LATEST ADDITIONS

Nordost has just crossed the audiophile–musician border with their first Pro Audio products, the Ax Angel guitar cable ($250/3m) and Ax Angel power cables for keyboards and guitar amps ($200/1m).

With a major nod to ZenSati, who designed the cables, Viola Audio Labs' president and technical director Paul Jayson happily displayed the company's new cable line.

First time I've seen this manufacturer at CES, but WOW what a gorgeous product! I've included a couple more shots from their website so you can see how this Swiss jewel is put together. The aluminum chassis is surrounded on all four sides by glass, for example, and can sit vertical or horizontal.

Aurender had a cool hand-size device in their room that not only functions as a normal DAC/Headphone amp for portable use, but also sports optional mSATA storage up to 1TB(!!) of user installable SSD, turning the thing into a player. I must admit the form factor for the FLOW is pretty seductive with a large velocity sensitive volume knob on the front and smooth satin aluminum case.

Though the company calls the N100 a server in one of their press releases (not in the brochure luckily), I tend to think of these types of products as network players, since it does not have a built-in drive for storing music and relies on NAS drives on a network. Nonetheless, the N100, which retails for $2,499, looks very promising and will be available this month. Another version called the N100S with 1TB internal storage (thus making it truly a server) was also announced, though there was no price at press time.

My CES encounter with Hegel featured the 75Wpc H80 integrated amp ($2000) driving (are you ready?) the Magico S-1 loudspeakers ($12,900/pair).

Every CES show reporter I bumped into would start the conversation with, "So, Herb what have you seen that you liked?" Or, "What's the coolest new product?" The second I walked it the Naim room, I knew the answer to both questions.