CES 2005 - Part 2, page 5
by Dave and Carol Clark

Star Sound Technologies room with Harmonic Precision Caravel speakers and HP 110 V1 mono block amplifiers ($8000/pr with platform), and dCS sources. Always good sound here, plus the speakers are now ready for full production.

Star Sound Harmonic Precision Caravel speakers ($5000/pr with stands).

Vivaldi Speakers ($8500) shown with VPI table, Prana wire, Exemplar Audio preamplifier.

Nucore showed new speakers with damped inductors. The larger speakers ($2500) and the smaller ones ($1800). Interesting, damped inductors. Nice guys!

DeHavilland showed with the Nola Viper II speakers ($9000), the Mercury Line stage preamplifier ($3495), the Aries GM 70 mono block amplifiers ($9495), Prana wire, and World Power conditioner. Good music could be heard here, just like the year before.

DeHavilland Mercury Line Stage preamplifier.

Francis King FAA Sund Technologies with the Montreal Series LS1 ($4600).

Walter Swanbon from Fidelis with the Harbeth prototype floor-standing model (under $10,000).

Naim products in the Harbeth room.

The Harbeth Super HL5 ($3995).

Yoshi (47 Labs) with the new Hotei speakers ($12,000) which sounded quite promising.

47 Labs Pitracer CD player.

Audia Evolution E1 speakers ($8000) with ribbon tweeter and active crossover shown with the MSB Platinum Reference CD station and Parasound amplification. Nice guys and good sound from a new company too.

The Gilmore Model 2 speakers and their own Raptor mono block amplifiers.

Gilmore Audio Blackbird preamplifier and MSB Platinum Reference CD station. Unfortunately neither machine could read our CD. Too bad as we wanted to hear the bigger Gilmore speakers.

VAC Phi Beta integrated amp ($19,000) shown with Scientific Fidelity Style-Lust speakers. Now this sounded really, really good. Too bad that the speakers were still curing from the finish as the room and hallway had that "Gee, I am not so sure I should be breathing this" sort of odor. Poor Kevin Hayes of VAC was stuck there for the whole show.

Empirical Audio demonstrated a Perpetual Tech DAC P3a and a Mark Levinson preamplifier with and without mods. They were also showing their Off-ramp interface and a Sony DVPS 770 modded and unmodded. Fun to go back and forth and hear what the modded stuff can do over the stock—not even close. Way to go Steve!

Steve Nugent Empirical Audio. A nice guy.

Blue Note Audio Villa Sibbert II CD player ($4950) with integral clamping stand thing. Let me out!

Blue Note Audio Villa Bellagio ($8525).

Blue Note Audio Villa Reale speakers ($6900).

Fanfare re-introduced Chario back into the US market with the Ursa Major speakers ($8000 pr) and the  Lector CD player and ASR amplifiers. Nice...

Episode Audio, Episode 1 speakers ($2500). Now these are definitely something different! They sounded quite promising too.

David Crawford and Ira Pazanadeh Episode Audio.

Tyler Acoustics Woodmere speakers ($16,000 list or $12,000 direct) with the Jolida amplifiers and JC700 CD player. Ty's a good guy with that real southern charm and hospitality.

Jolida Music Envoy amplifier. A serious amplifier.

Loricraft turntable, or is that a Garrad? Well it is sort of both. The final re-birth of sorts of the classic.

The direct drive table drive mechanism.

Loricraft table underbelly.

Cabasse Baltic II speakers and Saturn 55 sub.

Art Audio feeding the Cabasse. Art Audio was in a lot of rooms... good stuff from a good guy... hey Joe!

Audience used Radio Shack speakers that were upgraded with the Auricap capacitor which made really nice music.

The Adept Response High Resolution Power Conditioner. Very cool. We have one in for review... bye till next year!

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