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For those interested in audio, the products on display at Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) are of little interest. And yet...I don't think I would feel that I've attended CES unless I spent a few hours at LVCC. I figured that it would be best to go on the first day of 2015 CES, before the show really got going.

However, I was rather touched by the banner promoting the stated aim of CES: "A Better Life, A Better World." It's hard to argue against this sentiment.

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the Antelope DAC with its Acoustically Focused Clocking technology earlier this year, especially with headphones. And now the company has made good on its promise to release the companion 10M Clock which Antelope claims is 100,000 times more accurate then the Platinum's built-in ticker.

Neil Young, the great man himself, paid a visit to the hi-res exhibits at CES to herald the arrival of his righteous hi-res music file player, Pono. Among the announcements: Pono is now available at something like 80 retail outlets, as well as in 35 Fry's Electronics locations. Among the stores selling Pono are In Living Stereo in NYC, Audio Consultants in Chicago, The Audio Salon in LA, Audio Element in Pasadena, Audio Vision SF, Music Lovers in Berkeley, Definitive Audio in Washington State, Amoeba in SF and LA.

Following in the footsteps of their pro-audio brethren such as Benchmark, Grace, Mytek and Antelope, Prism is "testing the waters" at this CES for their first consumer product. They've made their mark in the pro audio business creating converters for digital recording software.

Bridging the gap between your network players or NAS drives and your DAC, the new Bel Canto REF Stream plugs into your ethernet network, appearing as a node with IP, and then outputs SPDIF, AES or Toslink. Company president Michael McCormick says it can accept both DSD or PCM streams and outputs the PCM at the native sample rate, but converts DSD to 24/176 PCM.

It's been 12 years since I attended a CES in Sin City. The porn stars are gone, but the tube amps and turntables are still here. They are trending the same virtual realities as Pono, the new drones, and cars that drive themselves. The temperature back in New York is heading for the teens but in the lobby of the Venetian, I saw a 3-year old working a smart phone like an aging carny works a 3-card Monte on Beale Street—she was wearing some fancy pink headphones and a matching pink Beatles tee shirt. (Did I mention it was 67°F in front of the Venetian today, the lobby of which is pictured above?)