the high-end audio industry? Whatever might happen, 2017 struck me as a pivotal year for CES, and a show that begged to be captured.

Sometimes it's love at first sight. I know appearances can be deceiving, but I couldn't stop looking at Rogers High Fidelity's 114Wpc EHF-200 MK 2 amplifier ($15,900). The beautiful KT150 tubes, the glossy red front panel, and the thick plexiglass tube cover were eye candy.

How to sum up the smallest high-end showing ever at a 21st Century CES? While it seems likely that CES trade-show attendance in general was down just a bit this year from the 2016 high of 177,393, the official estimate of "more than 175,000 industry professionals, including 55,000 from outside the US" stands in sharp contrast to the scene on the upper floors of the Venetian Tower, where some hallways that had formerly been packed with what CES calls "high performance" exhibits and industry people were now dominated by tech-company exhibits and visitors.

Both sides of the Atlantic are making tube products that (again) sound at least a little like actual vacuum tubes and less like high-strung solid-state racing cars. Both cultures now want genuine tube sound but demand 21st century tube longevity and reliability—and, of course, a discrete headphone amplifier.

While the New York Times recently focused on the introduction of the company's SL-1200G coreless-motor direct-drive turntable ($4,000), my interest focused on Technics' 188-lb, $17,000 SE-R1 digital amplifier, which I heard powering their SB-R1 3.5-way floorstanding speakers.

With a shipping weight of 1.3 tons, this is YG's first four-way loudspeaker. All drivers are manufactured in-house, which in this case means one very unique ForgeCore tweeter, two BilletCore mids, three BilletCore mid/woofers, and four BilletCore woofers. All drivers are milled from aircraft-grade, solid-core aluminum.

The company's new Omega-F driver technology, utilized herein, claims to eliminate eddy-current distortion caused by iron-based-magnet motor systems. Instead, it uses a patented cluster of neodymium magnets, which creates a static magnetic field that needs no focusing by iron. As a result, the company claims "better transients, less coloration and more refined complex sound structures."