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Tower Of Power via Vivid and Mola-Mola

"Go hear Tower of Power," said Jon Iverson, "on the 35th Floor of the Venetian. See Philip O'Hanlon and tell him I sent you."

"What is the Tower of Power?" I asked.

"You'll see when you get there," he said.

I found Philip O'Hanlon in the "On a Higher Note" exhibit suite. Philip imports Vivid Audio speakers, as well as Bruno Putzeys' Mola-Mola Electronics. Now I had heard of Vivid Audio, of course; their Giya G3 loudspeaker was Stereophile's 2014 "Component of the Year." Of course, I had heard of Bruno Putzeys, the Dutch electronics engineer whose Hypex and NCore 1200 class…

NAD M12 Preamp/DAC

Sorry I don't have a better photo of this handsome component, which is at the top of the stack. Available now for $3,500, the M12 handles up to 24/192 PCM via USB as well as several card slots on the back for further options. One of those options is a $450 network card that enables the BluOS, aptX Bluetooth, WiFi and Ethernet. Control is via the Bluesound app which looked very nicely done. I hope to play with the M12 a bit more and see what it can do.

Accuphase DC-37 MDSD Digital Processor

In a repeat of last year's CES, Accuphase again showed up without their latest digital product actually in the room. So company representative Kohei Nishigawa was a good sport and again held up the photo of the soon to be released DC-37.

Based on the same digital section of the all-in-one DP-720 SACD player, the $12k DC-37 handles 32/384 PCM as well as 5.6MHz DSD via USB 2. All the other usual inputs are included as well as separate power supplies for the analog and digital sections.

Burmester 151 Musiccenter Music Server

Burmester's Ref Line Musiccenter 111 now has a little brother that dumps the big screen on the front panel for a more low profile and less expensive version at half the price: $25k.

Inside are two 2TB SSDs in a RAID 1 configuration, plenty of networking options and web and iPad control. On the front is a slot for ripping or playing CDs and the internals handle anything PCM up to 24/192. Available now.

Melco N1A and N1Z Music Server

A new brand to me, it turns out that Melco is a division of Buffalo, the japanese computer memory company. Melco had two products on display: the N1Z server with two 512GB SSDs and dual power supplies for around $9k and the N1A with two 2TB hard drives and single power supply for approx $3k.

Other features include full networking capabilities, quick start up and shut down (5-15 seconds), DSD support and multiple USB 3 ports for back up and expansion.

MOON by Simaudio Neo 280D DAC/Optional Network Player

New in Simaudio's room was the 208D which comes as a basic DAC for $2,200 and also a version with added network player for $3k. The 280D handles both PCM up to 32/384 and DSD up to DSD256 via USB and includes aptX Bluetooth. The analog stage is a fully balanced differential circuit which Simaudio claims increases dynamic range, headroom and signal to noise.

Plenty of inputs on the back and the network version adds WiFi and Ethernet streaming with full iPad control. Available in the next month or so.

MOON by Simaudio Celebrates 35 Years!

Here's Simaudio's Lionel Goodfield hanging out in the company's '80s room with period correct speakers, amp, turntable and Aiwa 990 cassette deck (hidden behind his left arm). Behind him on the poster is the company's first product from 1980, the PW2000 and on the table, his hand rests on the Sima PW3000 which retailed for $825 back in the day.

What has Goodfield learned after all these years in the business (he sold their gear in the '90s and then joined Sim in 1997)? "Keep it simple and listen to the music not the gear." Good advice.

Wadia di122 DAC/Headphone Amp

I've always enjoyed Wadia's industrial design and the di122 is no exception with their new Series 1 compact casework. Meant to stack with other components in the line, the di122 is a straightforward DAC design with two SPDIF and two optical plus USB inputs on the back along with both balanced and unbalanced audio outputs.

The USB input accepts up to 32/192 PCM as well as DSD 64/128 and DXD 352.8/384 and there is a high powered headphone jack on the front. The top is made of glass and the final price comes in at $1,500 and is shipping now.

Astell&Kern AK500N Music Server

Astell&Kern calls their new server an "MQS Network Audio Player", where MQS stands for "Master Quality Sound". WIth all the talk at the show about Meridian's new MQA technology, at first I confused it for "Master Quality Authenticated" and did a double take. Nonetheless, A&K's new product is quite a stunner as presented both on a stand with amplifier and as shown here, on a table top by itself.

There is a CD slot on the front, for ripping discs and grabbing meta data à la Sooloos, and a slick touchscreen on top for controlling the various processes (in addition to an app that runs…

Wilson Revisits the WAMM

It's close to 55 years since David Wilson built his first loudspeaker, and 34 years since he developed a method to measure time-domain differences. It was also in 1981, the same year that he received a patent for time-domain driver adjustability, that Wilson Audio released the game-changing Wilson Audio Modular Monitor loudspeaker or the WAMM.

In two small, private presentations in the Mirage, Dave Wilson joined several other indispensible members of his team—his son Daryl and wife Sheryl Lee, as well as Peter McGrath and John Giolas—to present a jaw-dropping mock up of the proposed,…