CES 2007

Music Hall's new $999 Trio CD receiver puts a CD player, tuner, and integrated amp together. What makes it different? Tubes, for one thing—you get 50Wpc of tubey goodness. Just add speakers and cook!

Here's the part that goes on your iPod to communicate with the base unit.

Here is the receiver or a place to put a second iPod.

We caught up with Ultimate Ears' Mike Diaz at the Taqueria. "Check this out," he said, plunking a pair of earbuds in front of us with his iPod Mini. We cued up The Carpenters' "Close to You" and inserted the 'phones.

"I have a theory," I said to Jon Iverson. "There are two types of rooms at CES: The ones that make you want to sit down and listen forever and the ones that make you want to cover your ears and run into the halls screaming. This room," I said, encompassing Naim's $85,000 system with my sweeping arm, "is one of the former."

"What's new?" We'd just walked into the Channel Islands Audio room and spotted Dusty Vawter.

"Well, there's another new development—sort of," Channel Island Audio's Dusty Vawter said. "We've upgraded our $599 VDP-1 by essentially removing the entire circuit board and replacing it with a better circuit."