Pass Laboratories celebrated its 25th Anniversary in business by introducing its HPA-1 headphone amplifier ($3500). The circuitry is a two-stage CFA topology using cascaded ultra-low noise Toshiba JFETs driving complementary Fairchild power MOSFETs running in class-A.

Matthieu Latour, Nagra's Marketing Director, spent time showing me the Swiss company's new Classic Integrated Amplifier ($19,450). Both Nagra's Classic Integrated Amplifier and Classic stereo power amplifier deliver 100Wpc into 8 ohms and are strikingly similar, but differ in that the integrated unit has 3 RCA inputs and 1 XLR input and cannot be bridged. It uses a solid-state circuit preamplifier section. The Classic Integrated amplifier will be available in May, 2016.

The Thiel TM3 loudspeakers ($3500/pair) looked extremely nice—but it was hard to listen. All I could think about was that girl on the poster's lips and the shadows on her cheeks. The cut angles on the TM3s seemed to match her face. And the flowers—I can't remember the last time I saw flowers in a CES room.

PrimaLuna products flesh out texture, hall sound, and instrumental color better than the tube amps of yore and on the scale of warm to cool, PrimaLuna is always exactly in the middle—as in Goldilocks' "just right." In fact, I would have to say that PrimaLuna's just-right neutrality is its #1 best trait.

Last year, I raved-reviewed the Hegel H160 integrated amplifier. It was probably the best all-around integrated amp I studied. I laughed that it had only two analog inputs but six assorted digital ones. I didn't laugh while the H160 grabbed every loudspeaker in my house by its cojones and gently forced the frightened cones to submit. Maybe it was the black mask faceplate or maybe was Hegel's SoundEngine technology. I don't know, but unquestionably, the H160's 150Wpc (into 8 ohms) had a very special way with speaker cones.

Morel's USA distributor, Nir Paz, was demonstrating the Octave 6 Limited Edition floorstanders ($6000/pair). He was driving them with the new 250Wpc (into 8 ohms) Hegel H360 integrated amplifier ($5700).

The surprising combination of the superb-sounding (but prototype) Technical Audio Devices Laboratories (TAD) loudspeakers with the wonderfully affordable Audio Alchemy electronics manifested some penetratingly beautiful Roy Orbison music.

Chord Electronics had their suite divided into two rooms at CES, the main room as shown in the photo above and the smaller back room where all the headphone listening was taking place. Chord had their Mojo and Hugo TT DACs set up with a variety of Audeze headphones as reported earlier.

But in the main room was their latest DAVE DAC (which I'll be profiling in a later post) as well as some of their best electronics. The system was topped off with one of my personal favorites, the Vienna Acoustics The Music loudspeakers.

Though not a listening stop, we had to say hello to the guys from Mobile Fidelity including (L-R in the photo above) Rob Loverde, Shawn Britton and Jonathan Derda. Turns out Shawn has mastered some of Graham's work, so they immediately set to talking about the new album and the possibility of MoFi getting their hands on it.

First, Bryston reminded show-goers that earlier this year they updated their BDP-2 Music Player (reviewed here by Michael Lavorgna at AudioStream.com and Larry Greenhill here and the box on top in the photo above) with a new "Integrated Audio Device" or "IAD".

Bryston claims that the new IAD delivers improved specifications and replaces the current two-piece third-party sound card and SPDIF interface module. All new BDP-2 players are currently shipping with the new IAD installed, and legacy BDP-2 consumers have an option to retrofit to the new device for $500.