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In a repeat of last year's CES, Accuphase again showed up without their latest digital product actually in the room. So company representative Kohei Nishigawa was a good sport and again held up the photo of the soon to be released DC-37.

Sorry I don't have a better photo of this handsome component, which is at the top of the stack. Available now for $3,500, the M12 handles up to 24/192 PCM via USB as well as several card slots on the back for further options. One of those options is a $450 network card that enables the BluOS, aptX Bluetooth, WiFi and Ethernet. Control is via the Bluesound app which looked very nicely done. I hope to play with the M12 a bit more and see what it can do.

"Go hear Tower of Power," said Jon Iverson, "on the 35th Floor of the Venetian. See Philip O'Hanlon and tell him I sent you.

Meridian was showing three of their current line of DSP loudspeakers: the $20,000/pair DSP 5200; the $46,000/pair DSP 7200, and the $80,000/pair DSP 8000. These loudspeakers have in common an all-digital input, internal digital signal processing circuitry, and a crossover implemented in the digital domain.

Gary Leonard Koh, the President and CEO of Genesis Advanced Technologies, walked me through the latest technological upgrades he has made available through his product line.

Estelon presented its slim, 151 lb, 50"-tall, $45,000/pair, floorstanding XB loudspeaker (above). The speaker employs an 8" Accuton ceramic-dome woofer, a 6.25" Accuton ceramic-membrane midrange, and a 1" inverted ceramic-dome tweeter. Internal wiring is by Kubala-Sosna, and the crossover capacitors are Teflon-Hybrid. The loudspeaker was beautiful to see, and was playing smoothly and softly as I read about it at the exhibit.

Wei Chang, designer of the $3690 Sopranino electrostatic supertweeter that John Atkinson reviewed last May, was showing their bookshelf-sized, 42 lb monitor loudspeaker, the $14,690/pair Mythology 1, which incorporates the Sopranino for the top-octave driver.