LATEST ADDITIONS

CES 2016

Ryan Speakers

Robert Deutsch Jan 08, 2016

At $15,995/pair, the Tempus III is the top-of-the-line from Ryan Speakers. Their speakers have impressed me before as offering high quality for the price, but perhaps not world-beaters. The Tempus III is different. It uses proprietary drivers, including a new beryllium-dome tweeter, two side-firing woofers, and a midbass that covers the range from 100Hz to 350Hz.

CES 2016

Raidho's Slim Floorstanding XT-2

Robert Deutsch Jan 08, 2016

Moderately Priced Speakers. That's my assignment for this year's CES show reportas well as moderately priced turntables and other phono equipmentModerate being defined this time as priced from $4000/pair to $18,000/pair. Right at the top of this range is the $18,000/pair Raidho XT-2, an extremely slim floorstander that uses the same tweeter as the rest of the Raidho range and two 4" cone drivers.

CES 2016

Constellation For the Starry Eyed

Jason Victor Serinus Jan 08, 2016

Constellation Audio’s impressive systemCygnus Media Server/DAC ($38,000), Altair 2 preamplifier ($78,000), and Hercules 2 monoblock amplifiers ($180,000/pair), as well as MIT cabling and Shunyata power treatmentfed the MartinLogan Neolith beauties ($80,000/pair) with enough power to make deep percussion sound real in the next room.

CES 2016

Constellation Audio's Prototype Turntable

Jason Victor Serinus Jan 08, 2016

Constellation Audio's eye-catching set-upthe first time they've shown their reference system at an audio showincluded a prototype turntable with two arms that is expected to replace the Continuum Caliburn table. (Is Michael Fremer watching? You betcha.)

CES 2016

Irv Gross and the Constellation Inspiration integrated 1.0

Jason Victor Serinus Jan 08, 2016

The company's smiling Irv Gross was happy to show me the new, shipping within 60 days Constellation Inspiration integrated 1.0 ($13,500). "This one has it all, and it's also our most affordable product," he said. "It's an Inspiration preamp combined with one half of an Inspiration amp, and it includes a headphone jack and theater throughput for easy integration in HT set-ups. It also outputs a legitimate 100 watts."

CES 2016

New from TAD

Jason Victor Serinus Jan 08, 2016

Now this was an interesting one. Just one room over from the expensive Constellation set-up sat extreme bargain-for-the-money Audio Alchemy, designed by the same man who oversaw Constellation's engineering, Peter Madnick. But since my beat was the high-priced spread, I turned from Audio Alchemy's great-sounding gear to the TAD CE1 loudspeakers ($24,000/pair), designed by Toru Nagatani (above).

CES 2016

Can't Pass up Pass

Jason Victor Serinus Jan 08, 2016

15001600 parts, 14 circuit boards including six input boards . . . that's just the start of what gives Pass Labs' top-of-the-line XS Phono stage ($45,000) the right to the "excess" moniker. It's a while back that Nelson Pass told veteran preamp designer Wayne Colburn (above). . .

CES 2016

T+A Updates DAC 8 With DSD and More

Jon Iverson Jan 08, 2016

Germany's T+A introduced the DAC 8 analog to digital converter and preamp a couple years back as a compact and sportier version of its pricier siblings. New this year is the addition of a dedicated DSD processing section, new upgraded volume control and headphone amplifier.

CES 2016

Craft from Audio Craftsman

Herb Reichert Jan 08, 2016

His name was Thom Pahmer and he broke all my rules: It was 10am the first day of the show and I walked in to his empty room, I introduced myself, "Good morning. My name is Herb Reichert and I covering the lower cost part of the High End for Stereophileand I am especially interested in stand-mounted speakers." Mr. Pahmer looked at me crossly and said, "These are NOT stand mounted speakers!" I pointed at what I thought was a stand and he says, "The speakers are bolted to themit is all one unit." I asked about the retail price and he told me, $5500/pair.

CES 2016

Esoterique Esoteric

Jason Victor Serinus Jan 07, 2016

With my assignment high-priced amps, preamps, loudspeakers, and turntables, I started off by heading to the big rooms in the Venetian Tower. First up was the EsotericCabasse room, where Esoteric was showing the latest incarnations of its “2” series, the Tokyo-made C-02X stereo line-stage preamplifier and S-02 stereo amplifier ($20,000 each). In a classic case of “trickle-down engineering” (which actually works, while trickle down economics rarely does), the preamp uses the same dual-layer supercaps as in the Grandioso ($40,000). It’s a fully balanced design, with a separate volume control for each phase of each channel. The sound is claimed to be faster, lighter, and more highly resolved, with a “big open soundstage.”