Hegel H150 Integrated Amplifier Officially Announced

Sonus faber Announces Amati Supreme Speaker

FiiO M27 Headphone DAC Amplifier Released

Audio Advice Acquires The Sound Room

LATEST ADDITIONS

CES 2016

The Longest WTA Ever

John Atkinson Jan 16, 2016

Graham Nash auditioned the new gibbon X speakers in the DeVore Fidelity room, which featured an LP player with the longest Well-Tempered Tonearm made, at 18". It was great to see veteran designer William Firebaugh at the 2016 show, 30 years after his unique tonearm made its debut at CES, and still actively involved in high-end audio.

CES 2016

Manley’s High-End Headphone Amplifier

John Atkinson Jan 16, 2016

“Bruno Putzeys designed a switch-mode power supply for our new headphone amplifier,” enthused EveAnna Manley, when I bumped into her in one of the Venetian’s corridors. The tubed amp, which doubles as a line preamplifier, costs $2950 and is drop-dead gorgeous in Champagne & White, Titanium & Bronze, or Copper & Black finishes.

CES 2016

Metronome’s New Music Center

John Atkinson Jan 16, 2016

In our March 2016 issue, Art Dudley loved the sound of Metronome’s CD8 S CD player, which has USB and serial digital inputs, though I found some issues on the test bench. At CES, the French company was showing this elegant server, the Music Center 1 (price tba), which plays CDs, music from a USB stick, a NAS drive, or from its internal RAID3 array (16TB available).

CES 2016 Graham Nash CES 2016

Graham Nash Finishes Up With Crystal Cable/Siltech and then Vandersteen Audio in the Venetian

Jon Iverson Jan 15, 2016

The day was getting long at this point and we'd already listened to a couple hour's worth of music, but we wanted a little variety from the floor-standing speakers we had heard to far. So we popped into the Crystal Cable/Siltech room to hear This Path Tonight on a dimensionally smaller system.

CES 2016 Graham Nash CES 2016

Graham Nash Visits DeVore Fidelity in the Venetian

Jon Iverson Jan 15, 2016

We had spent the morning and early afternoon listening to systems in the big suites, and now it was time to downscale the room size and budget just a bit. I promised Graham Nash that we would try to mix up the types of products he heard, so we headed down to Devore Fidelity on the 30th floor of the Venetian.

CES 2016

ELAC DS-S101 Discovery Music Server

Jon Iverson Jan 15, 2016

For some reason I liked this product the moment I saw it. And at $1,099, including a lifetime full Roon license (for $1,000 you get a lifetime limited Roon license), it became even more interesting once I started digging into the features. Essentially, you can run Roon on your tablet and use the DS-S101 as your endpoint without the need for a computer.

CES 2016

MSB Select DAC

Jon Iverson Jan 15, 2016

CES being quite hectic and hotel rooms being what they are, I try not to do too much listening on the 29th and 30th floors of the Venetian (there are exceptions and the upper suites are a different story, sound-wise). But Vincent Galbo in the MSB room on floor 29 politely insisted I listen to the new Select DAC on the YG speakers they had set up, driven by MSB amps. He played a CD and it was some of the best sound I've ever heard at a show!

CES 2016

Micromega M-One All-In-One Streamer/Amp

Jon Iverson Jan 15, 2016

One of my favorite new digital products, from an industrial design point of view, is the new all-in-one system from French company Micromega, designed by Daniel Schar. Assuming you have a nice flat place to put it (flat or on a wall), you can request a custom finish or go with standard black or bright orange as shown in the photo.

CES 2016

Audio Alchemy DMP-1 Music Player/DDP-1 Digital Decoding Preamp

Jon Iverson Jan 15, 2016

Audio Alchemy was relaunched again in 2015 with a stellar lineup of designers including Keith Allsop, Peter Madnick and Dusty Vawter. And it appears no expense was spared showing their product line up at CES. Occupying one of the larger suites, with co-exhibitor TAD, at the top of the Venetian only served to emphasize how compact the products are.

CES 2016

Chord DAVE DAC

Jon Iverson Jan 15, 2016

I've recently had a great run with Chord products in my system including the Hugo TT DAC and now the small-sized Mojo (mobile joy) headphone DAC. On the opposite end of the spectrum from the Mojo is DAVE which the company says is the most advanced DAC they've made so far.