I've always loved the way T+A builds their products, and the DAC 8's compact and clean design is one of my favorites. The show photo here does not do it justice. The product was sitting in a static display, so I did not play with it or listen, but T+A's always affable Jim Shannon explained the basics. Inside are…
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Germany's T+A introduced the DAC 8 analog to digital converter and preamp a couple years back as a compact and sportier version of its pricier siblings. New this year is the addition of a dedicated DSD processing section, new upgraded volume control and headphone amplifier.
1500–1600 parts, 14 circuit boards including six input boards . . . that's just the start of what gives Pass Labs' top-of-the-line XS Phono stage ($45,000) the right to the "excess" moniker.
It's a while back that Nelson Pass told veteran preamp designer Wayne Colburn (above), "Do whatever you want." The end product, now shipping, includes a gold-plated ceramic input boards, a helluva lot of vintage Toshiba FETs, a dual-mono power supply, individual input cards for each input because standard input switching relays create noise, REL custom caps, and on and on. "I've been doing this since…
Now this was an interesting one. Just one room over from the expensive Constellation set-up sat extreme bargain-for-the-money Audio Alchemy, designed by the same man who oversaw Constellation's engineering, Peter Madnick. But since my beat was the high-priced spread, I turned from Audio Alchemy's great-sounding gear to the TAD CE1 loudspeakers ($24,000/pair), designed by Toru Nagatani (above).
Alas, neither Nagatani nor TAD CEO Yoshihiro "Al" Hirano speaks the best English. From what I could piece together—I really couldn't handle the entire, slow-moving slide show they wanted me to watch…
The company's smiling Irv Gross was happy to show me the new, shipping within 60 days Constellation Inspiration integrated 1.0 ($13,500). "This one has it all, and it's also our most affordable product," he said. "It's an Inspiration preamp combined with one half of an Inspiration amp, and it includes a headphone jack and theater throughput for easy integration in HT set-ups. It also outputs a legitimate 100 watts."
Constellation Audio's eye-catching set-up—the first time they've shown their reference system at an audio show—included a prototype turntable with two arms that is expected to replace the Continuum Caliburn table. (Is Michael Fremer watching? You betcha.)
Constellation Audio’s impressive system—Cygnus Media Server/DAC ($38,000), Altair 2 preamplifier ($78,000), and Hercules 2 monoblock amplifiers ($180,000/pair), as well as MIT cabling and Shunyata power treatment—fed the MartinLogan Neolith beauties ($80,000/pair) with enough power to make deep percussion sound real in the next room.
Moderately Priced Speakers. That's my assignment for this year's CES show report—as well as moderately priced turntables and other phono equipment—Moderate being defined this time as priced from $4000/pair to $18,000/pair. Personally, I have trouble considering $18,000 speakers as being moderately priced, but this designation should not be viewed as anything but a convenient way of subdividing the task of reporting, so that Herb Reichert, reporting on "Low-Priced (defined as under $4000/pair), Jason Victor Serinus, writing about "High-Priced" speakers (above $18,000/pair), and myself have…
At $15,995/pair, the Tempus III is the top-of-the-line from Ryan Speakers. Their speakers have impressed me before as offering high quality for the price, but perhaps not world-beaters. The Tempus III is different. It uses proprietary drivers, including a new beryllium-dome tweeter, two side-firing woofers, and a midbass that covers the range from 100Hz to 350Hz. The bass extends to 25Hz, –3dB. While I prefer to avoid making pronouncements based on limited listening at a show—it seems to me that with the Tempus III Ryan Speakers (heard in a system with Arunder music server, PS Audio…
Getting near the top of the $4k–$18k range, at $16,500/pair is the Magico S1 (Mk.II)—which is actually the lowest-priced speaker from Magico. Although it looks similar to the original S1, the Mk II has a newly designed 1" diamond-coated Beryllium diaphragm tweeter and a new 7" mid/bass driver incorporating Magico's Nano-Tec cone material. As was the case for the Mk.I, the enclosure of the Mk.I is formed from a single piece of extruded aluminum, but with a new massive top plate machined to a 3D convex shape, and a thicker base plate.
Partnered with topnotch source and electronics (Berkeley…
The Monitor Audio Platinum II involves some major improvements in driver technology. Dean Hartley told me that they had moved a good way towards completion of these changes when the original Platinum Series speakers were introduced, but they felt that further improvements were possible, and they wanted to be absolutely sure they got it right, so they played it safe by going with the existing technology.
Hartley is particularly proud of what they achieved in reducing distortion. He feels that speakers are generally weak in this area, so that we may have sources and playback electronics…