CES 2011

Monster now has 34.9 percent market share in headphones, thanks to its Beats line, with only Bose even coming close. Last year's Miles Davis Trumpet earbuds have gone into a second generation at a lower $299 price point. The "world's smallest" in-earphones achieve their small size by building the driver into the tip, not the body. Trumpet-valve-like controls are built into the cord. A release of Davis' classic Sketches in Spain in surround complements the product.

Driving from Las Vegas to LA, I had to stop and get a picture of my favorite highway sign, which marks the exit to Zzyzx, California, an unincorporated settlement in San Bernardino County and the former site of the Zzyzx Mineral Springs and Health Spa that is now occupied by the California State University Desert Studies Center. My ride was a 2010 Lincoln MKZ on loan from THX so I could evaluate the car's THX-certified multichannel sound system. I played a wide variety of music on CD and DVD-Audio, including jazz, classical, and rock as well as two CDs I recorded—one with my wife, Joanna Cazden, and the other with my avant-garde trio Many Axes.

In addition to all the 3D flat panels on the show floor, there were also a few 3D front-projection demos, including one from Optoma at the low end of the price spectrum. I've always been impressed with the quality and value of Optoma DLP projectors, but its 3D demo was very disappointing—it wasn't even 1080p! The projector was the 720p HD66, and the source was an HQFS (High Quality Field Sequential) DVD playing at 480i through a composite connection. There were jaggies galore, and the sense of depth was very unconvincing. A separate demo of 3D stills, from which this photo was taken, looked better, as I would expect with no motion.

Samsung's flagship C6000 ultra-thin LED LCD TV provides a super-cool, full-color touchscreen remote. In addition to controlling the TV, it can also display a live video signal, though I can't see why you'd want to watch the remote when you have a big, beautiful TV in the same room.

I profiled the KEF Concept Blade speaker <A href="http://blog.ultimateavmag.com/ultimate-gear/blades_of_glory/">here</A>, but since there's only one pair in the world, there was no way for me to hear it until the company brought it to CES and set it up in a room at the Hilton with an Audio Research CD5 CD player and DSi200 integrated amp. Listening to Patricia Barber in a live recording and a tenor sax with rhythm section, it sounded quite good overall, with very clean, tight low bass, but the upper bass and vocal range was slightly congested. The KEF rep agreed and said it was the room, and I couldn't disagree—hotel rooms generally make lousy listening environments.

As I was wandering around the 3D Tech Zone, I stumbled upon a small booth with an autostereoscopic 3D LCD TV&#151;in other words, no glasses. Technicolor was demonstrating its algorithm that takes in right and left images, derives depth information for each pixel, and interpolates six additional views between the right and left images, a process that cannot yet be performed in real time.