search
CES also sees the announcement of the new control app. Though Sooloos currently has a browser-based controller for the iPhone and Touch, the new software is a true iTunes downloadable free app that adds piles of new features and, if the demo I saw is any indication, runs way faster.
Now that Meridian Sooloos has stabilized the hardware offerings in their front-to-back media server system, the new 2.1 software upgrades are getting most of the attention at this year's show.
First up is the addition of streaming service Rhapsody and internet radio as sources. Once you've activated your $13/mo. account with Rhapsody, their entire library of music appears on the touchscreen in a directory that you browse. Once you find an album you want, you add it and the cover will appear sorted within the other albums already stored on the hard drives. You can also browse…
Boulder has updated their 1021 disc player, reviewed by John Atkinson last July, adding an ethernet jack on the back and an iPhone app to control multiple streams of content such as a NAS drive on the network or media server. Boulder's Rich Maez says the new player is currently in the debugging stage and should be available near the end of January for $24,000.
I love wandering the halls and coming across a fully formed company that had up until now snuck under the radar in the US. Bladelius is such a brand, enjoying success all around the world and presently making a push into North America. President George Ioakimedes, who resides in the US, is at the show to sign up dealers and spread the word about the Swedish company.
Pictured here is the Embla "replay system" which is a disc player, music server with internal or external drive capability, digital preamp (including an analog input for ripping vinyl or tapes to hard drive) and all the…
For the past several days, I’ve had Neil Young’s newly remastered solo debut playing on repeat. Robert received a copy of the Neil Young Archives Official Release Series HDCD and I swiped it from him. (Actually, I was like, “May I please listen to that awesome stuff, please?”) Young’s first four albums, Neil Young, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, After The Goldrush, and Harvest, make up the first offering from the NYA ORS:
Each one of these albums were meticulously transferred from the original analog master tapes using the finest equipment and the shortest signal path at…
Push, push, one more, one more, push…Almost there! I can see its head!
The final pieces of the March 2010 issue of Stereophile are being born all over my desk. It’s a boy.
I got to the LVCC just in time. The journalist registration line in the second floor pressroom was virtually non-existent . . . until I finished. By then, 20 more journalists had lined up behind me.
As I began to submit my materials to receive my baby-blue press badge holder (courtesy of Best Buy), I could not believe the smoky resonance of the speaking voice of the woman on the other side of the counter.
"Do you sing?" asked this vocal aficionado, I was ready to throw myself at her feet and declare "I'm yours" even before she began to softly serenade me.
I turned…
I timed my arrival in Las Vegas for early afternoon on Wednesday, the day before the Consumer Electronics Show opened, so I'd have enough time to get from Stereophile staff's little of island of sanity in the smoke-free, gambling-free Hyatt Place Las Vegas to press registration at the mammoth Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC). The traffic was considerably lighter than during the show, the lines for registration much shorter than I would have encountered on opening day.
As I approached the LVCC, people were just putting together the free outdoor giveaway brochure area.
When I entered the Nordost room, Roy Gregory and Lars Kristensen of Nordost were in the midst of preparing a demo of their Foundation Theory. Although the literature on the theory, which should be available on Nordost's website, consumes five small-print pages, the basic theory boils down to this: consistency in your brand of cabling, whatever the brand may be, produces greater rewards than mixing different lines of cabling.
Asking me to choose the music—I selected the opening few minutes of Channel Classic's extremely dynamic, R2D4 DSD-native SACD of Mahler's Symphony No.2,…
Nothing beats starting off four days of room-hopping at CES on a joyful. In this case, the delights were provided by Jeff Joseph of Joseph Audio.
I snuck into the Joseph/Bel Canto room an hour before the show's official opening, and invited Jeff to play me music I might not know. With a wry smile, he took me on a journey that began with Midori playing a Chopin transcription for violin and piano. Then we transitioned into Harry Belafonte surprisingly doing a highly credible job of singing the blues ("Fool for You"). Next came Duke Ellington's hilarious, tongue-in-cheek version of "…