Brent Butterworth

The Home Entertainment Show Newport Beach is growing into one of the best hi-fi shows in the U.S. This year's show, which started today and runs through Sunday, appears even bigger than last year's, which was big enough to use up all the parking in both of the hotels that house the show.

After hearing the enthusiastic sales pitch from SOL Republic, one of the latest of many new entrants into the headphone biz, I was disappointed when I heard the company's first model, the Tracks $99 on-ear. While the Tracks is beautifully made and incredibly comfortable for an on-ear model, its extremely bass-heavy balance made me feel like I was locked in the trunk of a Honda Civic with two 12-inch woofers and the complete works of Deadmau5 cranked way up.

When I received the company's first in-ear monitor (IEM), the $99 Amps HD, I wondered if the company would be able to achieve the blend of design and sound quality it originally promised - or if it'd be another well-crafted but sonically intolerable product.

Sonus Faber's trademark gorgeous craftsmanship and design were in evidence at the CEDIA Expo, where the company showed its new Olympica series speakers. Besides the fact that they were arguably the best-looking new speakers at the show, they're notable for two reasons. First, they're the first Sonus Faber speakers in which all the drivers were designed by the company. Second, they have a unique asymmetrical design with one of the coolest bass ports ever created.

BEING THE ONLY CLOSED-BACK headphone pair in this bunch gave the Sony MDR-Z1000 a potential advantage and disadvantage. The advantage, we assumed, would be that the MDR-Z1000 would have more robust bass than the open-back models. The disadvantage, we assumed, would be that it wouldn’t sound as, well, open — i.e., spacious — as the open-back models.