When WAVAC’s North American distributor, Covenant Audio Consulting, chose to stage the world debut of WAVAC’s eye-catching, directly heated single-ended triode HE-833v2 150W monoblock amplifiers ($79,900/presumably for the pair) with the massive SoundLab Majestic 845PX electrostatic loudspeakers ($35,000/pair), no one expected that high frequencies would project mostly from the top of the speaker, above the heads of seated listeners. Thus it was only when I stood that I was able to appreciate both the beautiful top and fine midrange transmitted by the HE-833v2s in conjunction with WAVAC’s PR-T1 transformer-coupled, three-chassis preamp ($30,900) and AC02 power conditioner ($22,900). Next time, I’ll bring my elevator shoes.
Yes, those are moving-coil woofers. From Martin-Logan, the electrostatic company. ML’s new Motion Series speaker, to be priced at around $3000/pair when it is available in the late summer, is a big brother to the Motion 40 tower. The speaker uses the largest yet Folded Motion XT tweeter to come from MartinLogan, marrying it to a 6.5" midrange unit and a pair of 8" woofers. and although the company is still based in Kansas, its speakers are now made in Canada. Though it was demmed with Peachtree amplification, the speaker suffered from the suboptimal room acoustics.
The floorstanding Canalis loudspeakers in the Spiral Groove room, driven by Qualia digital source and amplification, were new to me, but were sounding clean, uncolored, and dynamic on the classic LP of Massenet’s Le Cid from Louis Fremaux and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, played on a Spiral Groove SG1.1 player fitted with an Ortofon Anna cartridge. Like all Canalis speakers, the new Amerigo ($10,000/pair) was designed by Joachim Gerhard (erstwhile designer of AudioPhysic and Sonics) and manufactured in the Bay Area by Spiral Groove, and should be available in March.
Back in January 2007, Bob Deutsch reviewed the single-driver Eclipse TD712z loudspeaker from Japanese manufacturer Fuijitsu Ten. He was impressed by what he heard from this idiosyncratic full-range speaker, but the brand never established a strong foothold in the US market. CES saw the reintroduction of Eclipse to North America, now distributed by On A Higher Note. A new version of the TD712z, the Mk.2, made its debut at the Venetian, along with the TD520W subwoofer. "Female voicesimply perfect!" I scrawled in my notepad, there always being special to the presentation when you dispense with a crossover.
When I interviewed Thiel’s new owner Bill Thomas (right in photo) at the 2013 CES, he was bullish about the company’s future. However, I felt that future was going to be dependent on whom Bill hired to head up the Kentucky company’s engineering team. At the 2014 CES, Bill introduced me to that person, Mark Mason (left), who had come to Thiel from PSB, where he had worked alongside veteran speaker engineer Paul Barton. Bill and Mark are flanking the new TT3 speaker, which is intended to replace the CS3.7 as the company’s flagship when it comes to market in the late summer. Bill feels that with Mark now leading the engineering, Thiel can be taken to a larger customer base.
VANA’s Kevin Wolff was showing off the new Liszt speaker, which is expected to sell for $15,000/pair when it becomes available at the end of the first quarter of 2014. This impressive sounding speaker has been in development for two years and combines a new version of VA’s distinctive flat coaxial HF/MF unit with three woofers operating below 150Hz, these mounted in different sub-enclosures and loaded with two vents.
Jason Serinus has already reported on the excellent sound being produced by Joseph Audio’s Pearl Mk.3 speakers ($31,500/pair), which were being shown in their new, white finish and were being driven by the new Bel Canto "Black" electronics. But of more interest to this reporter were two new models from Jeff Joseph, who is shown in my photo with a pair of the Prism standmounts ($3699/pair) and a single Profile floorstander ($6999/pair).
At the back of their suite, in a private room to the side, was a new prototype Player/DAC called the E31 which will feature 24/192 PCM capability, USB 1&2, SPDIF and AES/EBU digital inputs. Price and availability have not been set yet, but the player did have a beautiful round remote and a sensor on top that detects when someone approaches and then turns on the display.
Later in the year we'll see the new E41 DAC added to the line which should have the same basic specs at the E31 and also DSD.
Mola-Mola's Bruno Putzeys says that he wants to leapfrog the idea of incremental DAC design and create a product that puts us a decade down the road in one jump. To that end, he was showing off a prototype design that he has working, but not fit into a product yet. He adds that it should be ready in about a year.
Lumin had an entire row of new network players scheduled for release mid-year--all with prices still to be determined. Starting at the left, the S1 will be the flagship model and probably come in over $7k. The S1 handles DSD 64&128 and up to 24/192 PCM, includes four ESS Sabre 9018 DAC chips and also HDMI output.
Cary Audio is diving deep into streaming digital with their new DMS-500. There is a USB input on the front and two on the back for NAS drives or computer audio. There is also an eSATA port for direct connection, aptX Bluetooth for the phones in the room, SPDIF via coax and toslink.
I know this is a lousy picture but it doesn't matter because the important product in it, the new AURALiC Aries Music Streamer (second from the top) is a prototype and it is housed in an enclosure borrowed from the AURALiC Vega DAC (top of the stack) recently praised by JA in the February issue. The Aries ($999) is the link between the NAS where you store your music files and your USB DAC. It is the first implementation of AURALiC's Lightning streaming protocol, based on 802.11ac Gigabit WiFi and capable of gapless play of all current formats, in stereo, up to 32/384, DXD, and DSD128 as well as all common lossy and lossless formats. The Aires has built-in Internet radio and is compatible with all major platforms and many other streaming protocols, including UPnP and DLNA.
I was getting bored with my own opening question asking exhibitors do you have anything that's new for under $2000. For two days, I was getting either a gleeful "Yes!" or a slow "No but . . ." Mike Manousselis, Director of Marketing for Dynaudio USA, surprised me with a new answer: "Well, we have something that is not new but it's price is new and it is now under $2000."
Shown in Tom Norton’s photo are the Platinum versions of Dynaudio’s Confidence C2 floorstander ($15,000, left) and C1 stand-mount (middle)loudspeakers in the new Platinum trim, which I had seen and heard at 2013 shows. But I was more interested in the news that the Excite 12 loudspeaker, which has been a reference for Bob Reina since he reviewed it in March 2010, has been replaced by the Excite X14 ($1500/pair). My photo wasn’t usable, unfortunately, but I auditioned the X14s in a system comprising the Octave V40 SE 45Wpc, tube integrated amplifier ($5300), T+A DAC S8 ($3250), with Amarra running on a MacBook, Dynaudio Stand 3X stands ($350/pair), and in-akustik Reference interconnects and speaker cables, and was impressed by what I heard.