CES 2018

Sort By: Post DateTitle Publish Date
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Jan 11, 2018  | 
Sitting next to its big brother DAC/transport combo, Chord Mezzo 75 amplifier (75Wpc into 4 ohms, $4995), and new Spendor A2 loudspeakers ($2395/pair) was the diminutive new Chord Qutest DAC ($1795).
Kalman Rubinson  |  Jan 08, 2018  |  First Published: Jan 09, 2018  | 
Today at the CES in Las Vegas, it was announced that Sound United (Denon, Marantz, Polk Audio, Definitive Technology, Polk BOOM, HEOS, and Boston Acoustics) had acquired Classé Audio and that operations would be resumed under the leadership of Dave Nauber.
Jon Iverson  |  Jan 10, 2018  | 
The new $18,000 Pictor preamp is part of Constellation Audio's new Revelation Series, which is one step up from the company's entry-level Inspiration Series. Constellation's Irv Gross explained that the Pictor uses the same basic chassis as the Inspiration version, but has a separate power supply.
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Jan 13, 2018  | 
Crystal Cable isn't new to the "portable cable" market—it has manufactured cables for Astell&Kern for the past three years—but its new Crystal Duet (€700 for 1.2 meters) is the first such cable branded and marketed under their own name.
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Jan 14, 2018  | 
With Dali and PSB—not to mention NAD and Bluesound—all distributed by Lenbrook, at CES the white Dali Callisto System active tower loudspeakers with SoundHub (target base price $5500/pair, available by early May) sat beside black PSB Imagine T3 speakers ($7499/pair). The Callisto system with SoundHub offers wireless HD audio transfer to the speakers, has numerous inputs including Bluetooth AptX-HD—"you can connect anything" is the claim—multiple outputs, two modular expansion ports, auto sensing source select, and Bluetooth remote control.
Jon Iverson  |  Jan 10, 2018  | 
Hailing from the Champagne region of France, Davis Acoustics has been making speakers for over 30 years. The company produces OEM drive units that they sell to other manufacturers (including Goldmund and Avant Garde), but also sells their own extensive line of products.
Jon Iverson  |  Jan 12, 2018  | 
Three new bookshelf models were unveiled which Sound United's Mark Suskind explained are intended to replace the Studio Monitor Series. The models start with the D7 at $499/pair which feature a 4.5" woofer and 1" aluminum dome tweeter and is also ported. The D9 retails for $749/pair and has a 5.25" woofer and a 5"x9" passive radiator and 1" aluminum dome tweeter. And finally the new D11 has a 6.5" woofer and 6"x10" passive radiator and sells for $999/pair. All available since late last year.
Jon Iverson  |  Jan 14, 2018  | 
Shown here is the new DeVore Fidelity Gibbon Super 9 ($9,900 pair) which falls in between the company's big Gibbon 10 3-way and the Gibbon 88 smaller 2-way floorstander.
Jon Iverson  |  Jan 09, 2018  | 
Just so happens the first room I entered this year featured the Wolf Cinema projector in a full-on home theater demo. Curiously, like a fish out of water, Wolf sets up their video equipment at the Venetian high-end audio stomping grounds year after year with an impressive big screen presentation. It must work for them! But as I looked around in the dark, I found Dynaudio's Brian Kjaer also present. This is Dynaudio's only CES showing this year, as the audio provider for the Wolf Cinema room.
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Jan 15, 2018  | 
Etymotic's Albert Arends was showing four models of the company's earphones. The Etymotic ER3SE (Studio Edition—$179) has a flatter response than the ER3XR (Extended Response—$179), which has "a bit of a bass lift" in the 100Hz-1kHz region. One major difference between these models and the higher level ER4 SR (Studio Reference—$349) and ER4XR (Extended Response—$349) is that only the latter are channel-matched to within 1dB.
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Jan 10, 2018  | 
Elac, which has been around for many more years than Andrew Jones has been designing speakers for them, has now released their Roon-friendly Discovery DS-S101-G music server ($1100), which allows you to play your own music files via an external HD or NAS…
Jon Iverson  |  Jan 15, 2018  | 
Emotiva's new DR series (as shown in the above photo) is a configurable amplifier that can go from one to three channels. "These are capable of up to 600 watts per amp module," says the company's Damon Steele. "However due to how the power supply works, as you add more modules the power drops a bit. So with two in the chassis, they run at 550 watts each. If you do three, you get 440 watts per channel."
Jon Iverson  |  Jan 10, 2018  | 
Sharing the room with Davis Acoustics and also from France, Esprit has been in business for 20 years and produces a complete line of handmade audio cables. The company has only been at CES for two years however and until now has not had much distribution outside its home region.
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Jan 14, 2018  | 
Beautiful and warm sound, gorgeous midrange, absolutely quiet surfaces with silence between the notes—these were some of my impressions upon hearing Natalie Merchant's performance of "The Butcher's Boy," from the LP version of Kronos Quartet's Folk Songs, on this brightly backlit, hard to photograph system from Musical Surroundings.
Jon Iverson  |  Jan 12, 2018  | 
Importer Mark Gurvey notes that this is the first time that fidata has shown products in the US, and they include a 1TB server (HFAS1-S10U at $5,000) and 2TB server (HFAS1-XS20U at $7,000) that are now available. Inside are sets of 500GB SSD Samsung pro-grade drives, and both servers are built on what Gurvey says is a "true audiophile" platform designed from scratch with physically isolated sections within the chassis for each function.

Pages

X