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Mono a Mano

We always make a point of visiting DeVore Fidelity's rooms because John DeVore always makes music come alive—and we are so down with that.

This year, J-DeV was showing off The Nines ($6500/pair), which he described as a 2.5-way DeVore Fidelity Super 8 ($4000/pair) clone "that just kept getting better." The side firing 8" woofer begins to taper off "around 100Hz or so," DeVore explained.

Very smooth—and very deep.

"What's that?" I was pointing to EMT's JPA-66 Varia-Curve Full Function Preamp (price TBD). I was hypnotized by its VU meters, but Tone's Jonathan Helpern…

Monkey Business

Devore clearly has a monkey fixation.

Trio? 'S Notta Copycat Product

Music Hall's new $999 Trio CD receiver puts a CD player, tuner, and integrated amp together. What makes it different? Tubes, for one thing—you get 50Wpc of tubey goodness. Just add speakers and cook!

MSB Remote Attachment

Here's the part that goes on your iPod to communicate with the base unit.

MSB iPod Holder

Here is the receiver or a place to put a second iPod.

iPod For Audiophiles?

That's what MSB's Larry Gullman called MSB's iLink, $2000 package that makes your iPod "better than CD."

What you get is an MSB charging dock that replaces your iPod's analog outputs with an MSB DAC with RF remote capabilities. It requires modification of your iPod (included in the price)—or you could buy the package with an 80GB pre-modded iPod Video for $2349.

So why is it better than CD? "With the RF dongle connected to your iPod, you can listen to high-rez, lossless audio from your listening chair, but you're holding the iPod in your hand," Gullman said. Your collection…

Ultimate Ears; Not So Ultimate Price

We caught up with Ultimate Ears' Mike Diaz at the Taqueria. "Check this out," he said, plunking a pair of earbuds in front of us with his iPod Mini. We cued up The Carpenters' "Close to You" and inserted the 'phones.

"Wow! These are great! What do they cost?"

Karen Carpenter kept singing.

"I said how much do they cost?"

Karen Carpenter kept singing.

I looked up. Everybody at the table was staring at me. I removed the earbuds and heard Mike saying, "These are the metro.fi 2s. We're charging $89/pair for them. They have a single titanium diaphragm and…

What's In a Naim?

"I have a theory," I said to Jon Iverson. "There are two types of rooms at CES: The ones that make you want to sit down and listen forever and the ones that make you want to cover your ears and run into the halls screaming. This room," I said, encompassing Naim's $85,000 system with my sweeping arm, "is one of the former."

I sat down, listening to Ray Lamontaign's 'Til the Sun Turns Black. "I may never leave.

It wasn't that the system sounded spectacular. In fact, it was the opposite of spectacle, it was relaxed, encompassing, supremely emotionally compelling. It didn't…

Vandersteen Twofer

Eneke (left) and Jaclyn Vandersteen flank Vandersteen's new composite Ebony Quatro ($10,700/pair). The wood Quatros are quite different from the speaker cloth covered $6950/pair Quatro Michael Fremer reviewed in Stereophile.

"Quite a step up for a wood cabinet," I joked.

"I always swore I'd never spend one single buck on cosmetics that I could put into sound quality," Richard Vandersteen thundered. "And I didn't start with this one. It's a very different animal, from the X-material plinth to the new composite Ebony, which gives me a consistency I've never gotten from any…

You'd Think He <I>Was</I> in the CIA

"What's new?" We'd just walked into the Channel Islands Audio room and spotted Dusty Vawter.

"Nothing really," he said.

"What's this?"

"Oh, that's the world's smallest AC conditioner, the XDC2 ($299). It removes DC from your AC, which is the leading cause of transformer chatter."

So there is something new?

"Well, I don't like to brag."

And here we thought that's what CES was for.