Epos and Creek
Roy Hall, the master of the "wee dram" (of single-malt Scotch) was demonstrating all this Creek wonderfulness with the Epos K3, three-way, floorstanding loudspeakers ($2395/pair) which, like the Creek gear that he distributes in the US, showcased beauty, charm, fine detail, and of course: a wee bit of drunken revelry.
Esoteric N-05 Network Player/DAC
Though there was scant information, here's a photo of the planned new network player from Esoteric, protected by a plastic box. I was told to ignore the back panel so don't know what connectivity is planned, and in another room, a rep suggested that this prototype is actually one of their products with a one-off front panel attached. Supposed to be here this summer when all gets sorted out.
Esoterique Esoteric
With my assignment high-priced amps, preamps, loudspeakers, and turntables, I started off by heading to the big rooms in the Venetian Tower. First up was the EsotericCabasse room, where Esoteric was showing the latest incarnations of its “2” series, the Tokyo-made C-02X stereo line-stage preamplifier and S-02 stereo amplifier ($20,000 each). In a classic case of “trickle-down engineering” (which actually works, while trickle down economics rarely does), the preamp uses the same dual-layer supercaps as in the Grandioso ($40,000). It’s a fully balanced design, with a separate volume control for each phase of each channel. The sound is claimed to be faster, lighter, and more highly resolved, with a “big open soundstage.”
GamuT's "No Compromise" Zodiac loudspeaker
GamuT designer Benno Baun Meldgaard, whose 41 years give the lie to those who suggest that the High End is populated solely by old fart engineers, joined Audio Skies distributor Michael Vamos (left in photo) for the press launch of GamuT's new "no-compromise" loudspeaker, the Zodiac ($139,000/pair). Featuring a cabinet composed of 27 layers of wood of different thicknesses, a new tweeter and companion drivers, and phase alignment between the crucial frequencies of 200 Hz15 kHz, the Zodiac comes with a massive spiked stand adjustable according to listening distance. It is designed to have the agility and speed of a stand-mount. Only 12 pairs will be built a year, which to my way of thinking makes the point-to-point wired speaker an instant collector's item, and each pair will be fine-tuned at the buyer's home by Meldgaard.
GoldenEar's New Sub
In a second GoldenEar room they had a Jefferson nickel standing on edge on top of the new "Super Sub X" bass speaker ($1249 each).
Good Stuff from Aesthetix
Aesthetix's Jim White (above right), along with the company's distributor, Garth Leerer of Musical Surroundings, showed off the new, Aesthetix Saturn Atlas Eclipse monoblock amplifier ($25,000/pair). An evolution of a product first launched 10 years ago, the Saturn Atlas Eclipse sports super-matched output devices that effectively lower noise by 40%.
Gorgeous Strings from VAC
Although the Valve Amplification Company (VAC) system at CES 2016 was virtually identical to the one I blogged at RMAF last October, save for the shrouded TV or mirror, there was a world of difference in the sound. VAC's Kevin Hayes attributed the improvement to a change in tubes in the VAC Phi 170 IQ master preamplifiers ($9900). While the tubes at the earlier show were Russian Gold Lion KT-88, here they were Chinese Shuguang KT-88SC. The sound on the Mahler 9 SACD I played at CES was very, very beautiful.
Graham Nash Finishes Up With Crystal Cable/Siltech and then Vandersteen Audio in the Venetian
The day was getting long at this point and we'd already listened to a couple hour's worth of music, but we wanted a little variety from the floor-standing speakers we had heard to far. So we popped into the Crystal Cable/Siltech room to hear This Path Tonight on a dimensionally smaller system.
Graham Nash Tries Out The Audeze EL-8 Headphones and Chord Mojo
We'll be detailing all of the rooms that Graham Nash visited at CES in the next week, but before we get started, here's a small detour that took place about halfway through the day.
Graham Nash Visits Ayre Acoustics in the Venetian
Graham Nash seemed to know right away that these were the guys that provided the guts for his buddy Neil Young's Pono player and wanted to know all about it. After all, there is a version with Nash's signature on it.