[Note: click here for background on this project and here for how we set up the equipment.]
We had spent the morning and early afternoon listening to systems in the big suites, and now it was time to downscale the room size and budget a bit. I promised Graham Nash that we'd try to mix up the types of products he heard, so we headed down to DeVore Fidelity on the 30th floor of the Venetian.
John DeVore is what I think of as a bespoke speaker designer, creating products that strongly reflect his personal vision about music, craftsmanship and aesthetics. I reckoned his room would be…
[Note: click here for background on this project and here for how we set up the equipment.]
The day was getting long at this point and we'd already listened to a couple hour's worth of music, but we wanted a little variety from the floor-standing speakers we had heard to far. So we popped into the Crystal Cable/Siltech room to hear This Path Tonight on a dimensionally smaller system.
Crystal's Hungarian-born Gabi Rjinveld was a touring concert pianist in her youth (she started training at age 4) and she and Nash immediately fell into conversation about music. Perfect. But we were…
In our March 2016 issue, Art Dudley loved the sound of Metronome’s CD8 S CD player, which has USB and serial digital inputs, though I found some issues on the test bench. At CES, the French company was showing this elegant server, the Music Center 1 (price tba), which plays CDs, music from a USB stick, a NAS drive, or from its internal RAID3 array (1–6TB available).
“Bruno Putzeys designed a switch-mode power supply for our new headphone amplifier,” enthused EveAnna Manley, when I bumped into her in one of the Venetian’s corridors. The tubed amp, which doubles as a line preamplifier, costs $2950 and is drop-dead gorgeous in Champagne & White, Titanium & Bronze, or Copper & Black finishes. Tube complement is two 12AT7A drivers and four triode-strapped 6AQ5 output tubes, with custom, hand-wound, air-gapped output transformers. These transformers are user-configurable to drive three ranges of headphone loads, from 12 to 600 ohms. The output…
Graham Nash auditioned the new gibbon X speakers in the DeVore Fidelity room, which featured an LP player with the longest Well-Tempered Tonearm made, at 18". It was great to see veteran designer William Firebaugh at the 2016 show, 30 years after his unique tonearm made its debut at CES, and still actively involved in high-end audio.
In its main room, YG was making great-sounding music with its Sonja 1.3 speakers ($106,800/pair), driven by a Boulder music server and amplification via Kubala-Sosna cables. I had loved the Sonja 1.3 when I reviewed it for our July 2013 issue, but the big news at CES was the Sonja XV, one channel of which was on passive display in a side room. A four-tower system, with the midrange and tweeter tower resembling a '1.3 on steroids and intended to celebrate the Colorado company’s forthcoming 15th anniversary, the 'XV will be priced at a whopping $265,900/system.
The components for a full…
When he visited the Vandersteen room at CES, Graham Nash said that what he really liked “was the midrange of that speaker system, that sounded like my voice. There was plenty of natural detail." Graham was listening to the new version of Vandersteen Audio’s Model 5A speaker, the 5A Carbon, which features the midrange unit from the Mk.II version of Vandersteen Model 7 speaker.
Finished in finished in a Grigio Metallic Alloy automotive paint—automotive fishes are now standard—the Carbons were being driven by Vandersteen's liquid-cooled M7-HPA monoblocks, which I will be reviewing in the May…
"For Unto Us a Boy is Born" was playing when I looked into MBL’s suite at the Venetian and the sound—open, spacious, uncolored, full-range, musically communicative—on MBL's unique 101E omnidirectional speakers was so appealing, I settled down in the hot set for the rest of the piece from Handel's Messiah. The speakers were being bi-amped by preproduction samples—US availability is scheduled for March—of new models from the German company’s Noble line: N51 integrated amplifier ($17,600), N22 stereo power amplifier ($16,500), with the source the N31 CD player/digital processor ($15,400), all…
Synergistic Research's Ted Denney always puts on a good show at a show, and the 2016 CES was no exception. The sound in Synergistic's suite at the Mirage—Magico S7 speakers driven by McIntosh amplification (modified with Synergistic fuses)—was superb. Even though I didn't know the cut being played, "Hey Now" from London Grammar, there was an effortless sense of dynamics. Another of my best sounds at CES.
But then Ted said he was going to change the sound. He and an assistant took down 10 thin black panels, each approximately 18" by 12" that were apparently randomly placed on the walls and…
Brian Barr was showing the SAE 2-horsepower amplifiers described earlier by Larry Greenhill with his $100,000 California Audio Technology speaker system, comprising CT MBXS6 two-way satellites and two MBX900 subwoofers. This system played more loudly, more cleanly than any I heard at CES.
Founded in 1988, CAT has specialized in the custom-install market, designing sound systems that can cost upwards of $1 million dollars for yachts and palaces. It manufactures all its own drive-units. The 105lb, Corian-cabinet satellite features 6.5" aluminum-cone units with a solid brass phase plug in…
