A special award for creativity, effort and sanely priced audio excellence goes to Klaus Bunge of Odyssey Audio. His Art On-Wall Loudspeaker Systems go where no speakers have gone before - straight and irresistibly to the hearts of all ladies. The smarter, prettier and keener-hearing sex gets to chose from 80 different laser-etched prints -- or their own photography transfers - see below right -- and between black or silver aluminum frames. The Canvas 1 is a $1,500/pr 55-22,000Hz affair 24" x 20" x 3.5" small while the Canvas High End goes for $1,950, adds 10Hz of bass extension and 2 inches in width and height. A $1,200 d'Appolito center channel measures 32" x 24" x 3.5". All drivers are by Scanspeak.

Mad German Bunge burned through 600 lbs of plywood to erect a faux wall, then wallpapered it in properly contrasting tones to hang his speakers where the hotel windows would have presented serious challenges. He even included a fire place [see above left] while the side walls sported samples of available art work stretched on room acoustics frames. Paul Candy cranked the amplifier throttle and the on-walls refused to falter, fart or flail. No Jazz At The Pornshop here. Klaus stands behind one of his speakers [lower left] draped in modern art and then demonstrates the Scandinavian two-way engine under the hood [lower right].
How anyone at Odyssey Audio makes money remains a bloody mystery. But make no mistake - the sound here, on-wall or free-standing via the Loreleis, was far in excess of the asking price. This has become hoary tradition with this brand. On-wall home theater is now reality and if you think "no depth", think again. These ported designs did depth like few of their kind. Will Herr Bunge do this particular demo again? Not. The faux wall was way stupid he grinned - but that didn't prevent him from doing it anyway. Mark up another home run for this team! Incidentally, the final production versions will sport proper binding posts. Check out their website and apply your own weapons of math deduction to figure out how far you can go for how little when pursuing the Odyssey way of audio.

I noted a very peculiar personal reaction at this show. Very few rooms sounded like the real thing. My favorites didn't, in fact. For that, I make no apologies. I'm not a big believer in the absolute sound that purports to recreate the mid-hall perspective of an acoustical performance from the perfect seat. I view playback as its own alternate reality or parallel dimension. Certain aspects are arguably better -- resolution for one if it's a well-done recording -- while others are simply different. The two rooms that went for real in my book were the Sanibel Sound exhibit with Innersound, Piega and AIX DVD/A recordings and the TAD/Pass Labs/IsoMike room. Incidentally, both were multi-channel.

Ray Kimber's experimental -- but very compelling -- IsoMike recordings provided musical fare in part too challenging for most showgoers while Mark Waldrep of AIX [below] hit a more populist nerve sounding equally realistic by using the rears exclusively for properly done ambience, i.e. subtle and not discernable until turned off.

Power line conditioning here was by Audience as in many other rooms [review with Jules and Ken forthcoming]. Other popular filters in evidence elsewhere were by Shunyata, Sound Application and World Power.


As a tubular listener, I tend to prefer valves though I remain open to be converted. Alas, HE 2005 wasn't my road to Damascus. My two favorite rooms both sported tubes and remained strictly two-channel, with no fancy software on tap except for good RedBook CD. Oh well - I'm old-fashioned, I guess...