THERE WERE countless headphone exhibitors at CES 2012: familiar names showing incremental upgrades to longstanding models, Chinese OEMs showcasing suspiciously familiar designs under house brands, upstart firms testing the waters with hybrid driver designs and innovative fit systems, automotive and furniture firms muscling their way into the latest hot retail category.
TIME BEHIND the wheel can be a therapeutic escape from modern life’s 24/7 connectivity, but that’s about to change. At the 2012 CES, automakers, car-electronics suppliers, and wireless carriers announced alliances and initiatives that will make the fully connected car a reality.
IT’S CLEAR THAT since the dawn of the iPod era, listeners and manufacturers alike have been struggling to figure out what kind of gear makes the most sense for a musical universe dominated by iTunes, and the rise of Apple rivals and music-streaming services has made matters even more confusing.
AUDIOPHILES’ enthusiasm for computer-sourced sound has inspired innovation in the market for external digital-to-analog converters, which deliver vastly better performance than your computer’s sound card. Accordingly, there were many new DACs at CES designed to connect to computers.
In the last couple of years, I’ve heard several speaker manufacturers predict that the increasingly good-sounding $300 products from the likes of Panasonic, Samsung, and Vizio would soon push all the traditional audio companies out of the soundbar biz. But it hasn’t happened. This year’s CES saw the introduction of several new soundbars from respected brands.
They say it was the biggest CES show ever, and it sure felt like it. When I got back, everyone asked me what the “most amazing” gadget or gizmo I saw was.
Control4 unveiled two new processors at this year’s CES, the HC800 ($999) and the HC250 ($599). They offer way more power for system control and provide a much zippier interface when controlling different areas of the home or browsing a media library.
At some point, CES ceased having much of anything to do with the home theater experience, and became primarily about TV makers launching the latest, biggest, and thinnest TVs. Oh, and there are also a couple of floors of stratospherically expensive high-end audio gear, and now headphones.
TRADITIONAL two-channel audio never went away. But there’s no denying that since the early ’90s, stereo has been overshadowed by home theater. Most of the audio industry devoted most of its effort to adding more speakers, more channels of sound, and more complexity to our systems.
While the hype at CES this year was all about OLED, 4K, and bigger TVs, a quiet revolution began in the interaction department. LG and Samsung both announced new ways to control TVs using facial and speech recognition, or even just a wave of your hand.
INEVITABLY, WHEN something cool comes out, it will influence everything that immediately follows. That’s what happened with Avatar. In 2009, we all went to see it in 3D, and the following year stores were packed with 3D TVs and 3D Blu-ray players.
Though we got a good peek at them at the recent CES, Samsung’s 3/6 event in NYC gave Sound+Vision a chance to get even more up close and personal with the company’s new LCD and plasma Smart TVs.
CES 2012: The TV Report
CES 2012: CES Unveiled 
CES Day One: LG Press Conference
CES 2012: Apt-X Bluetooth Update
