CES 2018

Hailing from the Champagne region of France, Davis Acoustics has been making speakers for over 30 years. The company produces OEM drive units that they sell to other manufacturers (including Goldmund and Avant Garde), but also sells their own extensive line of products.

The new $18,000 Pictor preamp is part of Constellation Audio's new Revelation Series, which is one step up from the company's entry-level Inspiration Series. Constellation's Irv Gross explained that the Pictor uses the same basic chassis as the Inspiration version, but has a separate power supply.

It may look like any other smartphone, but LG's V30, shown by Vanessa Marrero, is smart enough to incorporate ESS's Sabre 32-bit Quad DAC…

With Mytek's Michal Jurewicz in the background, the company's Chebon Littlefield showed the new Clef high-resolution, MQA-equipped, Bluetooth-equipped, mobile USB DAC/headphone amplifier ($299).

Thanks to automated manufacturing, Audeze has produced its first "affordable" in-ear phones, the iSine LX ($199), currently sold via their website…

Pro-Ject has launched several new models of turntables this year intended for the budget conscious market. Company president Heinz Lichtenegger explained that after helping to kick-start the analog resurgence, they introduced the new entry level models in response to "analog transitioning to a feature-driven market dominated by Chinese brands" bringing out ever cheaper all-in-one feature-laden products.

Heinz Lichtenegger, Pro-Ject president starts by exclaiming "it's a revolution at the price point!" Built around the ESS Sabre ESS9038 dual DAC chip, the $399 S2 also has full MQA processing, up to DSD 512 and 24/192 PCM, 7 selectable digital filters, jitter claimed as low as 100 femtoseconds, and headphone jack. "It's the lowest jitter you can measure," says Lichtenegger.