Audio Skies Michael Vamos - YG Acoustics, JMF Audio, Ideon at Capital Audiofest 2025
The Listening Room and Fidelity Imports - Diptyque DP-160 Mk.2 at Capital Audiofest 2025
Fidelity Imports Audia Flight and Perlisten System
Fidelity Imports Wilson Benesch and Audia Flight System at Capital Audiofest 2025
J Sikora Aspire, Innuos Stream 3, Aurender N50, Gryphon Antileon Revelation, Command Performance AV
Bella Sound Kalalau Preamplifier: Interview with Mike Vice
BorderPatrol Zola DAC – Gary Dews at Capital Audiofest 2025
Audio Note UK TT3 Reference Turntable Debut at Capital Audiofest 2025
Kevin Hayes of VAC at Capital Audiofest 2025
2WA Group debuts Aequo Ensium at Capital Audiofest 2025
Capital Audiofest 2025 lobby marketplace walk through day one
Lucca Chesky Introduces the LC2 Loudspeaker at Capital Audiofest 2025
Capital Audiofest 2025 Gary Gill interview
Sponsored: Pulsar 121
Acora and VAC together at Capital Audiofest 2025
Scott Walker Audio & Synergistic Research at Capital Audiofest 2025: Atmosphere LogiQ debut
Sponsored: Symphonia
Sponsored: Symphonia Colors

LATEST ADDITIONS

Jeff Rowland Design Group Bling

Walking into the Jeff Rowland Design Group room is like walking into a dreamscape of audio bling. To look at a Rowland faceplate is like gazing into the face of God...well, maybe that's overstating it a bit. Whoever set up the Rowland room knows how great their gear looks and even set up floor to ceiling poles full of lights, strategically aimed to heighten their hypnotic, 3-D look.

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Playback Designs MPS-5

I hadn't seen this almost two-year-old company before, but was familiar with founders Andreas Koch, formerly with Studer ReVox and EMM labs, and Jonathan Tinn through his relationship with darTZeel. Sharing a room with darTZeel, Playback's MPS-5 was sitting in the center equipment rack spinning discs.

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Sonic Studio Amarra

Those who follow computer audio forums have probably heard the name Amarra a few times. If you have an Apple computer running iTunes and want to get the most out of high resolution audio, Sonic Studio's Amarra software offers a way around some of the inherent problems when switching resolutions and the way the Apple OS handles audio.

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The Raysonic CD168 Tube CD-Player

Some disc players simply look better than others when the lights go out. The Raysonic CD168 Tube CD-Player is one such machine and retails for $2,550. The CD168 uses 4 Russian 6922EH tubes and upconverts your CDs to 24 bit/192kHz to either balanced or unbalanced outputs.

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Vital VTL

What a relief to revisit VTL electronics, and breathe in the mellow midrange of jazz vocalist Johnny Hartmann singing on the Original Recordings Group reissue of <I>I Just Dropped by to Say Hello</I>. There's a beauty and timbral truth to VTL electronics that you do not hear from many tube products that cost more than the $50,000/pair Siegfried monoblocks, and far more than the wonderful VTL MB450 Signature Series II monoblocks ($15,000/pair).

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Audio Research's "Magnepan" Amplifier

My last stop of the day, and of the show, was the Audio Research room. Dave Gordon showed me their new DS-650 (I'm not sure that the designator was DS) stereo amp and laughed that it was their "Magnepan amp." Yup, I agree. As I discovered when I paired a pair of MG-3.6s with Class&#233; CAM-350s, while any competent 20Wpc amp will drive a pair of MG-3.6s adequately...any top-notch 300&#150;400W amp will actually drive them well. Then Dave casually noted that the 650 was a class-D amp and told me to put my hand on its top. Sure enough, it was cool as a cucumber in spite of having been on and making music for several days. "The entire amp is ours, from the bottom up," Dave noted, "there's nothing standard or off the shelf in there."

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Trial By Stereophile

Most of the time at CES, <I>Stereophile</I>'s writers prowl the corridors in solitary fashion. But occasionally we find ourselves in the same room at the same time, which was the case in the Blue Smoke suite at the
Mirage, where we had gathered to check out the company's new server that Jon Iverson blogs about <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/ces2010/blue_smoke_black_box_music_server/"… in this report</A>. Seen in this photo are (from left to right): Erick Lichte, Jon Iverson, Kalman Rubinson, Larry Greenhill (partially hidden), Blue Smoke's Peter Sills (back to the camera), and someone whose name tag I couldn't see. It gives you an idea of the inquisitorial mode we are in at Shows, desperate for detail but eventually satiated with sound.

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