LATEST ADDITIONS

Look at that photo, with the beautiful wood-plinthed KT88 amp. What do you notice? That's not a dCS digital stack lying on the table bottom-right: It's an iPad. A fancy red cable, whose name I forgot to get, is connecting a portable music source to the line-level input of a $1850 single-ended stereo integrated headphone amplifier called the Mogwai.

Technics spent all of 2016 re-emerging into the Euro-American audio market—and they did it with full-on high Japanese style and connoisseur-level sound. At last year's CES, Technics introduced their Grand, Premium, and Reference class audio products—including the 100 percent new SL-1200GAE/G/GR turntables! They made a big splash then, and now they're doing it again.

Under the mistaken impression that I had covered all the new cables, accessories, and $20,000/pair-and-up speakers in the Venetian—save for one cable company whose rep was deeply engaged both times I visited the room and one speaker company whose blare into the hallway discouraged me from visiting—I invited our own Jana Dagdagan and her video camera to join me as I indulged in auditioning the two rooms populated by Magico loudspeakers.

Turns out the Venetian's Grand Lux Cafe has a decent kale and brown rice salad, which three in our group quickly ate in Stereophile's hospitality room on the 29th floor. After lunch we headed up one floor to the Simaudio room where we were greeted by Lionel Goodfield and the Moon Units (sorry couldn't resist). Simaudio's room is at the back corner of one of the wings, and though much smaller than the suites on the top floors, is still twice as big as the regular rooms on their floor.

With a shipping weight of 1.3 tons, this is YG's first four-way loudspeaker. All drivers are manufactured in-house, which in this case means one very unique ForgeCore tweeter, two BilletCore mids, three BilletCore mid/woofers, and four BilletCore woofers. All drivers are milled from aircraft-grade, solid-core aluminum.

While the New York Times recently focused on the introduction of the company's SL-1200G coreless-motor direct-drive turntable ($4,000), my interest focused on Technics' 188-lb, $17,000 SE-R1 digital amplifier, which I heard powering their SB-R1 3.5-way floorstanding speakers.

The one that has me the most stoked is the Rogers High Fidelity 65V-1 class-A, single-ended EL34/KT88 integrated amplifier ($3999). Not to mention: I have never seen an amp painted with industrial-black crinkle paint that I didn't love.