The Other End of the Elac Line

The Other End of the Elac Line

Although you may associate Elac solely with Andrew Jones's expanding collection of bargain-priced loudspeakers, the 90-year old German company actually has a wide range of products at various price points. "We're famous for a lot of bass from small cabinets," said Rolf Janke (above), head of research and development, as he discussed Elac's new 90th anniversary Concentro loudspeaker ($70,000/pair).

RHA Dacamp L1 Portable Headphone Amp/DAC

RHA Dacamp L1 Portable Headphone Amp/DAC

British manufacturer RHA, known primarily for their in-ear headphone models, had the new Dacamp L1 for the first time at CES. Beautifully built and feeling hefty in the hand, the new headphone amp and DAC sports independent processors for each channel. Three knobs along one side control gain (there are three settings), bass and treble, and inside is a 4000mAh lithium ion battery that RHA claims will give you 10 hours of play time.

Questyle CMA 400i DAC/Headphone Amp

Questyle CMA 400i DAC/Headphone Amp

I was thinking this was a nice $1,000-2,000 product as Questyle's representative was going over the features: 3 types of headphone jacks (regular unbalanced, 4 pin balanced XLR and 2.5mm balanced), USB/Optical/SPDIF inputs on back, swithcable gain via three small switches on the bottom, and AKM AK4490 DAC chip inside.

Cocktail X-50 Music Server/Player

Cocktail X-50 Music Server/Player

Cocktail had their new brawnier and refined X-50 server/player on hand. And I'm comparing it to the previous X-30 model, which I'd seen at previous shows. The new X-50 feels much heavier and looks built to kill in a solid black case. On the front is a similar layout to the X-30, with a CD slot on the left and a slightly larger color display on the right.
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