CES 2015

However, I was rather touched by the banner promoting the stated aim of CES: "A Better Life, A Better World." It's hard to argue against this sentiment.

Thiel is back! Following a period of reorganization necessitated by the death of Jim Thiel, the "new Thiel," while varying in specifics, promises to respect Jim Thiel's sonic ideals while developing speakers for both two channel and multichannel.

Sandy Gross and his charming daughter, Wendy, who was at CES helping dad out.

For years, I have greeted Rogue's Mark O'Brien with the question, "Anything new in digital?" fully knowing that Rogue Audio is committed to vacuum tube-based analog. This time I asked "Anything new that is not digital?" and Mark beamed. Finally, I had asked the right question...

One of the trends in amplification this year is the large number of stereo integrated amplifiers with digital inputs. Among these, the Parasound Halo Integrated stands out for its impressive feature set.

Magnepan demonstrated their new .7 speaker with the Conrad-Johnson MF2275 ($3850).

Synergistic Research has just introduced four levels of its new, hand-fabricated Atmosphere interconnects ($695–$2500 for a 1m/pair, depending upon level) and Atmosphere speaker cables (approx. twice the price). Non-active, which means that they don't need to be connected to an external power supply, albeit actively grounded, the cables come complete with blue and red tuning bullets specifically designed for this new "passive" cable line.