"The best loudspeaker on earth!" proclaimed the sign for the YG Acoustics Limited Exhibit. The company's founder, designer, and CEO, the ever-upbeat Yoav Geva, was just as proud as the papa of his new $33,000/pair "Kipod" floorstanding speaker. And proud he should be. "Kipod means hedgehog," he told me, "which is my daughter's nickname because of her hairstyle."

The speaker has two parts, a two-way upper "main module," and a lower woofer section, which when added, comprises the "studio" version of the Kipod. Driven by Krell Full Power Balanced amplifiers and a dCS player, the sound from the small Kipods filled the huge exhibit room, and was one of the best I heard on Day 1 of the CES.

I jokingly asked Yoav if he might not call his speaker the "sonic hedgehog," which is the name for a gene sequence in biology. "No," he said, "We'll just leave it named after my daughter, the Kipod."