CES 2010

My penultimate stop at THE Show, held for the first time this year at the Flamingo, was the Audience room, where they were playing a system full of new gear. Their line stage combines a relay-controlled autotransformer volume control and zero-gain active buffer. The unit has four inputs, all single-ended, and very clever switching to keep noise to an absolute minimum. Oh—it also includes a headphone amp and all of Audience's power and signal-transfer technology, in a sleek, compact package.

Dan Rosca of Audience was also introducing two new speaker systems, an 8-driver model, the 4+4, that will retail for $12k/pair and is shown in the photo, and a mini-monitor–sized 4-driver model, the 2+2, that will run $5k/pair. Both are one-way, full-range dipole systems with half of the drivers pointed forward and half pointing rearward. All of the drivers are Audience's 3" modules. Both sounded great, but the little guys are my bet for superstardom. I'm already wrangling for a review pair.

Their system also used their "almost finalized" 200W monoblocks, a class-D design using the well-regarded VCD modules, and a heavily reworked Denon (I think) DVD player. I don't know where to place the credit, but the system managed a combination of high resolution and musicality that was extraordinary. I'll be anxious to hear the production versions.

Oh, lest I forget, the setup used second-generation Au-24 cables and Adept Response power conditioners across the board. Good stuff.