Consumer Electronics Show 2004

Friday Page 2

  The new Avantgarde Super Duo hornspeakers are the standard Duos with the four bass driver subwoofer module ($32,000). This adds 9dB more sensitivity so the bass drivers only need to more a fourth of the amount as the sans extra subs need.

 

SpJ Alba turntable with Lyla tonearm ($15,900) is big and heavy according to George Cardas. The long tonearm is said to be functionally their best design, though the performance is excellence.

 

As covered within my recent editorial in the Enjoy the Music.com Review Magazine, high-end audio should not ignore the computer folks. And on that note Wavelength Audio had their amazing new Cosecant ($3,500) digital decoder that takes advantage of USB's bidirectional nature to make communications error free using ACK or NAK. Since this is a 16 bit product non-up/oversampling and without filter the DAC will work only at 16 and 32, 44.1 and 48 kHz. Advantages of using the Cosecant are better disk reading because it is error free, hard disk use of any software and or hardware platform, and of course streaming internet audio.

 

Sophia Electric's SET Princes 845 monoblock ($7,995 per pair) has a Litz wired output transformer that is fed by four direct heated tubes, in turn fed by a quartet of tube rectification. This unit produces 24 watts in "Class A" with zero feedback.

 

Teres turntable with Morsiani tonearm. If you have to ask about this turntable, you have been waaaaaay out of the loop.

 

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