KEF Debuts New Finishes for Blade One Meta and Blade Two Meta

Sennheiser Drops HDB 630 Wireless Headphones

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CES 2018

Arcam HDA SA20 and SA10 Integrated Amps and CDS50 SACD/CD Player/Streamer

Jon Iverson Jan 15, 2018

Arcam's Scott Campbell was running through the new lineup of HDA products starting with the Integrated Amps. "This is the start of our new 2-channel range. The Player and SA10 are each $1,000 and the SA20 is $1,300. Both amplifiers are new for us since this is the first time we've put digital inputs on the back. We've taken our experience with how to tackle digital noise in our AV receivers and put that knowledge into how to do that properly in a two-channel amplifier."

CES 2018

Triangle Art Maestro and Master Reference Turntables and TA-260 Amplifier

Jon Iverson Jan 15, 2018

Gorgeous metalwork award goes to Tom Vu's Triangle Art display and especially the Master Reference Turntable ($39,900) seen in the photo above. Vu is based in Memphis TN, and said that the show marks the debut of the Master Reference Turntable's little brother, the Maestro (shown below), which retails for $7,500 and is available now.

CES 2018

Emotiva XPA-DR and XPA Gen3 Series Modular Amplifiers

Jon Iverson Jan 15, 2018

Emotiva's new DR series (as shown in the above photo) is a configurable amplifier that can go from one to three channels. "These are capable of up to 600 watts per amp module," says the company's Damon Steele. "However due to how the power supply works, as you add more modules the power drops a bit. So with two in the chassis, they run at 550 watts each. If you do three, you get 440 watts per channel."

CES 2018

Audio-Technica Magnified

Jason Victor Serinus Jan 15, 2018

Because Art Dudley is writing a Follow-Up review to Michael Fremer's take on the Audio Technica AT-ART1000 direct-power stereo MC phono cartridge ($4999), I shall replace lots of words with this blow-up of a cartridge whose coils sit at the tip of the cantilever, right over its diamond stylus.

CES 2018

Portable and Wireless from Elac

Jason Victor Serinus Jan 15, 2018

Andrew Jones's first active speaker, the tri-amped Argo Series B51 ($2000/pair), offers 250W of class-AB power in the form of a 150W AB amplifier for the woofer, 70W AB amp for the midrange, and 30W class-A amp for the tweeter. The B51s can be used either wired or wirelessly, but need an external DAC, DAC-equipped server, or other device to produce sound from digital.

CES 2018

Mighty Impressive Sound from Elac

Jason Victor Serinus Jan 15, 2018

Both Andrew Jones, who designs Elac loudspeakers, and Peter Madnick, who is responsible for Elac's Alchemy series of components (the successors to the Audio Alchemy brand), were on hand to demonstrate a system that sounded equally wonderful on both of the "Red Book" files I heard there. I loved how beautifully this system captured the seductive midrange of David Roth's voice on "Before I Die" as it conveyed his music with captivating warmth and lovely layering. Timbres on Count Basie's 88 Basin Street were also natural and compelling.

CES 2018

California Audio Technology

Jason Victor Serinus Jan 15, 2018

Paired with the same Theta Gen. VIII DAC/preamp ($15,995)/Theta Compli Blu transport ($3995) combo and VPI Avenger reference turntable ($20,000) as in the SAE room, but with a TR phono cartridge ($7000) replacing the Zu, this room showcased CAT's brand new MBX 1250.2 FD XPR twin monoblock amplifier ($30,000), which outputs 1250Wpc in to 4 ohms, and MBX 320.2 FD ($10,000) twin monoblock amplifier, which outputs 320W into 8 ohms. The amps were driving a bi-amped pair of CAT loudspeakers, specifically voiced for this hotel room, which consisted of CAT MBX 900 Trinity satellites resting upon MBX Miramar subwoofers ($100,000/pair for all). Analog crossovers were employed, and the subs were dialed-in through a CAT MBX DSP8x8 digital signal processor ($15,000).

CES 2018

SAE and Eggleston Works

Jason Victor Serinus Jan 15, 2018

I spent some time listening to systems from two companies of which Brian Barr is President: SAE (Scientific Audio Electronics) and CAT (California Audio Technology). In the first, two SAE 2HP-D amplifiers ($20,000/each), which graced the cover of Stereophile when Michael Fremer reviewed the amp in the October 2016 issue, drove new bi-amped Eggleston Works 20th anniversary Limited Edition Andra Viginti speakers ($40,000/pair). Michael is currently reviewing these speakers, whose 4 ohm nominal impedance indicates that they were driven by a mere 1200Wpc of SAE power.

CES 2018

Earphones by Etymotic

Jason Victor Serinus Jan 15, 2018

Etymotic's Albert Arends was showing four models of the company's earphones. The Etymotic ER3SE (Studio Edition$179) has a flatter response than the ER3XR (Extended Response$179), which has "a bit of a bass lift" in the 100Hz-1kHz region. One major difference between these models and the higher level ER4 SR (Studio Reference$349) and ER4XR (Extended Response$349) is that only the latter are channel-matched to within 1dB.

CES 2018

Is M&K the High End's Best-Kept Secret?

Jason Victor Serinus Jan 15, 2018

I really don't know the answer; I just know that loudspeaker company M&K says that's the case. I also know that the original Miller & Kreisel was founded in 1973 by music lovers who wanted to manufacture speakers good enough to do justice to recordings by Steely Dan. 35 years later, the company went bankrupt, and was relaunched shortly thereafter by new Danish investors who have a strong home theater orientation. For the past 10 years, the company's owner has been Lars Johansen, who spoke with me in their room in the Venetian Hotel.