Best Stereo Demonstration: KEF Concept Blade
KEF showed its Concept Blade speaker for the first time in the US. As it's name suggests, it is a conceptual product, but served to show the company's engineering capabilities. It did that and more with a new KEF Uni-Q driver implementation. I have no idea of price, but if the Concept Blade is ever produced and the costs brought down while maintaining performance, KEF will have a winner. Read my reviews of KEF floorstanding and bookshelf speakers.
Best Multichannel Music Demo: Wisdom Audio L-100i Speakers
Wisdom Audio showed their newest in-wall planar magnetic speaker system, the L-100i, featuring 50-inch tall line source drivers accompanied by eight Wisdom Audio woofers in each speaker. The L-100i speakers were shown with two of the company's new S90i in-wall subwoofers, two L-75 speakers for surround channels and the C38 center channel speaker. The demonstrations included stereo and multichannel music followed by movie clips and was no less than I expected. Excellent bass depth and definition, transparency and detail are a few of the characteristics that stand out.Best Cinema Sound Demo: Anthem/Paradigm System with New Subwoofers
Anthem/Paradigm had the best theater demo with thundering deep bass from their new SUB 1 and SUB 2 subwoofers. The new subs are hexagonally shaped and feature six drivers each (6" and 8") powered by amps measured in kilowatts. The bass was not overpowering or too loud even when played at high levels, just deep and solid. The demo included impressive music samples, but the impact of the scenes from Terminator Salvation were compelling.CES 2010: The Most Interesting Stops on the Drive to Las Vegas
The 300-mile drive from Southern California to Las Vegas is dotted with small towns and the vast Mojave Desert. Here are some of the high points of the trip.