CES 2015

In addition to the Steinway Lyngdorf components which are designed to work as a system, Lyngdorf showed components which can integrate with other brands. Included were the SDA-2400 power amp (400Wpc, $2400) and the TDAI-2170 stereo digital integrated amplifier (170Wpc, $4000).

I visited the Kevro room to get another listen to the Monitor Audio Silver 8 speakers that I reviewed in January. However, I found that Kevro was bringing Cyrus electronics back to the US. The offerings were all in the tidy and familiar half-shoebox format that permits Cyrus devices to stack so neatly.

The Sound Organisation's Barnaby Fry (left), David Carr (center), and Sally Goff (right) had ever reason to smile as they showed off a rack claimed to offer the fastest, quietest, and most dynamic and spacious presentation of all Quadraspire racks.

Transparent Audio's new Gen 5 (Generation 5) family of cabling supersedes their MM2 line. With resonance control and network technologies derived directly from their year-old flagship, fittingly called Magnum Opus, Gen 5 includes new cable, new networks, and new network enclosures.

Transparent also introduced the colorful, entry-level Hardwired brand, which is designed to satisfy the wants of newcomers to the fold.

Scot Markwell of Elite AV Distribution proudly displayed Furutech's top-of-the-line Nanoflux power cable ($4395/1.8m, almost 6 feet). The cable's wire is coated with Nanofluid, microscopic gold and silver suspended in squalene oil that fills in tiny gaps between wire crystals to improve performance.

Larry Smith (left) and David Salz (right) of Wireworld have every reason to smile. Not only have they entered the headphone cable market with four levels of Nano cables for headphones and portables, and stand prepared to market a Starlight CAT7a media network cable ($TBD) that claims higher transmission speeds for streamed music and video, but they've also come out on top in a recently published cable listening comparison test.