The highly acclaimed dCS Ring DAC featured in the pricier <a href="http://stereophile.com/hirezplayers/dcs_scarlatti_sacdcd_playback_syste…;, Paganini and <a href="http://stereophile.com/hirezplayers/dcs_puccini_sacd_playback_system/#"…; products, is now available in the new Debussy DAC, expected to come in around $10,000.
B&W's openng day press conference at the LVCC revealed an entirely new line of Diamond Series loudspeakers in a new piano-black finish. This new vintage comes from the line of monitors that included the Diamond Silver Signature ,an $18,000/pair high-end two-way that had been produced in a limited run of 1000 pairs. The smallest member of this speaker line is a two-way, stand-mounted monitor called the B&W 805 Series Diamond, a strong value at $5000/pair. The stands are extra, but are now available in black.
On the first day of the Show, B&W announced the sixth generation of their flagship, full-range, three-way floorstanding 800 loudspeaker. The new 800 costs $24,000/pair and includes a transmission line-loaded, diamond-dome tweeter with a quad-magnet motor to increase sensitivity and dynamic range. Other features include a dual-magnet motor for the woofers, B&W's proprietary Kevlar FST midrange driver, a matrix enclosure and a crossover that includes silver, gold and oil construction Mundorf capacitors.
Naim Audio's all-in-one NaimUniti (Art Dudley's review will be in the March issue) has officially spawned a little cutie, er, qute. Dubbed the UnitiQute, the new product includes most of the features of the Uniti, with a more modestly powered amp at 30W per channel into 8 ohms.
Nothing beats starting off four days of room-hopping at CES on a joyful. In this case, the delights were provided by Jeff Joseph of Joseph Audio.
When I entered the Nordost room, Roy Gregory and Lars Kristensen of Nordost were in the midst of preparing a demo of their Foundation Theory. Although the literature on the theory, which should be available on Nordost's website, consumes five small-print pages, the basic theory boils down to this: consistency in your brand of cabling, whatever the brand may be, produces greater rewards than mixing different lines of cabling.
I timed my arrival in Las Vegas for early afternoon on Wednesday, the day before the Consumer Electronics Show opened, so I'd have enough time to get from <I>Stereophile</I> staff's little of island of sanity in the smoke-free, gambling-free Hyatt Place Las Vegas to press registration at the mammoth Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC). The traffic was considerably lighter than during the show, the lines for registration much shorter than I would have encountered on opening day.
I got to the LVCC just in time. The journalist registration line in the second floor pressroom was virtually non-existent . . . until I finished. By then, 20 more journalists had lined up behind me.
<i>Push, push, one more, one more, push…Almost there! I can see its head!</i>
For the past several days, I’ve had Neil Young’s newly remastered solo debut playing on repeat. <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/musicroom/robertbaird/">Robert</a> received a copy of the <a href="http://www.neilyoungarchives.com/">Neil Young Archives</a> Official Release Series HDCD and I swiped it from him. (Actually, I was like, “May I please listen to that awesome stuff, please?”) Young’s first four albums, <i>Neil Young</i>, <i>Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere</i>, <i>After The Goldrush</i>, and <i>Harvest</i>, make up the first offering from the NYA ORS: