The Paris High End Show 2011 was a great success.  Our French distributor, DEA International, commented that the level of interest in Perreaux was very pleasing, particularly in the Audiant 80i integrated amplifier.

DEA International's Chef de Produit, Jean Philippe, gives a video overview of the Audiant 80i from the Paris High End Show (video courtesy of cinenow.com).

French speaker manufacturer Atohm demonstrated their GT 1.0 speakers with Perreaux electronics. In coverage of the show by on-mag.fr, Pierre Stemmelin said that Perreaux and Atohm were among the best sounding systems of the show (that's if Google Translate is anything to go by).

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The Consumer Electronics & Photo Expo was recently held in Moscow.  It is Russia's equivalent of CES and covers premium hi-fi as well as mobile & digital, photography, digital TV and audio/video.

Audiomania was in attendance representing Perreaux alongside some of their other lines, such as Waterfall and Penaudio loudspeakers, Nordost cables and Cold Ray vibration control.

On display was our Silhouette SXCD CD player, éloquence CDt transport with 250i integrated amplifier and Prisma 350 power amp.  The setup was mostly static with a lot of the gear not available for demonstration – in any case, it's still excellent exposure in Russia for the brands Audiomania represented at the show.

Audiomania have posted photos of Consumer Electronics & Photo Expo 2011 on Facebook, where you can see photos of their stand as well as coverage of other aspects of the show.

Congratulations Audiomania on what looked like a popular stand at a busy show.

Our room at the recent Shanghai International High-End Hi-Fi Show seemed to be well-received with many audiophiles liking what they heard.

The room was set up with our Prisma line of separates (CD1 CD player, SM6 MkII preamplifier & 350 power amplifier), while the Audiant 80i was used as a DAC for the playback of high-res 24-bit/96kHz material.

Other components used to complement our gear were Wilson Audio Duette loudspeakers, Transparent Audio speaker cables, Siltech interconnects, White Gold power cords and a power conditioner from ExactPower.

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It’s a massively exciting time for us at Perreaux; we have got AUDIANT 80i tucked under our belts and are getting the chance to show it to the world at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.  All I needed to do was get my bag packed, my suit dry-cleaned and get to the airport on time.  I have never been to Vegas but I’ve seen Casino about 100 times, I got Keith Richard’s biography for Christmas, every Stones album on my iPod and I’m ready to eat some chicken fried chicken, whatever that may be.

After a plane ride to LAX, a shuttle ride to the Greyhound terminal in East LA and a seven-hour bus ride to Vegas, I checked into my hotel.  Put on some sneakers and go for a walk to try and find the Flamingo Hotel where The High End (T.H.E.) Show is going to be held. Not hard to find due to it being a huge 30 storey building with a massive pink sign that says Flamingo. That wasn’t the problem; the problem was once I got inside how to find anything. These places are vast and not designed to help you find anything except a way to spend money. That evening I couldn’t find the Perreaux room but I could have purchased an Elvis monopoly set, a yard glass full of cocktail or a person.

Thursday was the first day of CES and T.H.E. Show, the calm before the storm of the weekend. Arriving at 9am I found... the room was locked and my cell phone wasn’t going to play ball with American air. Then one of our rooms opened up. Walter, the US distributor for Perreaux, had two rooms booked at T.H.E. Show, mine was still locked but that gave me time to meet John and Holger.

John Park is based in Korea, his company Pyon Sound have produced a turntable that should have its own gravity, one of the most beautiful pieces I saw at T.H.E. Show.  Holger Stein, surprisingly, from Germany, gave me my first massive geek out moment.  Holger was there with his beautiful speakers, amazing room treatment Harmonizers and his Masterclass Amp.  When I met him I expressed my love for German music from the 60’s onwards – Can, Faust, Guru Guru, etc...  He told me that when he was young he saw Guru Guru play many times and that they were as wild as they sound.  I asked Holger where in Germany he was from and he told me that he was 10km from Düsseldorf; I got all nerdy and started babbling about Kraftwerk.  He fixed me with his gaze, maybe anticipating my woolly headed freak-out, and said “Ja, I know those guys, Florian, Ralf, sometimes I go to Kling Klang, when I am a teenager.”  This is like telling a movie fan about how you know the Coen Brothers. I was actually speechless.

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It looked nice and well set up, carefully arranged and sounding good.  After the carrying, plugging, unplugging and pointing had given way to smiles, closed eyes and head nodding, it was obvious all the hard work had been well worth it.

At 5.30pm on Monday 13th of December at the Wellesley Boutique Hotel in Wellington, Hugo Van Son, Audio Visual Manager of Harvey Norman Tory Street, and I, were looking at each other wondering if an evening of hi-fi demos in 2010 was actually a good idea.  Was hi-fi still a thing that could capture the public’s attention?  Or were we living in the past, some of the last men on the ramparts championing good sound over convenience?

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Well CES has been and gone once again. Attendance was good this year – while it seemed down on previous years, the enquiries and leads were more qualified. Perhaps the last 12 to 18 months has seen the "cream float to the top".

Speaking with other manufacturers, for many, the last six to eight months have been stellar, us included. So perhaps it's a sign of things to come, it's certainly reassuring to see some buoyancy returning to the market.

We exhibited in room 29-112 at The Venetian, alongside Acoustic Sounds, Thorens and Harbeth. A massive thank you to Chuck and Clark from Acoustic Sounds – firstly, for having us in their room; and second, for playing some outstanding records from the Acoustic Sounds catalogue.

We must also express sincere gratitude to our US distributor Walter Swanbon from Fidelis Distribution. He put up with a lot of grief and must have been close to tearing his hair out when it nearly went "pear-shaped" after a firmware upgrade of the 150i went horribly wrong (you'd think experience would teach us that Murphy and his law always make an appearance at these sorts of events).

Thankfully, after traipsing around what seemed like the entire city of Las Vegas looking for a computer with a serial port, a Vegas local came to our rescue after we posted an SOS on the Atmel AVR Community forum AVR Freaks. Thank you "peret" for getting us back up-and-running and allowing the show to go on.

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Interest in A/V has never been greater in Europe. Exhibiting at the recent VAD show in Eindhoven, The Netherlands evidenced this.

Our Benelux distributor E-Audio put together an excellent show. Feel free to browse images of the E-Audio stand at VAD.

The Silhouette series left many very surprised at just how good these products really are. Our sincere thanks to all the team at E-Audio Benelux for hosting a superb exhibition.

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