CES 2008: Robert Harley tackles Disc Players, Transports, and DACs at CES
January 23rd, 2008 — By Robert HarleyRobert Harley’s Best of Show
Best Sound: I hate to be in a rut, but I didn’t hear anything better than the Magico V3 loudspeaker fed with Reference Recordings HRx 176.4kHz/24-bit source. The MIT Oracle MA interconnects and cables (my reference), Pacific Microsonics Model Two decoder, along with top-of-the-line Boulder electronics, didn’t hurt. Other great sounds included the Meridian 800.2/DSP7200 system described here [Charlie, please link to the Robert Harley “Meridian Audio’s 800.2 CD/DVD-A Player� section], TAD Reference One and Compact One loudspeakers, and Vienna Acoustics’ new flagship speaker called The Music.
Greatest Bargain: This is a bit premature, but the prototype of a $1500-per-pair loudspeaker Paul Barton (of PSB Speakers) showed me could redefine what’s possible in sub-$2k loudspeakers. The still-unnamed product employs a radically different cabinet-construction method that could revolutionize the industry.
Most Surprising Discovery: The show’s biggest surprise was the huge, transparent, extremely dynamic, and tonally pure sound that emerged from the tiny Meridian F80 portable audio system. This tabletop package sounded like a full-scale, high-quality hi-fi–an amazing achievement.
Most Important Trend: Music servers, iPod integration, and hard-disk storage are poised to revolutionize how we access music. Traditional high-end companies are starting to bring their technical expertise and musical sensitivity to the party–it’s going to be an interesting 2008.
Most Significant New Product: The PS Audio Memory Transport. This ingenious device promises to deliver high-end sound quality, music-server convenience, massive storage capacity, and an outstanding user interface–all for the price of a good CD player.
Greatest Technological Breakthrough: Meridian Audio’s new digital filter in its 800.2 CD player avoids some problems of all previous filters. CDs played through the 800.2 and the new DSP7200 active DSP loudspeaker sounded like high-resolution recordings.
The CD format just might get a new lease on life.
808i version 2 is the best heart you can possible get in your stereo system. It plays all with ease and the preamp and converters in this machine are almost over everything anything else. I have put my blue ray player, turntable and TV in it, and it sounds terrific. Best buy, and thats it! A beautiful machine. Now i play the turntable. I had my doubts about this one because of the ADA converting, but don´t worry, this is a peace of cake for this machine. I have a time a go DAC 64. This is better on all parameters.
Comment by Nils March 19th, 2008 @ 3:29 amThanks to Robert and Allen.
Kind regards from Nils, owner of 808i.2
Great report and follow up comment. I have the 808i.2 on order to use with my DSP5200s and can’t wait.
My question is what improvement the new CAT5 link is over the current Meridian communication system?
Comment by Steve June 8th, 2008 @ 7:56 am