CES 2012

It may not have involved OLED, but one of the biggest consumer electronics announcements of the month - Gibson Guitar Corporation's acquisition of a majority stake in Onkyo USA and a large chunk of Onkyo Corporation proper, with the establishment of a Hong Kong-based R&D-oriented joint venture - happened last week rather than at CES proper, but today the CEOs of Gibson and Onkyo, Henry Juszkiewicz and Munenori Otsuki took some time to clarify the finer points of the partnership, which left many observers' scratching their heads. Rather than holding a press conference in one of the maze-like structures in which most of us have been spending our time this week, Juszkiewicz and Otsuki invited a few reporters to meet them on the Gibson bus, a fully blinged-out luxury liner styled in the tradition of Nashville's golden age.

The CES show is just inundated with headphones and earbuds.  Seems the only way some people think to break through the clutter is to add celebrity endorsements. One company, tucked away in the back of the convention floor is taking an entirely different approach. 

While it’s always a party at CES, this year was something special for Audio-Technica. They’re here celebrating “50 Years of Passionate Listening” with five limited edition headphones and phono cartridges debuting here.   

Sound bars are a great solution to an age-old problem – how to add a decent-looking and decent-sounding system to enhance the clean, minimalistic look of your flat-screen TV. The problem is that they can sound pretty crappy – mainly thin and tinny unless you add a subwoofer. And there goes that nice, clean minimalistic look.

For audio geeks, most of the real fun at CES is over at the Venetian Hotel, where high-end (and not-so-high-end) audio companies demonstrate their products in dozens of guest suites. While the rooms in the Venetian are known for $200,000 speakers, $100,000 amps, and $20,000 speaker cables, you can also hear great speakers and amps for as little as a few hundred dollars.

From a technical standpoint, speakers have hardly changed since I went to my first CES back in January 1990. Yet each CES is still jam-packed with new speaker designs. Some are merely modifications on the classic black box. Others are aesthetic flights of fancy intended to captivate those who really don’t much like audio gear.

Arcam were showing an interesting little collection of solidly-built digital audio solutions in their suite at the Venetian.