Jon Iverson

After a quick mid-morning breakfast with Graham Nash that included AudioStream.com's Michael Lavorgna, we headed up to the top floor of the Mirage hotel to start our day at Philip O'Hanlon's On a Higher Note suite.

Before we walked into the room, Nash gave me a serious look and explained "What I'm looking for is that the intent of my message, the impact of the song, is communicated intact. This is the first time I've heard these songs outside of the studio, so this should be very interesting. I'm looking forward to this."

Before starting in on the room reports, here is a little background on how we set things up.

We wanted the best possible sound, so I asked the record label, Blue Castle (formed by Graham Nash and David Crosby), if I could have an HD copy of Nash's new album This Path Tonight straight from the mastering studio. The album was mastered in 24/96 PCM by Bob Ludwig, and the label agreed to supply the first digital copy to be played in the wild on the condition that it never leave Graham's laptop where they would place it themselves. I agreed.

Merging has been long respected in the pro recording industry with mastering engineers such as Bruce Brown using the company's Horus network audio converters in his studio. They have also been instrumental with DSD recording technology, so not surprising when I saw the new NADAC in Philip O'Hanlon's On a Higher Note suite at the very top of the Mirage hotel, Philip being a big DSD proponent himself.

We'll be detailing all of the rooms that Graham Nash visited at CES in the next week, but before we get started, here's a small detour that took place about halfway through the day.

Germany's T+A introduced the DAC 8 analog to digital converter and preamp a couple years back as a compact and sportier version of its pricier siblings. New this year is the addition of a dedicated DSD processing section, new upgraded volume control and headphone amplifier.

The premise is simple: how would a seasoned musician react to the sound of their new album on a variety of audiophile systems at CES?

I tossed the idea to Graham Nash, and he agreed to participate in the experiment, more than a little curious about this thing called high-end audio. Graham is always full of energy and very articulate, so should provide some very interesting perspective for Stereophile readers.

Apogee Electronics Corp. has been in business for 30 years, and I've always thought of them as one of the pro-audio companies responsible for moving digital in the right direction. They've made their mark in recording studios around the planet with digital-audio interfaces and master clocks that have long been considered some of the most technically and sonically advanced, and that were probably used in a high percentage of the recordings in your collection. So when I saw Apogee pop up at the consumer end of the market with a technically unique product, budget-priced at $295, it got my attention.