Jason Victor Serinus

In 2016, when I received Oh Boy!, the first solo album from mezzo-soprano Marianne Crebassa, I thought, "What a cute title for a compilation of male operatic roles that were written for female singers"—"trouser roles" in operatic parlance—and put it aside. Now, having heard Crebassa's newest album, Secrets: French Songs, I realize that I made a big mistake. Crebassa is a major artist, with a sound and temperament that make Secrets a must-listen for lovers of vocal artistry.

The question, "What if they Gave a CES and Nobody Came?," which headlined my As We See It from mid-2016, was echoed by a similar title on Jon Iverson's opening blog for our coverage of CES 2018. Yet hopes and fears that our industry's increasingly limited presence in the Venetian would sound the death knell for "high performance audio" at CES do not reflect the experience of those who this year chose to either exhibit or wander hallways and eateries in search of dealers and distributors.

Etymotic's Albert Arends was showing four models of the company's earphones. The Etymotic ER3SE (Studio Edition—$179) has a flatter response than the ER3XR (Extended Response—$179), which has "a bit of a bass lift" in the 100Hz-1kHz region. One major difference between these models and the higher level ER4 SR (Studio Reference—$349) and ER4XR (Extended Response—$349) is that only the latter are channel-matched to within 1dB.

Paired with the same Theta Gen. VIII DAC/preamp ($15,995)/Theta Compli Blu transport ($3995) combo and VPI Avenger reference turntable ($20,000) as in the SAE room, but with a TR phono cartridge ($7000) replacing the Zu, this room showcased CAT's brand new MBX 1250.2 FD XPR twin monoblock amplifier ($30,000), which outputs 1250Wpc in to 4 ohms, and MBX 320.2 FD ($10,000) twin monoblock amplifier, which outputs 320W into 8 ohms. The amps were driving a bi-amped pair of CAT loudspeakers, specifically voiced for this hotel room, which consisted of CAT MBX 900 Trinity satellites resting upon MBX Miramar subwoofers ($100,000/pair for all). Analog crossovers were employed, and the subs were dialed-in through a CAT MBX DSP8x8 digital signal processor ($15,000).