Premiere Design

Most of the products on display at CES are new to the world market, but there are a few exceptions. For example, the Sunray speaker from Germany's <A href="http://tidal-audio.com/english/startenglish.htm">Tidal Audio</A> has been available for several years, but not in the USA&#151;until now. North American distributor <A href="http://www.aaudioimports.com">Aaudio Imports</A> used CES 2010 as the venue to introduce the Sunray to the American audiophile community.

AC power has long been the bugaboo of high-end audio&#151;necessary to power the electronics, but prone to polluting the audio signal path with unwanted noise. American boutique manufacturer <A href="http://www.veloceaudio.us">Veloce Audio</A> has come up with a unique and elegant solution to this problem in its LS-1 vacuum-tube preamp&#151;put the power supply and audio electronics in completely separate boxes and run the electronics with a rechargeable battery.

Data compression is probably the single most important factor in the meteoric success of digital audio, especially when it comes to online downloads and portable players like the iPod. Lossy compression formats such as MP3 discard as much as 90 percent of the original data&#151;hence the term "lossy"&#151;so that music tracks can be quickly downloaded. In addition, such files require very little memory, allowing thousands of songs to be stored in a device no bigger than a matchbook.

<A href="http://www.naim-audio.com">Naim</A> is a name well known to audiophiles. This British high-end company makes virtually all types of audio products, from CD players and hard-disk servers to preamps, power amps, speakers, and everything in between (except cables). New to Naim's speaker lineup is the flagship Ovator S-600, which has taken three years to bring to market and features some innovative elements.

Glass isn't the first thing I would think of as an ideal material for speaker cabinets, but French manufacturer <A href="http://www.waterfallaudio.com">Waterfall Audio</A> disagrees. Its new flagship Niagara is a thing of crystalline beauty that boasts impressive specs.

Storing and accessing music on a computer has become commonplace, even for audiophiles, but getting that music to your audio system without sacrificing sound quality has always been a challenge. At CES, French high-end audio company <A href="http://en.micromega-hifi.com/">Micromega</A> introduced a unique solution to this problem—the WM-10 AirStream, the world's first wireless DAC (digital-to-analog converter).

Known primarily for high-end, high-quality electronics, <A href="http://www.passlabs.com">Pass Laboratories</A> has conceived its third speaker model. First came the 4-way Rushmore in 2003, which was followed by the 4-way SR-1 in 2008, so named because it was the first "son of Rushmore." At CES, the company introduced the SR-2, promising superb sonics in a smaller package.