TAS Editors & Reviewers Pick "The Most Significant New Product at CES '09"
What was “the most significant” new product at CES 2009? Our TAS Editors and Reviewers weigh in with their opinions. For full audio coverage of CES 2009, see the upcoming issue of "The Absolute Sound."
ROBERT HARLEY: The Magico M5 loudspeaker might just redefine the performance possibilities of dynamic loudspeakers. A stunning achievement, at least from a first listen.
JONATHAN VALIN: The Magico M5, with the Wilson MAXX Series 3, the Vandersteen Model 7, the Perfect8 Technologies The Source,and the Da Vinci Virtù tieing for second place.
NEIL GADER: The avalanche of USB DACs cascading into the marketplace.
JIM HANNON: The SME 30/12, with its extended chassis and new 12” Series V tonearm, could raise the bar in the high-end turntable sweepstakes if it produces performance gains similar to those of the SME 20/12.
CHRIS MARTENS: Sennheiser’s new flagship HD800 headphones, which combine some of the very best qualities of great dynamic and electrostatic ’phones from the past. Nothing I heard at CES conveyed more musical information/dollar.
ALAN TAFFEL: The Vandersteen Model 7. Vaulting Vandersteen into an entirely new league, the speaker sets new standards for coherence and low-level detail retrieval. It’s priced fairly and sized for real rooms, too.
STEVEN STONE: While many new offerings, including PS Audio’s Perfect Wave Transport and DAC, were important, the Olive Opus Nº 6 grabbed high honors due to its elegant interface and impressive audio capabilities.
DICK OLSHER: TAD Home Audio’s CR-1 compact monitor. Beryllium cone technology and coaxial driver topology combine for exceptional transient speed and coherency. A sonic revelation!
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Comments
You guys have been doing this too long, lots of esoteric stuff that almost no one is interested in.
RU that bored?
I'm curious - what do YOU consider important?
What doesn't bore you?
Steven Stone
Contributor to The Absolute Sound, EnjoytheMusic.com, Vintage Guitar Magazine, and other fine publications
> ROBERT HARLEY: The Magico M5 loudspeaker might just redefine the performance possibilities of dynamic loudspeakers. A stunning achievement, at least from a first listen.
Wait till you get to the M6, and then you may rethink your position on other $150K speakers you have been raving about, although I have a feeling the M5 is good enough to blow those others out of the water... Wish I could afford a pair of M5s or M6s.
Are Vandersteen speakers, Sennheiser headphones, USB DACs, Olive music servers, and Wilson speakers esoteric and boring in your view?
on the contrary, the problem i have is that i don't think you guys have the time or ability to go into all the rooms so this data is based on the limited amount of stuff your team has actually heard. it's unfortunate that only the tried and true, or the ones with buzz (magico) get the time put in. and then there's the issue of sheep knowing what's safe to say is liked and what's safe to allow one's ears to truly hear.
there were lots of $20k and up speakers that sounded fantastic from new brands that are not getting the love. for example, the loiminchays, both with compression driver, and diamond tweeter, were fantastic, the all metal speakers from korea blew my mind ($50k a believe), the new mbls, and many more.
did you see the digital do main b1a from japan, who built their own transistors to replicate the static induction transistor used in the yamaha b1? triode liquidity with power of solid state? OTL.
where's all the good stuff?
David,
You might want to wait until all the show reports are printed before you assume that we didn't listen to (and highly approve of) some of the products you've mentioned (and some you haven't) or to call any of us "sheep." That said, I missed the Loiminchays, damn it.
Jon
peace my brother. also, the new spiral groove tonearm is looking sweet. the mothership new gamut top of the line amp, the charios were fantastic, the my sonic lab hyper eminent, harbeths with msb, synergistic research tuning bowls, ear with marten design, new speakers with feastrex driver (most dynamic single driver i've ever heard with good dispersion).
btw, the diamond/ceramic loiminchays sounded better than the diamond avalons or bmw 802ds. and the one with the TAD 2' beryillium driver was even better than that one! i think i'm buying a pair.
David,
I thought the Spiral Groove 'table sounded swell, too.
Jon
I'd kill, well maybe not, to hear a shoot out between the Airtight PC-1 Supreme and it's brother the MY Sonic Labs Ultra Eminent BC. About the same price, same designer/manufacturer, if I'm not mistaken practically identical specs. JV, want to take this one on? Obviously, I'm a fan of Matsudaira-san's accomplishments and keen to find out how different his creations for Airtight are from what he makes under his own name. My experience from Koetsu cartridges is that the body makes for some interesting sonic differences. I can't help but wonder if that would be the case here as well. I'm assuming however that the innards are identical, an assumption that may be TOTALLY wrong.
I'd also love to see a comparo of the Dynavector XV-1s and the model that supplants it as Dynavector's top dog, the XV-1t. That would likewise be cool.
M.D.
analog junkie, Raven AC-3, dual Graham B-44s, certified cartridge hound
i'm with m.d. - seems like the wizard has come out of the closet with his own design instead of going under air tight moniker. i believe harry pearson is working on a review. but shoot out sounds more fun! : )
btw, jon, i bought the spiral groove! immedia's office is just a few blocks away from mine....
Cool, David!
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I think the The Magico M5 , Wilson MAXX Series 3 was the most advacnced and best sound output product of 0'9 . The sound wave out that speakers were sick , it is just totally outragious , hair rasing and amazing .