CES 2012

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CES 2012

Jon Iverson | Jan 20, 2012 | 0 comments

Branching away from strictly audio products, the HDMI Streamer has two HDMI inputs and one HDMI output and a stereo audio output. The idea is to peel the audio off of an HDMI signal and send it to your analog stereo preamp while leaving the video intact for your TV. All perfectly legal says HRT. Available sometime around April for $229.95

CES 2012

HRT HeadStreamer

Jon Iverson | Jan 20, 2012 | 0 comments

I'm guessing this will be a hot product: asynch USB to stereo out for either headphone or audio feed. Handles up to 24/96 (sample rate indicated by LED), powered by your USB bus and is priced at $139.95. Designed and manufactured in California and available now. I'm really curious to hear how this one sounds.

CES 2012

Auraliti L1000-USB Streamer

Jon Iverson | Jan 20, 2012 | 0 comments

Auriliti revealed their new 24/192 digital music file player, the L1000-USB which the company's Ray Burnham described it to me as "an all-out assault on the high end". Featuring an external power supply, SSD boot drive and AES output, the L1000-USB uses the NTFS file system to sort your networked NAS drive which is all controlled via an iPad running MPaD or any other MPD server compatible app. Available in March for $3,500.

CES 2012

MSB Signature Data CD IV Transport and Power Base

Jon Iverson | Jan 20, 2012 | 0 comments

MSB has upgraded their Data CD IV disc player to the new Signature model with a machined metal disc drawer and updated networking. The Pro I2S digital output connects directly to the master clock in the DAC so the Data CD drive is controlled by the same clock that is running the DAC modules and motherboard for "hyper accurate data clocking when playing discs".

This is an interesting transport in that it plays CDs and also DVD data discs (such as Reference Recordings HRx discs) with .wav files up to 32/384! The transport sells for $7,995 and in this photo is paired with the Signature Transport Power Base at $3495.

CES 2012

MSB Diamond DAC IV, Diamond Power Base, WiFi System Interface and Galaxy Clock

Jon Iverson | Jan 20, 2012 | 0 comments

The Diamond DAC shown here has now been upgraded with MSB's Pro I2S Network capability which the company claims is a faster, lower jitter version of MSB’s original network and retails between approximately $20-35k depending on included options. The entire line is also now available in this luscious, but hard to photograph, black finish and it's likely I'll be reviewing an MSB system for Stereophile in the next few months.

Below the DAC is the MSB Diamond Power Base power supply running at $4,495 and below that is the very thin WiFi System Interface which brings iPad app control to the entire MSB line for $1,950 and should be available shortly.

Perhaps the most interesting MSB announcement is the $9,950 FemtoSecond Galaxy Clock that the company is making available as a plug in module for all DAC IVs. The claim for the clock upgrade is less than .077 picoseconds of jitter (77 femtoseconds)--let's see if JA can measure that.

CES 2012

Evolution's MMMicroOne

John Atkinson | Jan 20, 2012 | 10 comments

I missed this tiny jewel of a speaker when it made its debut at the 2011 T.H.E.Show, but it's now in production. As I sat down to listen to it at this year's show, I asked what it cost.

"25."

Okay, $25,000/pair is not unheard of for high-performance minimonitors; the Sonus Faber, Magico, and Franco Serblin stand-mount speakers are even more expensive.

"No, 25 hundred per pair. With the stands.

CES 2012

Magico S5 Loudspeaker

John Atkinson | Jan 20, 2012 | 4 comments

While Magico's recent high-performance speakers are notable for their all-aluminum cabinet construction, including the Q5 that was our 2011 "Loudspeaker of the Year," the new S5 ($28,600/pair) uses a more conventional enclosure to bring its price within reach of more than just the 1%. While it still uses a beryllium-dome tweeter, this is not made in house.

CES 2012

The Mighty Magico Q7

John Atkinson | Jan 20, 2012 | 1 comments

Costing $165,000/pair, Magico's new Q7—shown here with AudioStream.com editor Michael Lavorgna for scale—embodies everything the Californian company knows about speaker design: a proprietary beryllium-dome tweeter, nano-fiber–sandwich-cone midrange unit and woofers, housed in a sealed all-aluminum enclosure weighing 750 lbs! With the prototype Audeeva music server, Pacific Microsonics DAC, a Spectral preamp, MIT cables, and unidentified amplifiers hidden behind a curtain, the Q7s threw an enormous soundstage on a 176.4kHz/24-bit file of a Reference Recordings orchestral recording, with bass-drum blows that pressurized the room without obscuring a low-level bassoon that was playing at the same time—macro and micro-dynamics.

CES 2012

Vivid's G3Giya Encore

John Atkinson | Jan 20, 2012 | 0 comments

Here's a closer "glamor shot" of the new G3Giya loudspeaker, though it doesn't do justice to the deep gloss maroon finish of the speaker. Note how the fact that the tweeter and upper-midrange unit have to be mounted higher up the curve of the "tail" means that the transmission lines loading these drive-units have become a styling feature rather than buried within the enclosure.

CES 2012

Vivid Impresses Web Monkey

John Atkinson | Jan 20, 2012 | 6 comments

Source Interlink Media's Home-Tech Group's self-styled "Web Monkey" Jon Iverson (center) focuses his attention on the new Vivid G3Giya loudspeaker ($40,000/pair), which is scheduled to start shipping in April. Driven by a Luxman amplifier and hooked up with Kubala-Sosna Emotion cables, the G3Giya is a 2/3 scale version of the G1Giya that so impressed Wes Phillips in July 2010, with twin aluminum-cone 7.5" woofers loaded by the same proprietary ported transmission line, this time curled over more severely because of the speaker's reduced height. (The G1Giya used 11" woofers.)

CES 2012

The Extreme MBL X-Treme

John Atkinson | Jan 20, 2012 | 5 comments

At the previous Shows where I had auditioned it, MBL's extravagantly excessive (or should that be excessively extravagant) X-Treme system had been set-up in inappropriate rooms, Finally, at the 2012 CES, this 4-enclosure system, which basically comprises two of the true omnidirectional upper-frequency modules of the Berlin-based company's 101E Mk.2 speaker (to be reviewed by Mikey Fremer in the April 2012 issue) with two man-sized powered subwoofers, each using six 12" drivers mounted three on each side to cancel mechanically induced vibrations, was set up in a room worthy of it. (The Venetian room was 31' by 22' with a 10' ceiling.) Bi-amped with four file-cabinet–sized MBL 9011 monoblocks—the total system cost was $565,000!—the X-Treme produced a big-bottomed sound that was indeed extreme when required but also delicate when appropriate. Oh my!

CES 2012

The 2012 Consumer Electronics Show: A Better Way?

Stephen Mejias | Jan 20, 2012 | 39 comments

Photo: John Atkinson

It looks sort of pretty, doesn't it?

Imagine how much prettier it would be if it were real. Imagine again how much prettier it would be if those bridges and roads and towers weren't there at all.

Every time I stepped from the slow elevator and onto the casino floor at Harrah's, where Stereophile's editors spent their sleepless nights, my hatred for Las Vegas was revitalized. This was like some kind of bad joke, some kind of post-modern torture. Oh, god, I am still here. I would turn right and see the same flashing lights, the same low ceilings, the same people who had been there the night before, still sitting, still smoking, still hoping, still staring blank-faced into spinning screens of cherries, spades, and jokers, and I would wonder why.

Why? Most people who visit Las Vegas seem to be looking for money, sex, drugs, or simple escape. Why are we here?

CES 2012

Whisky Galore

Robert Deutsch | Jan 19, 2012 | 2 comments

As well as providing a list of equipment in the demo system, Sonist’s Randy Bankert offered visitors a choice of libation.

CES 2012

The Sonist Concerto 4

Robert Deutsch | Jan 19, 2012 | 0 comments

The Sonist Concerto 3 ($3495/pair) is a favorite of Art Dudley's, who praised its "SET-friendly" nature (April 2009). The system I heard in the Sonist room at T.H.E. Show used the Concerto 4 ($5895/pair), which JA wrote about in his report from the 2011 Atlanta Axpona, The Concerto 4 is claimed to have a sensitivity of 97dB, 2dB higher than the Concerto 3, and the bass is claimed to extend 3Hz lower, to 27Hz. (When it comes to the extremes of sensitivity and bass extension, even small gains are hard to come by.) With a Cary 306 Pro SACD/CD player as the source, Increcable Acoustic Lab TIA216 integrated amp (300B-based), Acoustic Revive power conditioner, and Exakte cables, the sound was clean, open, and "fast" on percussion.

CES 2012

The Return of Scientific Fidelity

John Atkinson | Jan 19, 2012 | 1 comments

I was astonished to come across a room at T.H.E. Show featuring the Scientific Fidelity brand. Back in the early 1990s, SciFi had some of the most stunning-looking tube amps and preamps, as well as a speaker, the Tesla, that offered spectacular imaging, SciFi's founder, Mike Maloney, exited manufacturing many years ago and founded T.H.E. Show, which he subsequently sold to Richard Beers. I bumped into Mike at a CES a few years back, and he had become a best-selling author on valuable metals trading. But the brand was back for 2012 with the stunning-looking, three-way Stylust loudspeaker ($30,000/pair), which sounded clean and detailed driven by the triangular Trillium amplifier ($25,000). Although the gentlemen in the room didn't speak English very well, I gathered that Mike was still the creative force behind the brand.

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CES 2012

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