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The show will open in a few minutes and 5-year CES veteran Rosemarie Torcivia is ready to hand out free magazines and answer questions in room 29216.
John Atkinson readies the 2010 awards which will be picked up by the winners throughout the day.
Company Technical Director Andy McHarg shows off the dCS Debussy DAC with the new 24bit/192kHz asynchronous USB upgrade card, available in April. Current owners who'd like to upgrade can do so for $250 and folks who purchase the DAC from now until April will get the upgrade for the cost of shipping. The fully upgraded product will be available March or April for $11,499.
HRT's latest DAC, the $199 iStreamer, sports a connector to take the digital signal directly from your iPod/iPhone/iPad device and convert it to analog. Power supply is included and the DAC will handle 32, 44, or 48kHz data rates at 16 bits.
Simple and to the point, this may be the perfect starter product for the budding audiophile.
My beat is digital, but I'm particularly on the lookout for music server products. So I was pleased to see that Cary had their MS-1 server on display and fully loaded.
The spartan front panel has a single power indicator and disc drawer for ripping CDs directly to the internal 1 Terabyte SATA drive. On the rear are two USB connectors and an ethernet port to connect to your network. One USB jack operates as the digital out sending the data stream to your DAC and the other is for an external mirror drive or for sourcing files from USB sticks or other drives connected to the MS-1.
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Constellation's Peter Madnick and Dr. Murali Murugasu return with a new digital source component which, at the moment I had walked in the room, had not yet received a name. But by the time I left was dubbed the Cygnus.
Projected price is somewhere between $15-20k with availability in May. Conceived as a do-everything stereo digital source, the Cygnus will play CDs and SACDs as well as files served from connected drives, computers, etc. and also function as a 24/384 DAC.
As always, case design is exquisite.
MSB is offering a new universal transport based on Oppo's BDP-93, which plays practically anything on disc including DVD-Audio, SACD, Blu-ray, CD etc. The player also sports a USB input allowing it to stream from a USB memory stick player, external hard drive or computer.
The MSB Universal Media Transport will be available in about six weeks, with a multichannel option available six weeks after that. Price starts at $3,995.
MSB was also showing their new "high res" USB DAC that the company claims can play a 384kHz stream over USB or SPDIF "bit perfect". Depending on options, the…
Wadia’s new 171iTransport digital iPod dock ($599) is now also compatible with Apple’s iPad. Other changes include an improved circuit board, new clock chip, higher grade connectors, and a better internal power supply. The remote control has also been redesigned for better ease of use.
We listened to the 171iTransport connected to an iPad in a system with Wadia’s 151PowerDac mini ($1195), Wadia’s 121 Decoding Computer (around $1500), a pretty little pair of Dynaudio’s outstanding Excite X12 loudspeakers (a steal at $1200/pair), and Argentum Acoustics cables, and the sound was sweet…
Dynaudio’s DM2/6 ($800/pair) is a bass-reflex design with a 5.5” mid-woofer and a coated soft-dome tweeter. Said to be easy to drive for any amplifier, the DM2/6 has a rated sensitivity of 86dB with a 6 ohm impedance. The DM2/6 is available in very attractive black ash and rosewood vinyl veneers, and is engineered and built in Denmark.
“This is real Dynaudio for real high-end sound,” said Dynaudio’s Mike Mannousselis. “The performance of the DM2/6 approaches the performance of the Excite X12, in a more affordable package.” Mannousselis stressed the importance of entry-level products…