CES 2017 • TABlog

by Marc Mickelson | January 31, 2017

ES is different shows to different people. For those of us in the audio press, it's a grind. We spend our days trudging from room to room in the Venetian, up one floor and down two others, in search of new products and musical realism, but for people in the audio industry, the CES is almost a reverse image of this. They spend all of their time in one room -- or in a few rooms, if their company is large -- in an effort to get us, as well as dealers and distributors, to visit them. They are the flowers and we are the bees, and what they use to draw us to them has great influence on the success of their CES and the return they receive on what is a sizable investment.

Never one to rely on e-mail press releases, Gabi van der Kley-Rijnveld, head of Crystal Cable, has pushed the standards of flowery scents to new levels of enticement. Over the past few years, she and her graphics people have come up with some of the most innovative and eye-catching promotional materials available at CES, and this year they have eclipsed themselves -- again.

First was the printed material -- not just some info-sheet, but a brochure that covered the new Crystal Cable and Siltech products together. Closed it was one piece of literature, and open it was another, the small inset panel rotating with the opening and closing of the brochure.

Next was a more substantial item, a true object that opened to reveal . . .

. . . a video player and screen the showed three short, informative movies about Crystal Cable and Siltech.

Finally, and most impressively (although the photograph doesn't capture it), was the backdrop to the active demo, which seemed to twinkle with 3D stars.

CES becomes more bland and spiritless every year, but no one can blame Crystal Cable or Siltech for this. An unintended byproduct of the high standards that Gabi van der Kley-Rijnveld has set is the vast gulf between the materials she brings to CES and what everyone else brings. If the idea is to get members of the press to notice them, then Gabi's materials work with aplomb. I have a growing collection of them, so they live on in my memory, even as they promote what they were designed to: new products from Crystal Cable and Siltech.