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On Tuesday morning, at a very well-attended press conference held at the Embassy Suites, members of the press learned more about Fang Bian, founder of HiFiMan, makers of personal audio products, and were introduced to HiFiMan’s new HE-400 planar magnetic headphone ($399), EF-6 headphone amplifier ($1499), and HiFiMan Express HM-601 Slim portable music player (4GB, $199; 8GB, $249).

It's no secret that I love the Meridian Sooloos touchscreen interface for handling a large music collection. But the Sooloos iPad app and desktop application left a little to be desired in the ease-of-use department compared to the Control 15 17" touchscreen sold by the company. Neither app included the album cover art grid that is essential to the Sooloos' ease of use, and other features were hit and miss.

Not any more. The new iPad app includes the album cover grid as well as almost all of the Focus and navigation features from the Control 15 touchscreen software. So all you need now is a Sooloos core somewhere in the network and an iPad or computer if you want the grid without Meridian's touchscreen. I couldn't see not having a Control 15 in the house, even though I use the iPad as a controller too, but I'm sure some folks would disagree.

Hand model Bob Stuart demonstrated the new cover grid, and it flowed rather smoothly as he browsed the collection. Should be available in the next month or so and is free (though only of use to Sooloos system users). I can't wait to get my hands on it and hope to do a follow-up to my original Sooloos review in the next few months.

When Bermester jumps into the music server market, they jump in with both feet. The new 111 Musiccenter, which is scheduled to ship in April, will include an Apple iPad controller with custom app in the box (a first for Apple says the company), six digital inputs, three analog inputs, streaming services, UPnP via either WiFi or Ethernet, etc. etc.

All this and a robustly built box with gorgeous and bright front panel display for $50k.

There's nothing like a nice big touchscreen to browse a large music collection, and Pathos was showing a prototype of the largest touchscreen dedicated to a music server that I've seen to date. Called the Musiteca, the new product was up and running but clearly had some features to work out. As shown, the product has a built-in DAC, transport for loading discs, and 1TB drive for storage.

In addition to the above features, Pathos' Paolo Andriolo says there will be variable XLR outputs to feed the audio directly to your amp and a free iPad app. Price is predicted to be around $7k and should show up by April.

Pathos was also showing a prototype DAC with striking looks and tubes that should be out in a couple months. Inputs include USB, SPDIF and AES and pricing will be announced later.

Bel Canto had several digital products on display including the CD3t CD Transport (pictured above) which includes both AES and SPDIF (via BNC connector) outputs at $1,495.

Playing in a side room was the C7R DAC Integrated Receiver with an amplifier section based on the companies REF150 and includes a built-in DAC, FM tuner, phono section and some pretty beefy speaker connectors on the back. This modest size box would make a great companion to the CD3t mentioned above. Retail is $2,995.

The company was also showing off a pair of product updates. The DAC3.5VB MK II includes an improved analog supply that Bel Canto claims better isolates the PCM1792 converter and a new, low-phase-noise main clock oscillator. Price is $5,895. The uLink USB-to-digital audio interface is now 24/192. Shipping next month for $795 MSRP

Most DACs are pretty straight forward and simply convert an digital signal to analog. But with the array of choices widening every few months, it might be handy to have a DAC that could do a bit more.

With this in mind, Simaudio is introducing the Moon 180 MiND Music Streamer (at top left in photo). MiND, which is short for Moon intelligent Network Device, allows the user to stream digitally stored music from a computer, NAS drive, the internet, subscriber-based music services or a UPnP enabled device to your DAC via either SPDIF, AES or Toslink outputs.

The MiND will available in April for $1,250 and Simaudio's Lionel Goodfield says that they will be releasing DACs with the MiND built in as an upgrade later this year.

Simaudio also revealed the 32-bit Moon 380D DAC designed around the M-AJiC32 circuitry (an asynchronous jitter elimination system) performing in true 32-bit fully asynchronous mode. There are eight digital inputs, all able to handle up to 24/192 sources. Available in April for $3,900.00 and you can add the MiND streamer for an additional $1,200.00.