TAD premiered its new E1 floorstander ($29,800/pair) at the 2012 CES in January, but THE Show Newport Beach was the new speaker's first public outing. Trickling down the technology from TAD's massive Reference One (now being used for monitoring at London's famed AIR Studio) and Compact Reference CR 1, the E1 still uses a coaxial drive-unit with a beryllium-dome tweeter for the treble and midrange, but with the midrange cone now magnesium rather than beryllium.

TAD's designer, Andrew Jones, did an effective dem of the E1's strengths; listening to a 24/192k file of a small jazz group led by Bill Cantos, a jazz waltz arrangement of Ace's "How Long Has This Been Goin' On?," I wrote down in my journalist notebook "dynamic freedom, palpable presence, purr in the bass—all adds up to great music making!"