The Sumiko suite at CES provided a huge listening space to introduce the new Vienna Acoustics' full-range, four-way Die Musik loudspeaker ($25,000/pair). Designed by Peter Gansterer (see photo), a pair of Die Musiks produced some of the best sound I heard at the show. The speakers were positioned quite far apart against a side wall, and the listener sat on a couch closer to the plane between the speakers than the distance between the speakers. This created a very wide, coherent soundstage quite unlike any other than I heard at the show. Bass response, which was superb, actually could be credited, in part, to a huge REL Studio 3 subwoofer, which was parked and running in the nearest room corner.

John-Paul Lizars, Director of Marketing at Sumiko Audio, walked me through the loudspeaker's design. Most important, the midrange and treble frequencies originated from an adjustable head module that can be exactly positioned with resettable screw settings that angles the midrange-tweeter coincident driver both horizontally and vertically. The midrange is not a cone, but a planar driver. All other drivers use Vienna Acoustics' proprietary cone material, which is stiffened with glass fiber and thin metal spines. The enclosure was finished in a beautiful Sapelle Wood mahogany veneer that "resembles the veneers used in the old Chris Kraft speedboats of the 1950s," said Lizars.