As Stereophile's minister without portfolio, my goal was to find something interesting that didn't quite fit into traditional categories. The prize was an introduction, at a Harman demo room in the Hard Rock Casino/Hotel, to Lexicon's SL-1 loudspeaker prototype (price TBD) and the SoundSteer technology that distinguishes it.
Distributor Axiss Audio was showing the new Piega Coax 711 loudspeaker ($25,000/pair). Everything in the speakerincluding its coaxial ribbon tweeter/midrange, bass drivers, and all-aluminum enclosureis designed and manufactured by the Swiss company.
Grand Prix Audio has two new equipment racks. The first is the four-post Monaco Nouvelle (on the left in the photo above, approx. $27,000-$30,000 for a four-shelf rack, depending upon options)
Rogue now introduces their first headphone amp/preamplifier, the RH-5 ($2495), which not only looks sleek and timeless in that oval-windowed Rogue way, it features three line-level RCA inputs and one pair of balanced XLR inputs.
An evolution of the original Genesis 5, which was designed by Arnie Nudell and released in 1994, the Genesis Maestro ($30,000/pair), designed by Gary Koh (above), is a highly efficient loudspeaker that can be driven by just a few watts.
Since you'll see the same smiling faces in two successive cable-company blogs, let's start by saying that cables from Crystal Cable and Siltech are made in the same factory, but have very different sounds
Siltech's Triple Crown power cable (approx. $13,683.40/1.5m at the current exchange rate) is a pure, mono-crystal silver design that uses stabilized air-core insulation and Furutech connectors
Although you may associate Elac solely with Andrew Jones's expanding collection of bargain-priced loudspeakers, the 90-year old German company actually has a wide range of products at various price points. "We're famous for a lot of bass from small cabinets," said Rolf Janke (above), head of research and development, as he discussed Elac's new 90th anniversary Concentro loudspeaker ($70,000/pair).
"Far better flexibility is the key," said the company's Brian Von Bork (above), as he held up both the Iridium interconnect and the company's new Clear Beyond flagship interconnect ($3750/1m pair)
"The Dark Lord has the most advanced planar-magnetic transducer that can be designed and manufactured," claimed Colich, seen with his hand on His Lordship in the photo above
British manufacturer RHA, known primarily for their in-ear headphone models, had the new Dacamp L1 for the first time at CES. Beautifully built and feeling hefty in the hand, the new headphone amp and DAC sports independent processors for each channel. Three knobs along one side control gain (there are three settings), bass and treble, and inside is a 4000mAh lithium ion battery that RHA claims will give you 10 hours of play time.
I was thinking this was a nice $1,000-2,000 product as Questyle's representative was going over the features: 3 types of headphone jacks (regular unbalanced, 4 pin balanced XLR and 2.5mm balanced), USB/Optical/SPDIF inputs on back, swithcable gain via three small switches on the bottom, and AKM AK4490 DAC chip inside.
Cocktail had their new brawnier and refined X-50 server/player on hand. And I'm comparing it to the previous X-30 model, which I'd seen at previous shows. The new X-50 feels much heavier and looks built to kill in a solid black case. On the front is a similar layout to the X-30, with a CD slot on the left and a slightly larger color display on the right.
In response to requests for a more affordable cable that's truly high end, High Fidelity Cable founder Rick Schultz has introduced the company's entry-level Reveal interconnect ($699/1m pair) and speaker cable ($1399/2m pair).