LATEST ADDITIONS

I made my way from the main 2016 High-End audio exhibits at the Venetian Hotel over to the Harman exhibit at the Hard Rock Café. I was immediately captivated by a JBL Everest horn-loaded floorstanding speaker, its enclosure finished in an almost neon lipstick red, and its front baffle in brilliant silver.

Thiel's new Intellisub was the highest-tech new subwoofer I encountered at CES 2016. It uses wireless control with convenient SmartSub app, which allows the user to control its digitally-processed, Auto-Room correction software. Rory Buszka, Thiel's engineer, explained that the built-in SmartSubXT system automatically adjusts its output based on measurements from 1–40 locations in the room.

I ran into REL Acoustics' highly eloquent John Hunter on the way to the Venetian Towers, and he suggested I come by to hear the REL Acoustics "Six Pack." As it turned out, this was not a San Francisco microbrew special, or well-developed abdominal musculature, but twin towers of 3 stacked, (84 lb each) REL Gibraltar-2 subwoofers ($4000 each) set between two full-range Rockport Avior loudspeakers.

REL Acoustics was displaying their new S/5 SHO 12" subwoofer at CES. Like other S-Series subwoofers that came before, the S/5 has a forward-facing, 12" active driver and a 12" passive downward-firing passive driver. The S/5 can be driven wirelessly, and employs the 3-stage, low-noise "limitless" electronics for a wide-dynamic range and increased power output.

PSB Speakers was exhibiting a new bass-reflex subwoofer, the SubSeries (SS) 450, which will be shipping in April 2016 at a suggested US price of $1499. The driver features a 12", woven-fiber-glass cone. The subwoofer employs a 450W class-D amplifier, a built-in 4th order, continuously variable low-pass filter. The subwoofer was on exhibit and not playing.

Jeff Rowland's Model 725 S2 monoblocks ($34,000/pair) have been out maybe four years, but now include new error-correction circuitry originally developed for the Jeff Rowland 625 S2. Also of import are ceramic circuit boards, 4-pole Jensen capacitors, and virtually immeasurable distortion from 20Hz–20kHz. The class-A/B amps deliver 330Wpc into 8 ohms, and have fully balanced transformer coupled inputs as well as switch-mode power supplies with power-factor correction. The display was passive, with Rowland's active system, complete with Nordost cabling, showcasing other products.

So new there isn't yet a firm US price (somewhere between $6-7k is the guess), the U1 is Lumin's latest high end network player with support for 32/384 PCM and DSD128. Tidal and Qobuz are built in and everything is run by the Lumin custom iOS and Android compatible music browsing app.

On the back are five types of digital output: USB, SPDIF, AES/EBU, BNC, and optical. Digital inputs include Gigabit Ethernet and USB for external or flash drives. Should arrive in the US next month.