SweetVinyl is a new company from Mountain View, California and was displaying their first two digital products: Sugarcube SC-1 and SC-2.
The SC-1 is a simple 24/192 ADC and DAC that removes clicks and pops from your records, and can be inserted between your phono stage and preamp (or through a monitor loop) and uses an "artificial intelligence" rule-based system to find and eliminate clicks. The company stresses that this is not simply some kind of digital filter, and the SC-1 will not alter the tonal characteristics of the recording.
The SC-2 is an SC-1 with additional features,…
French manufacturer Metronome has created a new music server that General Manager Jean Marie Clauzel says is intended for people transitioning from CD to high resolution files. The Music Center is built around a custom built computer and operating system that can handle all PCM data rates and up to double DSD.
There is a CD slot on the front for ripping discs and inside is a 2TB drive with expansion up to 6TB (either HDD or SSD). On the back are two USB inputs (for external drives), as well as SPDIF, Toslink and AES/EBU digital outputs (there is no internal DAC). Networking is via either…
Who knows why somebody decided to put a mattress company between Aaudio Imports and AudioQuest. Their door was closed each time I passed by. Maybe they were napping.
Classé was keeping information about their "in development" Delta Preamp/DAC close to their vest. But I was able to pry a few tidbits: price will be below $10,000, it will replace the CP-800, and it should appear sometime around May or June.
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.
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…
