LATEST ADDITIONS

Resolution Audio, based right across the Bay from our humble casa in East Oakland, has just introduced the Cantata C-50 2.0 integrated amplifier ($4495). With a revised power supply with new customized T-Network capacitors, the 50Wpc C-50 2.0 also includes a discrete front end and FET output stage and the company's own eddy current reduction technology. Resolution Audio claims "greater detail and transparency" for the 2.0, to which original version owners may upgrade ($495).

MIT has a lot of new goodies on its plate. With hopes that I got everything right in my notes, the Oracle MA-X SHD (super high definition) interconnects ($19,999/1m pair) include 125 "poles of articulation"—the most MIT offers in an interconnect. Their familiar and substantial boxes include an "articulation control" knob, adopted from hearing-aid technology. A complement to the company's SHD speaker cables (which have up to 145 poles of articulation), the cables are designed so that the box sits on either the floor or equipment rack, thereby relieving strain from the cable itself and the components to which it is connected.

Will the Deity ($5900/8 ft pair), DH Labs' new top-of-the-line speaker cable, deliver the heavenly sounds its name implies? Only those who listen will know for sure. Not yet listed on the Florida-based company's website, the US-made cable contains twelve 20-awg solid-core silver conductors, each in a tape-wrapped Teflon-foam dielectric. There are also two 14-awg silver coated OFHC copper conductors running down the center of the cable. Overall, the Deity is an impressively attractive and substantial 9-awg cable.

Ted Denney's Synergistic Research has enlarged its already large line with its new entry-level Core Series ($245 to under $1000). "Distilling Synergistic technology to its essence" is how Denney describes the complete line, including computer audio and digital cables. The new Transporter Ultra ($1995) and Transporter Ultra SE ($2295) is a single unit that replaces all the individual wall warts used on various Synergistic products. There is also the Core Ethernet Active ($345/1m) and Core Ethernet Active SE for Synergistic Research's digital power tools, and new Element Series power cords composed of copper, tungsten and silver. I'm not certain, but I believe this cord is shown draped over one of the company's fabulous Tranquility Bases.

Given that the folks at Pass Labs have never made a big deal about cabling, it's significant that they've given a major thumbs up to Silent Source Audio cables. Calling them "the best cables you've never heard," they use these hand-built-in-Texas cables to voice their products.

Among Cardas' new goodies at CES was the 3455R IEC plug ($49.95), with pins of solid ultra-pure copper with silver/rhodium plating, and the 3455R-US wall plug ($49.95), whose pins are made of the same material. Cardas is now substituting these for Furutech terminations on their power cables. National Sales Director Brian Von Bork reports that they're also re-launching the Cardas Ear Speaker 5813 ($425), aka ear buds with bloom.

In one of the 14 rooms at CES using Kubala-Sosna cabling, Joe Kubala showed me one of his three forthcoming Distribution Instrument boxes ($TBD). Variously named Quartet, Sextet, or Octet for the number of outlets, this high-end power distribution system is, in Joe's words, "the most neutral way we know to distribute power to our cables." The case is Corian, and each outlet boasts a direct path back to the 20 amp IEC connector. Expect an official unveiling at AXPONA Chicago in early March, which Stereophile will cover room-to-room.