This year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas turned out some of the hottest new gear at all price points. Here’s your first-hand look at products that deserve top nods from Robert Harley, Jim Hannon, Jonathan Valin and other leading experts from The Absolute Sound.

From the Greatest Bargain in amps, disc players, turntables, tube gear, next-gen audio, high-end speakers and more, look no further than the links below.

Also check out which products won for Most Surprising Discovery and Great Technological breakthrough. See why Definitive Technology, Wadia, Quad, TAD, Precision, LAMM, and Magico received hefty applause at CES 2008.

For a complete report from the show, pick up the next issue of The Absolute Sound for detailed, thorough descriptions of all the products you see here.

Best of CES 2008:
Chris Martens
Paul Seydor
Neil Gader
Robert Harley
Alan Taffel
Dick Olsher
Jim Hannon
Jonathan Valin

Back to CES 2008

January 23 - From iPod and PC speakers to loudspeakers above $12,000, CES 2008 was an audio extravaganza. Here’s where you’ll find in-depth reports straight from the editors you count on at The Absolute Sound. Click below to read the reports and see which gear took the cake for Best of Show 2008.

Chris Martens on affordable loudspeakers
Paul Seydor on mid-priced loudspeakers
Neil Gader on solid-state amps, preamps, and integrated amps
Robert Harley on disc players, transports, and DACs
Alan Taffel on “next-gen” audio
Dick Olsher on tubed gear
Jim Hannon on turntables, arms, cartridges, and phonostages
Jonathan Valin on high-end loudspeakers

Check out our Best of Show from CES 2008

January 23 - Do you have any idea how many loudspeakers above $12,000 are shown at CES? I do. Practically every room on the 29th, 30th, 34th, and 35th floor of the Venetian hotel–which is to say, every room in the CES’s primary high-end-audio exhibition area–had a pair or two playing merrily away in the spots where minibars stocked with $4 cans of Coke and $15 nips of Scotch once stood.

Not to mention the half-dozen or so $12k+ speakers in the Venetian’s ground-floor Meeting Rooms or the scores off-site at the Mirage, the MGM Grand, the Alexis Park Hotel, the St Tropez Resort, etc. I did my best to cover the field, but, outside the Venetian proper, I failed miserably. My apologies to all those companies I missed. I tried–believe me. Check out the ones I did cover below.

Scaena, Merlin, Magico, Ambience, and Quad

Verity, Vivid Audio, Abbington, American Acoustic Development, Avalon Acoustics

Chario, Isophon, Silverline, McIntosh, Escalante

Kharma, Magico, King Sound, B&W, Art Deco

Nola, Revolver, Usher, Kharma, Siltech

Gersham, Von Schweikert, Manger, Cessaro, Venture

Acapella, Wilson Audio, Avalon, Dynaudio, Sound Lab 

TAD, Vienna Acoustics, MBL, German Physiks

Jonathan Valin’s Best of Show

Next: Scaena, Merlin, Magico, Ambience, and Quad