A Compact but Potent Subwoofer from Thiel
Mark Mason, Vice President, Engineering of Thiel Audio, presented the new Thiel Subwoofer, with a suggested retail of $3000.
A Family Affair
Sandy Gross and his charming daughter, Wendy, who was at CES helping dad out.
A Noble Sound from MBL
Jon Iverson already reported on MBL’s new Noble Line N31 DAC/CD player, and for me, one of the best sounds at the 2015 CES was listening to MBL’s system, based on this digital source feeding signal to the preamp section of the MBL N51 stereo integrated amplifier, with the amplifier section of the integrated and a N21 stereo amplifier (which have the same gain) to bi-amp the unique MBL 101E Mk.II omnidirectional speakers.
A Show Epiphany: the TAD Compact Evolution 1
TAD's chief engineer, Andrew Jones, always cheerful and happy, took great pleasure in introducing his newest design, the TAD CE1 Compact Evolution One, a contemporary styled bookshelf loudspeaker. This product produced my once-a-show epiphany for good sound.
Absolare: Absolutely Beautiful
Possibly, the most beautiful design I saw CES was the new Absolare Passion 845 push-pull amplifier ($40,000/pair) and they were handily driving a pair of Rockport Avior speakers. As with the earlier Passion 845 single-ended amp, the push-pull amp sports a pair of glowing 845 power tubes but by adding a pair of EL-34 drivers after the input 12AT7, Absolare is able to increase the output palpably from 45W to 85W of zero-feedback power while remaining substantially in class-A operating mode.
Accuphase DC-37 MDSD Digital Processor
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.
Acoustic Zen's Maestro
The huge $43,000/pair Acoustic Zen Maestro loudspeaker is an imposing 225 lb, 67"-tall, 4-way, floorstanding transmission-line speaker system that physically dominated its seemingly tiny-by-comparison exhibit room.
Aesthetix Metis
At Musical Surroundings, the Metis line-stage preamp from Aesthetix, first seen at the 2014 RMAF, was running the big demo system. This new 4-tube preamp replaces the multi-chassis Callisto at about $25,000.
All There Is: Dynaudio’s Focus 600 XD loudspeaker
Dynaudio's Mike Manousselis welcomed me to the Danish speaker manufacturer's exhibit suite and introduced both the company's founder, Wilfried Ehrenholz (above left) and their new $13,500/pair Focus 600 XD, active loudspeaker (above right) to me. "All There Is" reads Dynaudio's slogan for the new speaker, as it can be connected directly to a network, wired or wireless, to play music.
Antelope Audio Rubicon DAC/Streamer Updated
As we've noted in the past, the Rubicon has a rich feature set and price to match: $40k. And now the product has been updated to include support for DSD 128 and 24/384 streaming via USB.