Before starting in on the room reports, here is a little background on how we set things up.

We wanted the best possible sound, so I asked the record label, Blue Castle (formed by Graham Nash and David Crosby), if I could have an HD copy of Nash's new album This Path Tonight straight from the mastering studio. The album was mastered in 24/96 PCM by Bob Ludwig, and the label agreed to supply the first digital copy to be played in the wild on the condition that it never leave Graham's laptop where they would place it themselves. I agreed.

Merging has been long respected in the pro recording industry with mastering engineers such as Bruce Brown using the company's Horus network audio converters in his studio. They have also been instrumental with DSD recording technology, so not surprising when I saw the new NADAC in Philip O'Hanlon's On a Higher Note suite at the very top of the Mirage hotel, Philip being a big DSD proponent himself.

You have to wonder what gets into some of these otherwise normal audio companies like Cary. Did they just hire a twenty-something in the design department? Did the VP have an acid trip one weekend?

“I’ll be free/ain’t that just like me”

Actually, the Bowie-is-too-weird thing began with the shot of him in a dress that graced the cover of The Man Who Sold the World.

For a select group of invitees, Philip O'Hanlon hosted two performances in On a Higher Note's Mirage suite with fabled singer-songwriter Lori Lieberman ("Killing Me Softly with His Song.") Lori entered the suite to rehearse while I was listening to recorded music, and began singing unamplified while Philip and I were in the next room discussing the products on display. I had to stop talking. It is rare that I find myself in the presence of a singer whose every sound expresses the depth of her soul. What an artist. To say that I was transfixed is an understatement.

I'm familiar with how opening or closing a side entrance to a music room can affect bass loading, But when Philip O'Hanlon of A Higher Note demonstrated how opening the sliding doors behind the new Vivid B1 Decade loudspeakers ($28,000/pair) increased air and spaciousness, I was duly impressed.

Luxman's L-590 integrated amplifier features amplifier circuitry with Darlington-connected devices and the company's proprietary distortion-reducing ODNF (Only Distortion Negative Feedback), which isolates noise and distortion at the output of the music signal, and uses only a touch of negative feedback to suppress them.

It's unfair to judge the scale of Wilson Audio's forthcoming Alexx loudspeaker ($109,000/pair) from the height of the two gentlemen flanking it, because main designer Daryl Wilson and inspiration/father Dave Wilson are ridiculously tall. But despite the fact that Alexx is 4" shorter than the older MAXX3, his 65" height means he's a foot taller than his not-so-little sister Alexia...

Dan D'Agostino Master Audio Systems' newly upgraded Momentum monoblocks, now called the Momentum M400 monoblocks ($65,000/pair, and shipping now), sounded fantastic in the dCS Suite in the Mirage. The photo is slightly deceptive, because this early-issue pair is housed in the slightly different, original Momentum chassis, but who cares? The mating of D'Agostino Momentum400 monoblocks with Wilson Audio Alexia loudspeakers, Transparent Audio Generation V cabling, HRS SXR isolation system with new Vortex isolators, Meletzsky Stromtank power supply system, and the newly upgraded dCS Vivaldi DAC system delivered the most color-saturated, full-range, impactful, emotionally satisfying and frankly wondrous sound of any room I visited at CES.