CES 2013

Fresh from Primare, the Swedish company whose name, correctly pronounced “prime air,” derives from the fact that audio moves air, were two new prototypes with unfinished faceplates: the PRE60 preamp/DAC ($10,000 target price) and A60 stereo power amplifier ($10,000 target price). Both are expected to ship by summer.

In the main system, the M6 DAC was holding court. Also Bluetooth capable, the M6 DAC runs USB, SPDIF and AES/EBU up to 24/192. All inputs are re-clocked and upsampled to 24/192 for processing and filtering. The filter has two user selectable settings and there are both balanced and unbalanced outputs. Retail price is $3,000 and the M6 DAC is available now.

This time John Quick decided we'd listen to an HD sample and cued up War's "The World is a Ghetto" from HDTracks.com to stunning effect.

Manhattan retailer/distributor Audio Arts was showing the Zellaton Grand loudspeaker ($39,750/pair). This combines a tweeter and two 7" mid-woofers using aluminum foil-faced rigid-foam diaphragms first developed in 1935 by Emil Podszus—which I had first seen and heard in the Pawel Ensemble minimonitors from 20 years ago—with a downward-firing woofer in a cabinet that is open to the rear.

Priced at $3,250 and available now, the compact and sturdy DAC 8 features 4 coax SPDIF inputs, BNC, AES/EBU and USB all capable of handling 24/192 data. Both balanced and unbalanced outputs are available along with a small remote that can control input selection and volume.

T+A employs aggressive jitter management, multiple filter options, and runs eight 32 bit Burr Brown converters. All analog stages are fully discrete and I'm going to guess it sounds pretty good too.

One of the highlights of CES this year was a chance to hang out with T+A's CEO Siegfried Amft and Manager of R&D Lothar Wiemann, only to discover they were both huge prog rock fans. No wonder I like their stuff.

And speaking of progress, T+A pulled out all the stops for their impressive new network and CD player, the MP 3000 HV, companion to the PA 3000 HV integrated amp. Retailing for $12,500 (though the first two months production run is already sold out) the MP 3000 HV includes the FD 100 bi-directional remote (with color screen), a CD transport, UPnP and DLNA compatible streaming client, internet radio, FM Tuner, and DAC.

There are plenty of digital inputs (8), with SPDIF Coax running to 24/192 and USB at 32/192, and several user-selectable upsampling and filter options. Beautifully built as well.

The new Octave V110 push-pull pentode integrated amplifier ($8300) from Germany, distributed by Dynaudio, is a KT120-based product whose protection circuit is described as “bullet proof.” To demonstrate what that means, speaker wire terminations on one of the channels were intentionally crossed; not only did nothing blow, but the left channel, which was properly connected to a loudspeaker, continued to play. The Octave V110 is thus the perfect amp for folks who use battery cables to jump-start their cars, and then celebrate by clapping both clamps together.

Small and definitely cute, the new Chord DAC has SPDIF and USB inputs and unbalanced analog outputs. Priced at $1,795 and available now, the QuteHD also handles DSD files and can process streams up to 384kHz. Michael Lavorgna gets into the details in his recent review, but worth noting is that it features a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) to handle the digital to analog conversion process and to automate input selection.