LATEST ADDITIONS

CES 2015

DH Labs' New Babies

Jason Victor Serinus Jan 14, 2015

Incorporating noise-cancelling geometries, DH Labs' forthcoming flagship Corona power cord (approx. $850/1.5m) is triple-shielded. The company's Greg Hovsepian notes that the cord, which makes "proprietary use of 1386 individual strands of silver-coated copper, is manufactured in the US.

CES 2015

Wilson Revisits the WAMM

Jason Victor Serinus Jan 13, 2015

In two small, private presentations in the Mirage, Dave Wilson joined several other indispensible members of his teamhis son Daryl and wife Sheryl Lee, as well as Peter McGrath and John Giolasto present a jaw-dropping mock up of the proposed, superhumanly proportioned successor to the original WAMM.

CES 2015

Astell&Kern AK500N Music Server

Jon Iverson Jan 13, 2015

Astell&Kern calls their new server an "MQS Network Audio Player", where MQS stands for "Master Quality Sound". WIth all the talk at the show about Meridian's new MQA technology, at first I confused it for "Master Quality Authenticated" and did a double take. Nonetheless, A&K's new product is quite a stunner as presented both on a stand with amplifier and as shown here, on a table top by itself.

CES 2015

Wadia di122 DAC/Headphone Amp

Jon Iverson Jan 13, 2015

I've always enjoyed Wadia's industrial design and the di122 is no exception with their new Series 1 compact casework. Meant to stack with other components in the line, the di122 is a straightforward DAC design with two SPDIF and two optical plus USB inputs on the back along with both balanced and unbalanced audio outputs.

CES 2015

MOON by Simaudio Celebrates 35 Years!

Jon Iverson Jan 13, 2015

Here's Simaudio's Lionel Goodfield hanging out in the company's '80s room with period correct speakers, amp, turntable and Aiwa 990 cassette deck (hidden behind his left arm). Behind him on the poster is the company's first product from 1980, the PW2000 and on the table, his hand rests on the Sima PW3000 which retailed for $825 back in the day.

CES 2015

MOON by Simaudio Neo 280D DAC/Optional Network Player

Jon Iverson Jan 13, 2015

New in Simaudio's room was the 208D which comes as a basic DAC for $2,200 and also a version with added network player for $3k. The 280D handles both PCM up to 32/384 and DSD up to DSD256 via USB. The analog stage is a fully balanced differential circuit which Simaudio claims increases dynamic range, headroom and signal to noise.

CES 2015

Melco N1A and N1Z Music Server

Jon Iverson Jan 13, 2015

A new brand to me, it turns out that Melco is a division of Buffalo, the japanese computer memory company. Melco had two products on display: the N1Z server with two 512GB SSDs and dual power supplies for around $9k and the N1A with two 2TB hard drives and single power supply for approx $3k.

Other features include full networking capabilities, quick start up and shut down (5-15 seconds), DSD support and multiple USB 3 ports for back up and expansion.

CES 2015

Burmester 151 Musiccenter Music Server

Jon Iverson Jan 13, 2015

Burmester's Ref Line Musiccenter 111 now has a little brother that dumps the big screen on the front panel for a more low profile and less expensive version at half the price: $25k.

Inside are two 2TB SSDs in a RAID 1 configuration, plenty of networking options and web and iPad control. On the front is a slot for ripping or playing CDs and the internals handle anything PCM up to 24/192. Available now.

CES 2015

Accuphase DC-37 MDSD Digital Processor

Jon Iverson Jan 13, 2015

In a repeat of last year's CES, Accuphase again showed up without their latest digital product actually in the room. So company representative Kohei Nishigawa was a good sport and again held up the photo of the soon to be released DC-37.

CES 2015

NAD M12 Preamp/DAC

Jon Iverson Jan 13, 2015

Sorry I don't have a better photo of this handsome component, which is at the top of the stack. Available now for $3,500, the M12 handles up to 24/192 PCM via USB as well as several card slots on the back for further options. One of those options is a $450 network card that enables the BluOS, aptX Bluetooth, WiFi and Ethernet. Control is via the Bluesound app which looked very nicely done. I hope to play with the M12 a bit more and see what it can do.