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VANA’s Kevin Wolff was showing off the new Liszt speaker, which is expected to sell for $15,000/pair when it becomes available at the end of the first quarter of 2014. This impressive sounding speaker has been in development for two years and combines a new version of VA’s distinctive flat coaxial HF/MF unit with three woofers operating below 150Hz, these mounted in different sub-enclosures and loaded with two vents.

When I interviewed Thiel’s new owner Bill Thomas (right in photo) at the 2013 CES, he was bullish about the company’s future. However, I felt that future was going to be dependent on whom Bill hired to head up the Kentucky company’s engineering team. At the 2014 CES, Bill introduced me to that person, Mark Mason (left), who had come to Thiel from PSB, where he had worked alongside veteran speaker engineer Paul Barton. Bill and Mark are flanking the new TT3 speaker, which is intended to replace the CS3.7 as the company’s flagship when it comes to market in the late summer. Bill feels that with Mark now leading the engineering, Thiel can be taken to a larger customer base.

Back in January 2007, Bob Deutsch reviewed the single-driver Eclipse TD712z loudspeaker from Japanese manufacturer Fuijitsu Ten. He was impressed by what he heard from this idiosyncratic full-range speaker, but the brand never established a strong foothold in the US market. CES saw the reintroduction of Eclipse to North America, now distributed by On A Higher Note. A new version of the TD712z, the Mk.2, made its debut at the Venetian, along with the TD520W subwoofer. "Female voice—simply perfect!" I scrawled in my notepad, there always being special to the presentation when you dispense with a crossover.

Yes, those are moving-coil woofers. From Martin-Logan, the electrostatic company. ML’s new Motion Series speaker, to be priced at around $3000/pair when it is available in the late summer, is a big brother to the Motion 40 tower. The speaker uses the largest yet Folded Motion XT tweeter to come from MartinLogan, marrying it to a 6.5" midrange unit and a pair of 8" woofers. and although the company is still based in Kansas, its speakers are now made in Canada. Though it was demmed with Peachtree amplification, the speaker suffered from the suboptimal room acoustics.

When WAVAC’s North American distributor, Covenant Audio Consulting, chose to stage the world debut of WAVAC’s eye-catching, directly heated single-ended triode HE-833v2 150W monoblock amplifiers ($79,900/presumably for the pair) with the massive SoundLab Majestic 845PX electrostatic loudspeakers ($35,000/pair), no one expected that high frequencies would project mostly from the top of the speaker, above the heads of seated listeners. Thus it was only when I stood that I was able to appreciate both the beautiful top and fine midrange transmitted by the HE-833v2s in conjunction with WAVAC’s PR-T1 transformer-coupled, three-chassis preamp ($30,900) and AC02 power conditioner ($22,900). Next time, I’ll bring my elevator shoes.

Given that, for the first time since the dawn of the stereo era, cables were not part of my assignment, I never expected to find anything on my beat in the MIT room. But there, virtually dwarfed between MIT's top-of-the-line Oracle MA-X cabling and Magico Q3 loudspeakers, sang one of only two Spectral DMA-300 RS stereo amplifiers ($TBD) yet in existence. The sound through this stereo version of Spectral's monoblocks and Spectral's DMC-30 SS preamp and FDR-4000 CD player was spectacular.

"It's the best amp we've ever done," said an enthusiastic Kevin Deal about the PrimaLuna DiaLogue Premium HP integrated amplifier ($3999) and power amplifier ($3899). "The bass and control will work with ribbons and electrostats." Indeed, I found the sound really nice, with very natural timbres that rival or surpass those of the high-priced spread.