CEDIA 2007

Continuing with European speakers, on static exhibit at the Klipsch Group complex was one of the most cleanly and beautifully simple speaker designs I've seen in a while. It was Jamo's S60, the largest in a new "S" line that, so far, includes a tiny bookshelf, a small center channel, and a subwoofer. These looked like many European small designs, almost too small to be effective. But the graceful three-way S60 sports a dome tweeter, a vertically arrayed pair of 4" midrange units, and a side-firing 8" woofer. Everything fit and matched, and the materials and textures just screamed quality. I just had to find out the price. It's only $450/pair! For that money and their graceful appearance, this speaker is a bargain even unheard!

I got a chance to listen to a 5.1 setup of small HM series monitors ($1699 each) from Adam Professional Audio, the same speakers that the recording had been mixed on. Even amidst the hustle and bustle of the CEDIA floor, they made a good showing. Even more impressive were the new Tensor series, all of which use ART (Advanced Ribbon Technology, inspired by the old Oskar Heil ribbons) HF and MF drivers, along with active Hexacone woofers in substantial cabinets. The larger Beta and Alpha models have additional cone midrange drivers. All are also available in fully active versions and the line runs from $8199 for a semi-active Gamma to $24,999 for a fully active Alpha. Klaus Heinz proudly explained his design philosophies, but the show floor was no place to really appreciate the speakers' performance. These look really promising.

There was a lot to see in the Lenbrook Group rooms and I was pleased to see that the anticipated T-175 multichannel pre-pro was ready for prime-time. However, the unit that caught my eye was a little stereo unit, the T-715. This trim, $499 beauty has a 25Wpc amp, a CD player, an AM-FM tuner, and a subwoofer output in addition to the usual audio line-level inputs and outputs and headphone jack. It also sports a USB input for playback of MP3s or of anything streaming off the Internet. It's just about the size of a shoebox. Add a pair of small speakers, like PSB's $279/pair Alpha">http://www.stereophile.com/standloudspeakers/507psb/">Alpha B1s, and you have an ideal and compact second system.

Wilson's flagship speaker has gotten a make-over, including a new midrange driver that, the company claims, has even "greater clarity, tonal density, and truthfulness" than the original.

Naim's long time a-borning $4750 Supernait is finally here. The Supernait's 80Wpc amplifier section is based upon that of Naim's NAP200, giving it 400VA output transient capability.

Linn was showing its new reference standard digital player, the Klimax DS, which it is dubbing "the first authentic hi-fi product to stream digital music over a standard home network." Not impressed? How about this: it is capable of utilizing Linn's 24/96 downloads and, according to Rikke Ravnborg, director of marketing, is sonically superior to Linn's long-term digital reference, the CD-12.

MIT's Bruce Brisson was determined to shrink his Multipole technology so that his patented networks did not requite bulky boxes near their cables' termination. Naturally, he thought surface-mount components were the way to go. That was until he began measuring them and discovered that SM components were variable and many didn't measure well.