CES Show Report

Saturday

  Audio Note had their spankin' new M9 preamplifier ($69,500) with an amazing, staggering, mind boggling amount of silver transformers and, of course, tubes. Naturally it employs an outboard tubed power supply and virtually all stages within the unit are transformer coupled. Adding a unique twist is in that the RIAA correction is being achieved via transformer.

 

Herron Audio proudly showcased their new VTSP-2 ($4,995) that uses a six-pack of 6922 dual triodes for amplification and provides a six-pack of inputs (including the tape loop). Both balance and phase can be adjusted.

 

Ok, all you turntable junkies can no wipe the drool off your keyboard. Basis Audio's new Work Of Art ($60,000 including stand) is an all out assault on functional design and beauty. Solid billet aluminum and acrylic are mated with hydraulically damped suspension springs to reduce resonances. Ok, one more photo and we'll call it audio erotica :)

 

 

Nola had their Pegasus ($45,000) 5.5-way, 100 percent Alnico magnet driver loudspeaker with 11 drivers per channel, ball bearing suspension for the upper and lower cabinets, external passive crossover, it cleans the house, does the dishes, mops the floor... but does not clean windows (XP or otherwise ;) ).

 

Deja Vu featured their DVK monoblock 300B push-pull 'Class A' amplifiers ($12,000, or $9,000 for a single chassis stereo unit). These units can be customized with various super tweako parts like Audio Note's handmade silver foil signal capacitor jobbies.

 

Soundstrings is ready to take on the audiophile world with interconnects, loudspeaker cable, and power cables. Various gauges of wire are employed to achieve the best balance of sound. Their RCA has a unique banana-like center piece to insure connection quality.