CES 2008

We were listening to Magico's fabulous V3s ($25,000/pair), which John Atkinson will be reviewing in the May issue, when we noticed a large music server. "What's that?"

We glanced into Oracle's room to see what was new. We'd seen the Delphi, we'd seen the CD 1500 and CD 2500 before. "Nothing new?" we asked.

The Lyngdorf Server 1 is a music and video server had us drooling. Lyngdorf, of course, loves to keep signals digital until the last millimeter, building DACs into their active DSP-driven loudspeakers. The Server 1 sounded great—there was just one problem: It isn't available. Yet.

The digital outputs include HDMI for audio only output.

I was excited to see Cambridge Audio's TT50 turntable. On display with their small, S30 loudspeakers ($259/pair), the TT50 was looking pretty darn sexy in its high-gloss jet-black finish. If it reminds you of Pro-Ject's popular Debut III, that's probably because the TT50 was developed in partnership with that Austrian firm. It uses a proprietary tonearm, an Audio Technica AT95E moving magnet cartridge, and its elastomer-coated acrylic platter is said to "control resonance and provide matched acoustic impedance to the vinyl record for maximum detail retrieval."

And here is Adam Shaw-Cotterill licking the Mezzo 1's Aspirated Tweeter. I'm not sure why he's licking it. He must really love it.