Luxman D-06u DAC/SACD/CD Player
In the back room, O'Hanlon was running a demo with the Luxman D-06a playing his show mix CD. The Luxman retails for $9,900 and employs a pair of BurrBrown PCM1792A chips in a dual-mono setup. The USB input on back accepts PCM up to 32/384 and DSD to 5.6MHz, while SPDIF and optical accepts up to 24/192 PCM. Both balanced and unbalanced analog audio and SPDIF and optical digital out on the back.
Lyngdorf
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).
Magnepan 0.7 loudspeaker
The main joy of returning to audio and writing for Stereophile is the pure fanboy excitement of meeting the folk-heroes of high-end and getting to talk them. In one great-sounding room I got to meet three at once: Wendell Diller of Magnepan (one of the nicest humans in the audio schema) as well as Bill Conrad and Lew Johnson of Conrad-Johnson.
Mark Levinson's New Monoblock
All the Harman boys were over at the Hard Rock Hotel rather than the official CES sites, but I was able to swing by on my way to the airport to see the new statement amp from Mark Levinson, the No.536.
MartinLogan’s Neolith
The $80,000/pair MartinLogan electrostatic hybrid, the Neolith, played with wonderful spatial imaging and translucent sound. The speaker's enclosure was painted in a glossy, thick automotive glass red paint called Rosso Fuoco, but is available in 6 other colors.
MBL Noble Line N31 DAC/CD Player
Black shiny products are tough to photograph at shows, so trust me when I say the new N31 is dripping with gorgeousness not reflected in this photo.
Priced at $18k and available this May, the N31 will process both 24/192 PCM and DSD sources (including iPods/iPads/iPhones). MBL's Juergen Reis showed me a screen shot of an iPhone playing a 24/192 file in the the USB 2 input of the N31, using iTunes USB storage feature.
McIntosh D150 Preamp/DAC
Though still sporting the classic Mac look, there is plenty of new tech packed into the D150. USB gets you up to 32/192 PCM as well as DSD 64/128 and DXD 352.8/384 and there are also two SPDIF and optical connections. There is a custom DIN connector for connecting a McIntosh CD/SACD transport such as the new $3,500 MCT450 (available in a couple months).
There's also a high quality headphone amp and Mac's "Advanced Quad Balanced" DAC section. Price is $3k.
McIntosh MB100 Server/Network Player
The MB100 was on display last CES, but did not start shipping until mid 2014 for $6k, so I'll include a quick recap here. There is a 1TB internal drive for music storage (up to 24/192 PCM) and networking for external drives. iOS or Android app or TV interface controls the MB100 and support for Spotify, Pandora, SiriusXM, Rhapsody and TuneIn is included.
Meet the Hi-Res Music Creators
For the second consecutive year, Hi-Res Audio made a major statement on the main floor of the Venetian Hotel via a large Ballroom exhibit and star-studded panels. I took in "Meet the Hi-Res Music Creators." Moderated by recording engineer Maureen Droney (pictured fourth, going left to right), Senior Executive Director of the Producers & Engineers wing of The Recording Academy (the Grammy people), the panel consisted of four major engineers who record multiple genres in hi-res.
Melco N1A and N1Z Music Server
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.