CES 2010

I love wandering the halls and coming across a fully formed company that had up until now snuck under the radar in the US. Bladelius is such a brand, enjoying success all around the world and presently making a push into North America. President George Ioakimedes, who resides in the US, is at the show to sign up dealers and spread the word about the Swedish company.

I timed my arrival in Las Vegas for early afternoon on Wednesday, the day before the Consumer Electronics Show opened, so I'd have enough time to get from Stereophile staff's little of island of sanity in the smoke-free, gambling-free Hyatt Place Las Vegas to press registration at the mammoth Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC). The traffic was considerably lighter than during the show, the lines for registration much shorter than I would have encountered on opening day.

Nothing beats starting off four days of room-hopping at CES on a joyful. In this case, the delights were provided by Jeff Joseph of Joseph Audio.

Naim Audio's all-in-one NaimUniti (Art Dudley's review will be in the March issue) has officially spawned a little cutie, er, qute. Dubbed the UnitiQute, the new product includes most of the features of the Uniti, with a more modestly powered amp at 30W per channel into 8 ohms.

The highly acclaimed dCS Ring DAC featured in the pricier Scarlatti, Paganini and Puccini products, is now available in the new Debussy DAC, expected to come in around $10,000.

This is Rosemarie Torcivia. I just met her today. She works for Source Interlink Media, the parent company of Stereophile and Home Theater magazines. She gets to spend her days at CES in the Stereophile and Home Theater suite answering questions and being a knowledgeable and friendly face for the dealers, manufactures and readers who pop in to say hello. She was thrilled when I took her picture and told her she was going to be in the official Stereophile CES blog. I was thrilled when Rosemarie helped Jon Iverson and I get lunch today. I like Rosemarie and I bet you would too.

I had a great time listening to my own recordings in the Halcro room. Though the room lighting and the alien looking Vivid Audio G2 Giya speaker gave foreboding vibe in this photo, the sound was warm and detailed and the Halcro folks were really friendly. Featured in the Halcro system were the dm10 preamplifier($20,990) and the dm78 power amplifier ($41,990). The dm 10 is Halcro's top-of the line preamp and features its own phono stage. (It was reviewed in the April 2004 issue.) The dm78 is a mono amp that puts out 225W into 8 ohms and handled big dynamic swings in recordings of both Vivaldi and Eric Whitacre with ease and grace.