CES 2008: Alan Taffel Takes a Look at Next-Gen Audio from CES
January 23rd, 2008 — By Alan TaffelDACs Are Back
Virtually all music servers contain built in DACs, but they also sport a variety of digital outputs. To take best advantage of those pristine, high-grade digital streams, the once moribund field of separate DACs has gained new life. Most of the new units offer not only SPDIF but also USB inputs, and support today’s high bit-rates. Among the promising new models were Bryston’s BDA-1 ($1995, 2Q) and the tubed Cayin DAC1 ($799).
Goldmund is adding a USB input to its complete line of digital preamplifiers, which range in price from $5700 for the 10-channel Metis preamp to, well, a whole lot for more powerful units. In each case, Goldmund has gone to great lengths–from re-clocking and re-building the entire digital stream to fabricating its own proprietary USB chipset–to avoid the timing problems and digital noise it believes are inherent in standard PC interfaces. (My own preliminary testing of USB interfaces confirms Goldmund’s concerns.)
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While I heartily applaud just about all of your observations (especially the recognition that REAL High Definition audio has finally arrived and can be downloaded at iTrax.com), I would like to point out that multichannel audio is not dead at all. It’s true that there was very little surround being demonstrated at the Venetian this year…but I believe the reason is the lack of adequate space to pull of a great demo and the limited view of most manufacturers.
The future is high definition, surround audio playing back from a music server. It will take time and the tipping point is still some years away, but those that have heard great recordings in 5.1 surround wonder know it’s coming.
AIX Records has been creating true HD Audio in stereo and surround for 8 years (almost 58 recordings many with HD Video) and is glad that optical discs are diminishing in importance. We still produce and release DVD-Audio titles for those that appreciate the benefits of HD PCM encoding…but now those that are properly equipped can download HD into dedicated music servers. The show was a hint of things to come.
The most important technological innovation in the area of music servers was not being shown to the public but was tucked away in a suite at the Belaggio. The future is coming but I have to hold my thoughts until April or May.
Comment by Mark Waldrep January 26th, 2008 @ 8:33 pm