News

Day one of the Home Entertainment Show is always set aside for the press (and "the industry," which is an apparently elastic term meaning "everybody else"), but this year it seems as though there's more press than ever. Every press conference—and there was a steady stream of them—was standing room only and the halls were already thronged with showgoers. It looks like HE2005 is already a hit.

No, we really weren't feeling kind of seasick, but the crowd definitely called out for more—and at HE2005, more is what we usually got.

We get so confused department: Officially, it's day one of the show, even though we've already been here a whole day. But—as we keep having to remind ourselves—it's not all about us. Today was the day the showgoers arrived.

I've been thinking about women. All weekend long. While that, by itself, is nothing unusual for me, here at Home Entertainment 2005, I''ve been thinking particularly about the small number of female enthusiasts within the hobby of high-end audio.

Some say it dates back 50 years, to when the late David Hafler introduced a tube amplifier with a "better-sounding" ultralinear output stage. Others claim it goes back to the introduction of electrical recording and playback in 1927, when Gramophone magazine's founder and editor, author Sir Compton McKenzie, thundered that electrical reproduction was a step backward in sound quality. But whenever it started, the "Great Debate" between "subjectivists," who hear differences between audio components, and "objectivists," who tend to ascribe such differences to the listeners' over-heated imaginations, rages just as strongly in the 21st century as it did in the 20th.

For 2007, Home Entertainment Show makes a return engagement to New York City—one of the most popular destinations ever for this event! The venue is the elegant and gracious Grand Hyatt New York Hotel, where the consumer-electronics industry and music lovers alike will descend on May 11–13, 2007 to see and hear the latest high-end home audio and video entertainment products, gaming consoles, imaging products, and more.

With buds and 'phones in hand, headphone enthusiasts from around the US and beyond are about to plug in in San Jose, California. Their destination is the Radisson Hotel, where the Second Annual International Head-Fi Meet takes place on April 21 and 22. Organized by Head-Fihttp://www.head-fi.org">Head-Fi;, an online discussion board boasting 53,907 members and a whopping 2,810,005 posts annually, the meet promises two very full days of interactive panels, DIY demos, and vendor exhibits.