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The new Jadis JA120 monoblock amplifierss ($27,900/pair) were driving a pair of Estelon XA speakers to lusty levels at the Bluebird Music room. The design uses the newish KT120 output tubes, six per amp, and, with an additional front-end tube and a higher-gain driver stage, each JA-120 is claimed to be capable of 100W of pure class-A output.
Possibly, the most beautiful design I saw CES was the new Absolare Passion 845 push-pull amplifier ($40,000/pair) and they were handily driving a pair of Rockport Avior speakers. As with the earlier Passion 845 single-ended amp, the push-pull amp sports a pair of glowing 845 power tubes but by adding a pair of EL-34 drivers after the input 12AT7, Absolare is able to increase the output palpably from 45W to 85W of zero-feedback power while remaining substantially in class-A operating mode.
Nelson Pass's introductory claim was modest: "Pass simply added some input selection and level control to the front end to turn these amplifiers into new integrated models." What I saw were two impressive integrated amps that are clearly derived from the larger Point 8 amps as evidenced by the same distinctive meters. Both the 60Wpc INT-60 ($9000) and the 250Wpc INT-250 ($12,000) are said to deliver the same low distortion and outstanding speaker control as their larger predecessors. They also have a volume stage with gain, direct access to four line-level inputs and add a two-line digital…
All the Harman boys were over at the Hard Rock Hotel rather than the official CES sites, but I was able to swing by on my way to the airport to see the new statement amp from Mark Levinson.
The No.536 monophonic power amplifier ($15,000) clearly signals a rebirth of the ML spirit with its black and silver design as well as its impressive engineering and construction. Specified at 400W into 8 ohms and 800W into 4 ohms, this elegant behemoth has a fully discrete class-AB topology with class-A voltage-gain and driver stages. There are no integrated circuits in the circuit path.
Mark Mason, Vice President, Engineering of Thiel Audio, presented the new Thiel Subwoofer, with a suggested retail of $3000. The small, sealed and powered sub has a sophisticated limiter circuit that allows one to set the sub for "party mode," using maximum output, or for extended mode. Neither setting allows the internal amplifier to clip or the woofer to be overdriven.
It uses a 1000W class-D amplifier and a 12" driver with a 3" peak-to-peak excursion. The sub specifically doesn't use a high-pass filter to roll off below 20Hz, preferring to use a sealed enclosure to minimize the group…
"This is our new top-of-the-line subwoofer," said James Tanner, as he proudly showed a non-playing Byrston Model T subwoofer that will retail at $4795 each. He described why Bryston built a 110' tower to confirm that sub's anechoic response does actually reach down to 12Hz.
This depth of response was achieved by a thorough vibration analysis, crossover refinement, and new driver design. Three 8" long-throw cone drivers, powered by an internal class-D 600W amplifier, are used to generate the sub's 18Hz–150Hz (±3dB) response with a maximum SPL of 108dB measured at 1 meter. The sub's…
The huge $43,000/pair Acoustic Zen Maestro loudspeaker is an imposing 225 lb, 67"-tall, 4-way, floorstanding transmission-line speaker system that physically dominated its seemingly tiny-by-comparison exhibit room. Driven by a pair of similarly oversized 100Wpc single-ended triode Junone Monoblock tube amplifiers, the Maestro loudspeakers excelled in resolving subtle instrumental timbral details that lead to a stunning sense of realism.
Patricia Barber's "Too Rich for My Blood," from her Café Blue album abounded in subtle aspects of plucked string bass, hi-hat cymbals, and the…
Burmester's upbeat and gregarious CEO, Dieter Burmester, was eager to give a live demonstration of his two newest loudspeakers, the $60,000/pair BA-71 and the smaller $30,000/pair BA 31 (above). The larger BA-71 uses four 160mm woofers while the BA-31 employs two woofers. The B71 employs two 160mm midrange drivers in a D'Appolito array around a single front-firing air-motion-transformer tweeter, the B31 a single midrange unit. These speakers differ from the rest of the Burmester loudspeakers because they incorporate a user-adjustable air-motion-transformer tweeter on the upper rear panel of…
Stereophile's Jon Iverson grabbed me in the hallway of the Venetian Hotel's 35th floor. He was excited. "You've got to see Avantgarde's new loudspeaker on the 31st floor—it's full of features not found in most other loudspeakers." I rushed down the back stairs of the Venetian, and found Avantgarde's Executive Manager, Armin Krauss, who walked me through the $18,500/pair, three-way, Zero 1 loudspeaker.
Available in white or black, the loudspeaker resembles a 42"-tall monolithic slab, nothing like Avantgarde's other boxes, which sprout large external circular horns. The Zero One's horn is…
The $80,000/pair MartinLogan electrostatic hybrid, the Neolith, played with wonderful spatial imaging and translucent sound. The speaker's enclosure was painted in a glossy, thick automotive glass red paint called Rosso Fuoco, but is available in 6 other colors.
MartinLogan's Dennis Chern explained this latest descendent of the company's huge Monolith full-range electrostatic hybrid to me. The rated frequency response of 23Hz–22kHz is covered by a 4' by 2' CLS XStat electrostatic panel and two servo-controlled woofers—a 15" and 12" pair—cover the bass. Each speaker enclosure weighs 385…