Better late than never: My CES report:

Suhweeeeeeet!

Good one Curt thanks. You too missed the elusive Onkyo Receiver that was loaded with goodies in the THX Neural booth, and HDMI booth, I have never seen a more advanced dsp processing suite in any receiver, neural surround claims to outperform DPL2 in recreating 5.1 discrete surround from any source, it had the audissey too. It has like 5 HDMI 1.3 ins and 2 outs, the unit does not have a model number.

If any one has a picture of this elusive piece, i'll give them $5.

I think you are referring to the TX-NR900.

No this is the latest thing with not even a part number yet. It's in between the 804 and the giant card based unit in size. It has a new neural surround dsp engine that recreates discrete sounds from any source noit just xm neural. it has rs-232 audissey eq, 5 hdmi 1.3 ins 2 out. It is an awesomely featured receiver.

Well done, Curt, worth the wait. I enjoyed the radio show too

Thanks Curt.

Fantastic Coverage Curt!
I feel like I was there.

Excellent coverage Curt.

I too had the privilege of sitting through the "Tesla Theory" speaker cable demo. There were two others in the room who expressed wonder at the "expanded soundstage and better highs, etc., etc.". When they asked me, I said that if there were any difference, it was so subtle that a better controlled A-B test needed to be done. I made no pretense to be a great audiophile, even though my home audio equipment is among some of the best.

They appeared disgusted with my remarks, at which time my wife and I left while they were spouting more Tesla theory. I almost thought it was a joke and the other two were a part of the game.

Thanks for your good info.

Sid

Sid PM me as well or go public. These people need to be exposed for the frauds they are. It is just sick what these guys get away with. I for one am not shy about taking them on.

Thanks a lot Curt.

I'm willing to go public on these people.
They are commonly known as Synergistic Research and their cables have been receiving high acclaim from reviewers and listeners alike for years. Their cables are up there with Audioquest, Nordost, Tara, Granite, and several others at the top of the cable game. Besides specific geometry and silver alloys they use an active shield that carries a 28 VDC field surrounding all their top cables. While I don't know about 0 capacitance I do know that the cables reduce RFI & EMI and create a much higher current field than Audioquest DBS can with their batteries.
I've heard this demo many times at several shows and IMHO they expand the soundstage in both depth and width and sweeten the sound when the active shield is turned on.
I think most members on this 20K forum would agree that cables do make a difference so why is this theory debunked. It would seem that a shield against outside interference of this strength is likely to do something positive, and the new Tesla Line is cheaper than their previous X2 Line. We seldom see reductions in cable costs as new improvements are developed. My ears tell me Synergistic is to be applauded for this advancement which is accompanied by a price reduction. Let the cable naysayers populate the lesser Forums. I think we know good cable makes a difference.

I'm not going to get into the whole cable argument. That's a topic for (yet another) thread.

I do agree with Curt's statement that the Synergistic demo was highly flawed. When I was by, they were running a delicate passage with no shielding, then stopped right before a bombastic passage and turned the shielding on and commented how much better the soundstaging was.

You don't run a demo that way... I walked out. I was there to hear the new Thiel's which sounded fantastic driven by the Bryston gear BTW.

Cheers,

watch the 'we' part. it's far from unanimous.

WE know that cable makes a difference. WE also know that tthere is lots of snake oil sales that convince people to buy things that do nothing. WE also know that the laws of physics are LAWS, they are not the general guidelines of physics. And if you claim to violate those laws, then there is a problem.

You are at CES. CES is a venue for the companies to convince you that their product IS the best and they will use any method to do so. Lying or strecthing the truth has always been a reliable form of marketing. I wouldn't expect too much facts from CES, just the ones I can make on my own.

I'm also sick of hearing marketing bs from firms hawking stupid cable, but that's the world we live in. People pay thousands to have Feng Shui specialists come into their homes to rearrange the furniture. It's actually kind of frightening to think of how much of our economy is produced by total bs.

great report! Thanks for all the pics!

If Feng shui is important to your raison d'etre, then buy a plasma with a silver frame, never a plasma with a black frame. The plasma isthe fire, you use meatl to reflect the fire around your space, never ever put water (black) on fire.

This was from the Fengshui expert that visited Grove Plasma in 2002.

Now we are getting somewhere.
It is possible that Feng Shuii people know more about this than the demo salespeople(marketeers!)
I seem to remember Clark built an A/B/X comparator box that exposes all this nonsense.

I favor the day it all goes wireless with active speakers (digital amps) and you no longer need all the cables. No doubt when that happens with a quality system no one will be able to tell the diference in a blind test.

The cable guys need to get the "Money " while they can. Time is running out.

_______________
Chuck

This discussion reminds me of a high-end cable demonstration I saw at CES a few years ago where they had 3 separate shielded conductors, which they said conducted low, medium and high frequency ranges separately. An engineer in the audience asked them if they considered 60 Hz to be in the low frequency range and they said yes. He then asked them if they were absolutely certain that the low frequency music would not be transmitted through either the medium or high frequency parts of the cable and they said yes. He then said, "OK, I'll just connect this high frequency part of your cable to the 60Hz wall plug and you put the other end on your tongue." As you would expect, they did not take his offer.

An interesting test of high end cables can be read here: http://www.avahifi.com/root/audio_ba..._challenge.htm

After all this snake oil talk I really want to know what you guys use in your $20,000 + systems. Do you use Home Depot, Radio Shack, let me know. You are starting to sound like the infamous Julian Hersch from the old Stereo Review, if it can't be measured it's not true and all components that measure the same sound the same.

I've had many cables in my system for testing, power, analog interconnect, digital interconnect etc. I have done exstensive A/B and long term evaulation with many people participating and the panels blind opinion came up with with couple favorites. They however did agree there was a difference from one cable to another. I do think for example there is a sound difference between silver and copper all things being equal.

I do understand if you don't have the money to spend on cables it is human nature to say, it makes no difference. But in this forum I'm very suprised to hear all the snake oil talk. It seems it is based on principal not on evaulation.

Please check my system in my profile and you should hopefully see I have a rig that can tell a difference in cables and I'm glad myself and my panel can hear the difference because it makes everything sound better. BTW I've heard the Synergistic Research test at three different CES shows and I don't think it's fixed and I do think they have very good product that does make a difference with the active shielding application.

Cables tested: Nordost,Audioquest,JPS,Siltech,Kharma,Kimber,Cardas,ESP,Supr a,Harmonic Technology, PS Audio , Hovland,Shunyata, FIM, Cable Research Labs,Synergistic Research,Aural Symphonics,Custom Power Cord Company. Not including what I have heard at shows.

Good listening and enjoy the music