For consumer electronics in general, 2017 should be a very interesting year, taking into account the overall impression created by the CES, both in relation to the exhibits as well as the attendance size. And, although the audio/video and the home entertainment systems market sector appears to be more in a consolidation phase, rather than in a booming phase, where the major manufacturers try to pass the recent developments to a wider consumer audience, there surely were many interesting things to see and to listen to at Las Vegas!
In their majority, announcements mainly included new models, i.e better implementations of well-known ideas, even in the particularly active high-end TV-set territory. The ultra-high definition standard (UHD and 4K) seems to become commonplace in projection systems in general and the official announcement of HDMI 2.1, which supports 8K resolution, simply pave the way for the years to come (and, probably the next market boom). Various familiar market trends, such as the 3D viewing and the curved displays, seem to have lost much of the public's interest and the big names seemed to invest more heavily in core technologies, especially in OLED and HDR (HDR10, Dolby Vision, and Advanced HDR) for the video, and in object-oriented multichannel audio technologies, such as Dolby Atmos and the DTS:X for the audio in home entertainment systems. There were, also, some developments towards better sound subsystems used in virtual and augmented reality systems, as it becomes more widely accepted that these applications have their own quality requirements.
In high-performance audio, things seemed rather calm, with the occasional extravagance here and there. Analog audio (mainly in the form of vinyl systems) remained the major "comeback" subject for discussion for many reasons, not necessarily related to sound quality. On the opposite side, streaming services also seemed to gain the market's trust, so as to make investments in new approaches. MQA slowly gains traction and, in general, more companies provide equipment real estate to support digital streaming services.
The photo gallery starts here.

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