I had been impressed by Micromega's Airstream, the WiFi-connected DAC ($1595), when Jason Serinus and I heard it at
Axpona at the beginning of March. But it was the French company's new owner, Didier Hamid, who caught showgoers' attention with the Airstream at SSI. Holding his MacBook Pro in his hand and playing songs from iTunes, Hamid dramatically demonstrated the benefits of doing away with wires. (The rest of the system included
Focal 1038Be speakers driven by Micromega amplification; control of volume was provided by the iTunes level control on the laptop.)
The Airstream incorporates the guts of an
Apple Airport Express to provide self-configuring WiFi set-up and feed digital data to its D/A and analog sections. The Airstream is thus currently limited to Red Book resolution and sample rate, but as a no-fuss, no-muss entry into computer audio, I am sure it will sell like
gâteaux chauds.
