Gold Digging at CES

Gold Digging at CES

Jan 11, 2011
Listening to UNLV’s radio station KUNV playing Jazz, I notice the glowing digits on the Droid’s GPS indicating two minutes to turn 1.2 miles away. Riiiight. Notice the speedo pegged hard at zero. This Montana boy has spent the last 20 years regularly attending CES in Vegas. . .ugh. Too many people for me; too much glitz; too many lights. Fortunately, however, patient and persistent digging through the mountains of garish purple plastic gadgets will almost always reveal a modest handful of personal audio riches. That’s why I’m at the 2011 CES: digging for gold.

Cardas’ Expanded Clear Line

Cardas’ Expanded Clear Line

Jan 11, 2011
George Cardas stands darped in the new Cardas cables whie the company's Operations Manager Josh Meredith was happy to show off Cardas’ Clear Light Speaker cable ($1048/2m pair). Now the lower end of the Clear speaker cable line, it will soon move up a notch to middle position as another model of speaker cable comes out. A simplified version of Clear speaker cable ($3726/2m pair), its ability to be produced more rapidly results in its considerably lower price.

Also on hand was the Clear Light Rev 1 interconnect ($856/1.5m pair). Now with a larger diameter, improved shield, and nicer RCA connector, it is still substantially lower in price that the Clear interconnect ($2360/1.5m pair). Next on the horizon is a Clear power cable.

Feeling Ambitious...fixed something

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General Rants 'n' Raves
Submitted by JIMV on

I bought a Theta Basic transport last Summer. This ancient thing sounded really good through my modest system and I was VERY happy with it...then the disk drawer stopped working. Theta advised the Transport was older than dirt so no repairs were possible through them, nor any spare parts. They did offer a nice upgrade to a current machine but that was way beyond my means.

So, I hit the internet and found the drawer assembly on the thing was notorious for failure. I tracked down the drive Theta used as a base and then looked for spare parts for that.

Cardas gets inside your head

Cardas gets inside your head

Jan 11, 2011
Audiophile sensibilities have long found a comfortable home inside George Cardas’ head. Also in George’s head for the past two years has been the design of a single-driver, dynamic in-ear monitor that would fulfill his desire for a non-fatiguing portable listening experience. The as yet unnamed little gems are just entering production, and are expected to retail in the $300–$500 range. A quick listen confirms that George has indeed managed to do something quite special: glorious midrange. I gladly accepted a sample pair for review; I reckon I’ll be spending a good chunk of time with George’s thoughts and sound in my head very soon.

T+A K8 7.1 Blu-ray HD Receiver

T+A K8 7.1 Blu-ray HD Receiver

Jan 11, 2011
Though not strictly a digital audio product, I'm not sure that anyone else will cover this, so wanted to include it here. In addition to the Blu-ray player and amplification features, the $9,500 T+A K8 sports a full complement of digital inputs including USB, as well as an audio streaming client for most formats.

Mach2 Music Mac Mini Upgrade Package

Mach2 Music Mac Mini Upgrade Package

Jan 11, 2011
Mach2 Music offers two services: they will sell you an upgraded Apple Mac Mini computer optimized for digital audio music serving, or take your already purchased 2010 or later Mac Mini and perform their upgrades on it.

They had the first option on hand, which includes a 40GB solid state OCZ Vertex drive to replace the factory drive, Amarra 2.1.1 installed and set up, 8GB RAM installed, cables from Most Beautiful Sound (they cut the power lead in the Firewire 800 cable) and a power cable from PI Audio Group.

Also included, but missing from the photo above due to shipping issues, is a PI Audio Mac Sandwich clamp system. Dayton Audio Brass Speaker Spikes (shown in black) complete the package which retails for $2,995 through the end of this month. All you need to add are external hard drives, a monitor (or iPad/iPod control device) and music.

Hegel Music Systems HD2, HD10, and HD20 DACs

Hegel Music Systems HD2, HD10, and HD20 DACs

Jan 11, 2011
Hegel Music Systems was on hand to show off their ever-expanding range of DACs. The smallest sitting at the top right is the $350 HD2 USB "music streamer" that can handle 24bit/96kHz USB data and output it either as analog audio or digital data over SPDIF.

Under the HD2 is the $1,200 HD10 which offers USB, coax and optical digital inputs as well as both balanced and unbalanced outputs. To the left of the HD10 is the newest DAC from Hegel, the HD20, which in addition to the inputs and 24/192 conversion found on the HD10, offers remote control and display for $2,000.

Wisdom Audio and Mark Levinson Seminar at Sound Components in Miami, FL

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Dealers' Open House
Submitted by soundcomponents on

We will host Wisdom Audio and Mark Levinson on Tuesday, Jan 18 and Wednesday, Jan 19 at our store. We have the L150 Line source speakers on display with the STS subwoofer in stereo and multi channel.Presentations are at 6pm and 7:30pm each night. Please rsvp to mark.goldman@soundcomponents.com, 305-665-4299 ext 101. Our address is 1536 south dixe highway
Coral gables, Fl 33146

Video: Tony Faulkner talks about orchestral recording

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General Rants 'n' Raves
Submitted by hollowman on

Possibly my favorite classical recording engineer, the man talks about his "stuff" here:
http://www.recordproduction.com/tony-faulkner.htm
When did he begin using higher-than-Red-Book standards (i.e., 16-bit/44.1 khz)? I have a Naxos title (Samuel Barber: Sym 1 & 2, recorded late 1998) that notes "Recorded and edited at 20-bit..." and later Naxos/Faulkner pairings are 24-bit. Given their native rez, I wish Naxos would release high-rez FLACs.

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