CES showcased huge speakers built in LV

Friday, Jan. 15, 1999 | 10:27 a.m.

A company whose top product is a stereo speaker system more expensive than most homes was one of eight Las Vegas companies that exhibited at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show.

By nearly all accounts, CES was a huge success for Melos Technologies Corp., which moved to Las Vegas last spring from New Jersey.

Among the six employees who made the move was Mark Porzilli, a designer with Melos since 1979 and the inventor of the Pipedreams speaker system that drew so much attention over the weekend.

One of Porzilli's small Pipedreams systems was set up in a suite at the Alexis Park Resort, the forgotten venue of the trade show that drew more than 90,000 people to Las Vegas. Alexis Park was the four-day home to hundreds of high-end audio products.

Thanks to favorable reviews in trade publications, the Pipedreams system already had some advanced billing at the show.

Hundreds of delegates found their way to the Melos suite and absorbed the sounds produced by Porzilli's creation. Those who were really impressed were invited to take a ride to Melos' Las Vegas headquarters at 4710 W. Dewey Drive, Suite 114, to hear Porzilli's monster roar.

The system includes two 8-foot towers and four cubes holding 84 tweeters, 42 midrange drivers and eight 18-inch woofers and an enhanced amplification system. The price tag: about $120,000.

The Melos office includes a showroom floor for demonstrations and an industrial lab and parts warehouse for the components Porzilli needs to assemble his sound systems.

One of the secrets to developing what many experts say is the best sound reproduction system in the world, Porzilli said, is using vacuum tubes instead of transistors in the amplifiers. Porzilli also is a proponent of vinyl record albums over compact discs.

LPs and vacuum tubes produce a "liquid, natural timbre that can't be reproduced with transistors and CDs," Porzilli said.

Porzilli, who received a quantum physics degree from Rutgers University when he was 14, also uses no sound-degrading parallel walls in his speaker construction and builds the cabinets with oak and walnut. He's had requests to build with some rare exotic woods, which increases the price.

So who would buy a $100,000 speaker system?

"They're bought by people who want the absolute best sound system," said Sedrick Harris, vice president of sales and marketing for Melos. "They're music aficionados, true audiophiles. Some of them are people who can't afford them but buy them anyway. Some of them are people who don't care if they put food on the table, so long as they have speakers like these."

All Harris knows is that after write-ups in The Absolute Sound trade journal in October and a CES preview on the SoundStage webzine just before the show, people were looking for the speakers.

The company's move to Las Vegas already has saved it money at CES -- Porzilli figures he didn't have to pay $20,000 in shipping costs to put the speakers in front of potential buyers.

Another company that exhibited at CES isn't quite as high-tech as Melos, but its manufacturing process is.

Action Orthotics, which has been in operation in Las Vegas for about three years, showed computer-designed orthotics -- limb braces that maximize comfort for people on their feet.

"A convention is a good place to show people how to take care of their feet," said Jennifer Harris, whose father, Mark, is a certified pedorthist and whose mother, Judy, is his intern.

The Harrises left Vancouver, British Columbia, after finding a thriving market in the American Southwest. They now sell orthotics -- products that reduce pressure on ankles, knees and backs -- for about $289.

The Harrises saw about 100 potential customers in the first two days of the show and said it was a little slower than they expected.

Six other local exhibitors are perennial CES fixtures. Keymaster Car Security Inc. showed its anti-theft systems while Wilson Antenna showed an array of radio and television antenna products.

Other Las Vegas exhibitors were companies in the adult video category, including Natalie Publishing, Prime Video, TechCor LLC and Love Toys Inc.