CES 2008

The Atohm Grand Thrill Series made its world premiere at CES 2008. Designer Thierry Comte is pictured here with the very handsome GT 1 bookshelf speaker which exhibited an almost uncanny ability to fill the room with deep, powerful bass. Highs were also impressive: crisp, clean, and fast. Overall, I felt the presentation was tightly focused and lively, without being overly sharp.

I met Hegel's Bent Holter at HE 2007, and I was instantly attracted to his combination of tech-talk and passion for music. Bent is at once serious and strangely wacky.

As usual, Totem did a wonderful job of transforming their booth to provide a fun and distinct listening environment. The company was also playing their Tribe wall-mount, which provided a surprisingly robust sound.

Totem was showing their special anniversary model, The One ($3595). Along with Naim electronics, the sound created was powerful, fast, and fun. We listened to "How I Love That Woman," a soaring instrumental by Bob Brozeman.

"Basically, what we're offering is some fun for a rainy Sunday afternoon," said Upscale Audio's Kevin Deal, who had two replacement I/V op-amp upgrades for the $2499 Prima Luna ProLogue Eight CD player. Both are ready to just pop in as replacements for the Eight's existing board. The Basic ("around" $150) has open slots for bypass capacitors and a heavy-duty PS. The Super ("around" $225) already has surface-mount caps and the HD PS installed.

Poor Kevin Halverson! Since Hesiod only named nine muses in Theogony, Kevin has had to double up as Muse's line of players has increased. The Erato II is available as a transport ($5300) or one-box CD/DVD/DVD-A player ("up to" $7300).