Vote

Not single product, but the number of music servers and the options coming up for computer audio. Using the itouch or iphone as a remote is pretty sweet.

The tidal wave of music servers! Although for what they are, basically computers with upgraded outputs, they are over the top expensive in many cases. But it's looking interesting...

Linn Akurate Digial Server & Eventus Audio Pobos speakers.

THIELnet system without a doubt was the next big thing in hi-fi.

Wadia iTransport and the new Jeff Rowland flagship preamp.

Meridian 808.2

The coverage I found most interesting was the conversation between Vincent Sanders and Neil Sinclair, particulary the quote from Mr. Sanders where he passionately declares "We need studio quality, not CD quality...". With the bulk of the remaining coverage including lots of pictures of guys proudly posing next to their speakers, turntables that look like they belong in a hermetically sealed clean room and, of course, lots of warmly glowing tubes, the coverage could have been from any previous year.

The double pair of SoundLab loudspeakers -whew! And: all the great turntables; vinyl is alive.

Ayre KX-R preamp & the un-photographed Vandersteen Carbon Fibre 5As. And Wadia's iTransport.

Marantz AV8003 preamp/processor. It has most of the features I want in my new pre/pro, and Marantz sound quality. It also is the first pre/pro to be able to take an HD video stream via GB ethernet directly from a PC. I saw a couple of pics on a Japanese website, and the user interface looks great and easy to navigate. It handles music as well as videos, of course.

Ayre KX-R

The new flagship preamplifier from Jeff Rowland the new Criterion.

Prices off the chart. Bling-products everywhere. Audiophile insanity getting worse. Wheres the reason?!

Mark Levinson No.53 & No.532.

The high-end music servers.

The new Jeff Rowland preamp, and the use of computers for music storage and replay.

McIntosh MT10. I love the looks!

Wireless HDMI.

New Quad 2905s rocked my world. Wanted to take them to bed with me.

All those grown up men hugging loudspeakers on your pictures.

Benchmark DAC1 Pre.

The new Gallo towers.

Mark Levinson new stereo amp. Looks like good old fashion no-nonsense amp. Looking forward to Stereophile reviewing it.

The new Pass integrated amp. Please do a review of this unit!

The product that caught my attention this week was not at CES but rather the prodigious product of last week's vote question: Perhaps the largest number of responses and almost all in favor of music servers. Amazing! At the mercy of cold-hearted computers and their cold terminology every day at work, I crave the simplicity of my disc collection at home and am repelled by the idea of yet another file interface. I guess I'm in the "5% club" in audio too, for the present, but better get serious compiling a glossary in my personal hard drive (my head) of all the lame techno-fluff language garbling the more tedious passages in the literature describing these devices. Apparently my desire that servers be a parallel format instead of a dominant one is naive.

Wasn't so much a product, but a category, all of the digital music servers. Very eager to actually see what the possibilities could be in my own system with one of these devices.

Feastrex drivers - for me, I am enjoying how the single driver world is shaping up. Aura Note Music Center - for my wife, she's getting interested in bring an ipod based decent system in the living room.

The prices of the high-end. it's crazy. i'd like to know if this is all for the American market or over seas

Mhat McIntosh turntable, for good or bad, it is attention getting.

In fact I was shocked about the +$100k priced loudspeakers which use OEM drivers from various manufacturers (total cost of drivers would be far less than a few $1000s). What high profit rate for such a product! I wonder who pays more than $100,000 or even $200,000-USD for a pair of loudspeakers which uses non-custom designed drivers (I mean one can build up a similar one by purchasing the same drivers from the same manufacturers). Yes, design of crossovers is tough business but man, it is raw amount of $200,000-USD for a pair of loudspeakers. I don't even remember just about how many times I yelled "holly crap!" while looking at those insanely high priced products. Well whatelse we can say more "there will be a supply, as much as there is a demand". Somebody buys them for sure.