CES 2009

Ypsilon was showing a monster of an amplifier—the 120W SE-100 Mk. II($70,000/each). A single-ended hybrid, it uses a 5842 input tube and a row of MOSFET output devices. It's entirely wired point-to-point and sports custom power transformers. Of course, it's stuffed with boutique components.

Richard Rives, famous for tuning rooms around the world is now distributing audiophile products. Among those is the new Navison Audio Reference 228 CD Player which sports the latest Philips CD-Pro2M transport and 24 bit Delta Sigma DAC technology.

Luxman is another old-school, technology-driven Japanese company. Looking at the 250Wpc B-100F (80th Anniversary Commemoration) ($55,000/pair) is a reminder of the days when the great Asian manufacturers fought for the title "best." The B100F is huge and can deliver 2000W into 1 ohm.

This one box contains all eight DACs, two hard drives selected by the customer, and all processing power to run the software and audio.

"What's new?" I asked Jeff Rowland.

Also on display at Esoteric was the nifty E-03 phono section ($5500). It has two phono inputs—MC and one that can play either MC or MM cartridges. It also sports a demagnetizing function, which takes a scant 30 second. It has externally selected impedance and capacitance for each input. The E-03 also has a high-voltage custom power supply. It should be available in March.

Mutoaki Ohmachi, Esoteric's founder and resident genius, is a man full of passion. At CES2009, he spoke about the importance of music in his life and how hewing true to he sound of music had always been the motivation for Esoteric products.