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When asked what was new this year, Nagra's Rene LaFlamme motioned me over to the company's HD DAC and noted that there are now two power supply options along with some other smaller changes. LaFlamme stressed that this is not a MKII version, but "just an evolution" of the product and that another update is coming.
NAD's new music server and network player features WiFi and ethernet networking, 2 USB inputs, Bluetooth AptX along with a CD slot on the front for either ripping or simply playing a disc. Inside are two 2TB hard drives--one for storing music and the other for automatic backup in case the first one fails. There is no DAC inside, so outputs include SPDIF, AES/EBU and optical along with HDMI.
But where things get interesting is how the M50.2 grabs a checksum for the disc you are ripping when gathering metadata. The transport will continue to work with a disc until the checksum from the disc…
Photo: John Atkinson
It's safe to say our experiment bringing Jake Shimabukuro to CES this year as a live music reference worked out pretty well. Response was overwhelmingly positive and we're sifting through the comments and will start filing reports on each of the seven rooms we visited over the next week or so.
It's safe to say our experiment bringing Jake Shimabukuro to CES this year as a live music reference worked out pretty well. Response was overwhelmingly positive and we're sifting through the comments and will start filing reports on each of the seven rooms we visited over the next week or so.
Comparing live musicians to their recorded selves has been done at CES and other shows many times. But to our knowledge, nobody has ever taken the recording and live musician to a variety of rooms at a show and reported on the results.
The point of this approach…
Wireworld introduced two new cables at CES: its Helicon 16 speaker cables (available in two versions), and Category 8 Ethernet cables (three models). The Helicon 16 ($2.10/ft. for the basic red/black version with oxygen-free copper conductors, and $9/ft. for the white/black version with OCC-7N copper conductors), with its patented "DNA Helix" design, was originally intended as high-end hook-up wire for professional and DIY applications, but can also be used as a speaker cable. "It took forever, but it's done," Wireworld's David Salz, seen in the photo above, said of a cable that he claimed is…
The NAD room was populated by a lot of tall men in suits—all of whom seemed dedicated to preserving and enhancing NAD's tradition of offering exceptionally high-value amplification, à la the legendary NAD 3020 integrated amp. This year, NAD was showcasing their new 145Wpc (into 8 ohms) C-368 hybrid digital DAC/amplifier ($899), and the new 150Wpc Master Series M32 Direct Digital DAC/amplifier seen above ($3999), which was driving PSB's Imagine T3 loudspeakers ($7500/pair) with notable authority.
Amplification is usually just a green circuit board in a metal box. (Yawn, snooze.) Even at the highest prices, you still get green boards—but now those green boards are hiding their greenness in very expensive boxes. The new Auris "Back to Nature" components—see also Robert Deutsch's report here—come in chrome and walnut and real-leather boxes that look a lot more expensive than they are. The beautiful DC-125 class-D power amplifier ($1999), Piano tube preamplifier ($1999), and D1D DAC ($1799) made an extremely handsome trio.
The above DAC and amplification drove the fast and articulate…
Last year I liked these HRT (High Resolution Technologies) Stage loudspeakers ($500/pair, plus $800 for companion Sound Anchor stands), and this year I love them. They're the same very pro-audio-style modular loudspeaker—you can assemble them in multiple pairs for more power output in larger rooms—but this year, two pairs combined sounded perfectly large and super-articulate playing Mahler's Symphony 3 conducted by Zubin Mehta (on Decca). What was most impressive was the easy way the $500 HRT Stage integrated amp/DAC drove these little beauties.
A good measure of the ease and resolution I…
Despite the untimely and tragic death of a D'Agostino family member just before CES, the D'Agostino Master Audio Systems exhibit was open. Their Progression monoblock amplifiers ($36,000/pair) were installed both there and in the dCS room; I did most of my listening to them in the latter, where a pair of Progressions in black—which Hi-Fi+ editor Alan Sircom described as "darkly stunning"—were driving Wilson Alexia loudspeakers. Rated at 500W into 8 ohms, the Progressions function as a voltage source, doubling the power with each decrease in load impedance, resulting in 1000W RMS into 4 ohms…
This year marks the 45th anniversary of Mark Levinson Audio Systems. To commemorate the occasion, Mark Levinson's engineers partnered with VPI's Mat Weisfeld (seen above) to develop the Mark Levinson No.515 turntable. The platter is belt-driven and the speed-control electronics are housed in a metal case under the 'table. Mat suggests that the tonearm's clean, natural sonics are associated with its 3D manufacturing origins. The turntable-tonearm combination will be priced at $10,000, or $12,500 with a factory-installed Ortofon Cadenza Bronze moving-coil cartridge.
René Laflamme, Nagra's Sales and Marketing Manager, had one of the best-sounding exhibits I attended. His suite featured twin Nagra HD monoblock amplifiers ($82,500/pair), each rated at 1000W into 2 ohms and driving a Wilson Audio Alexx loudspeaker. Wilson Audio's Peter McGrath—who, like Laflamme, is an accomplished recording engineer—advised me that the Nagra installation allowed the Alexxes to develop the best bass he'd heard at the show. McGrath demonstrated the system's wide dynamic range and superb extension by playing Duruflé's Meditation, recorded on a Mühleisen organ. The notes were…