<B>MOGWAI: <I>The Hawk Is Howling</I></B><BR>
Rock Action/Matador OLE 832-1 (LP), -2 (CD). Gareth Jones, James Aparicio, prods.; Andy Miller, Tony Doogan, Andi Whitelock, engs. AAA/AAD. TT: 63:29<BR>
Performance *****<BR>
Sonics ****½
Another Consumer Electronics Show has come and gone with thousands of new audio products announced. What stood out for you at the 2009 CES?
<I>It belonged to a tenor!</I> (ba-dum-dum) Thank you ladies and gentlemen, I'll be here all week.
Tenor's promised Tenor Pre preamplifier ($40,000) is a hybrid, using tubes for the input stage and MOSFETs for the output. It should be available in two months. As a whole, the Tenor system (fleshed out with Hansen Emperors and Kubala-Sosna cables) was outstanding.
This is what the Lamm ML3 <I>Signature</i> looks like under the hood. Clean layout and P2P wiring throughout.
Lamm was driving the new Wilson Maxx series 3 with its 32Wpc ML3 <I>Signature</I> SE triode monoblocks ($139,290/pair). It was my first chance to hear either, so I can't tell you if it was the speakers or the amps that were making the magic happen, but happen it did.
Chord demonstrated the absolutely stunning Indigo Advanced D to A ($15,000). Yes, that's an iPod dock on top, but the Indigo isn't just another iPod dock. For one thing, you can only dock Chord modified iPods directly into it, allowing Chord to access the digital data in the iPod. The Indigo also has a A2DP radio "dongle" that can seamlessly stream digital radio ir music from anywhere in the room. Another dongle is supplied to stream analog output from unmodified iPods.
As <i>Stereophile</i>'s senior editor, Jonathan Scull wrote a popular column called "<a href="http://www.stereophile.com/finetunes/">Fine Tunes</a>." He now handles <a href="http://www.scullcommunications.com/">marketing and press relations</a> for Bel Canto, Furutech, Loiminchay, and Ultralink/XLO. And does a pretty decent impersonation of me.
Ad Manager, Laura LoVecchio, is obviously having a great time at CES.
The inimitable <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/wesphillips/">WP</a> takes a poke at me.