By Rich Rodgers

. . .
Merlin had the VSM-SE speakers driven by Big Blue. Large and attractive, the Blue Circle mono blocks gave off a soft blue light that made the dim room seem cool and sexy. Bobby Palkovic has taken the already great VSM Gen. III to even higher ground. He's played with the crossover frequencies, and replaced some of the internals with more expensive and more finely engineered pieces. Dacron is now added to the tweeter chamber for improved damping. He has added some black boxes that give you the option of active equalization. The Very Scary Merlins using JPS cables were telling the sonic truth; definitely one of the better show sounds. Maybe that's why the Gen. III’s reside in my dwelling. P.S. The rumor is true, Bobby really is a different person in person than on the phone.
. . .

Final Thoughts:

Well, I didn't get to see and hear everything that I wanted too, but there was that time thing, it passes you know. It was fun seeing old friends once again, while making many new ones at the same time. (I'd like to thank Ray Romano who helped track me down for my wife.) This certainly wasn't the biggest show that I've ever been to in the last 14 years, not by a long shot. But, I liked the generally uncrowded hallways, it made it easy to get around. At the regular CES shows there are fewer manufacturers sharing the same rooms, things are more spread out. And the rooms: The rooms were smaller than most people were expecting, and much less accommodating than I hear the rooms were at the Alexis in 'Vegas. No, most of the rooms here were terribly small bedrooms with the beds removed; not ideal. However, some companies were able to rise above the situation.

Best of Show? Easy, my house after getting back from the St. Francis. Second runners up are in no particular order because they all had different attributes:

• Electrocompaniet/Precide
• Artemis/Reflection/Full Spectrum
• Merlin/Blue Circle
• Audio Prism/ESP
• Silverline
• Bryston/PMC
• Vandersteen/Audible Illusions

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