CES 2008

When we wandered into Resolution Audio's room, we hadn't heard about the company for a while and weren't sure what to expect. It didn't matter, nothing could have prepared us for Jeff Kalt.

"Got any new source components?"

"Oh yeah, I have an interesting CD player and power supply, the Opus 21 CD and PS ($3500). It has the finest multi-bit DACs available, is low jitter, and incorporates a system volume control."

We went over to listen and Jon Iverson noticed the source read "iTunes." "Is that a music server too?"

"No, it's a streaming component, the iXS ($2500) that allows you to access your computer's music library from your audio system. It utilizes the Opus 21 CD player's DAC. It only runs iTunes. Best of all," he pointed to the table, "guess what you use as a remote?"

We goggled. An iTouch? "You download Alloysoft.com's Signal and it allows you to use your iPhone or iTouch to control everything within Apple's GUI."

That's pretty slick, but why not write your own code? Kalt smiled.

Why go to all that effort to solve a problem that Apple has already solved quite elegantly? You want metadata, iTunes gets it very well. Album covers? Ditto. A lot of guys are essentially writing code that grabs album covers off of Amazon.com—which sort of works, but it strikes me a kludgey. Besides if Amazon changes the way they do it, the code will be broken for months before somebody constructs a workaround.

""The beauty of letting Apple do what it does best is that all I have to deal with is taking the streamed data off the library and converting it to music in a music system."

We were gobsmacked by the simplicity, fabulous interface, and logic of Resolution's music "bridge." Jeff Kalt gets it—and now both Wes and Jon have made a New Year's Resolution.

Resolution Audio also offers two amplifiers: the 30Wpc s30 and the 80Wpc s80.