LATEST ADDITIONS

Two years ago I prodded for a new Thiel center channel to match the company's flagship CS3.7 speaker. Now it's here—or will be later this year. The MCS1.2 uses the same coaxial midrange-tweeter driver as the CS3.7, along with a pair of smaller, newly developed woofers. In addition to use with the CS3.7s, the MCS1.2 can also be used as left and right front speakers and/or surrounds. Pricing TBD.

PSB's Imagine T2 tower can be mentioned in the same breath as the brand's world-beating Synchrony line. The titanium tweeter and polypropylene midrange are backed up with three polypropylene woofers crossed over at 500Hz, 250Hz, and 80Hz, making this a five-way speaker. All drivers live in separate chambers to prevent them from interfering with one another. The result of all that scrupulous construction and ingenuity is a genuinely fantastic sounding speaker with powerful bass, a musically adept midrange, and just the right amount of top end. The number of audio demos at the show that came close can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Price is $3500/pair in veneer or $3850/pair in gloss white or black.

Cardas is best known for bleeding-edge cables but is moving into earbuds with the EM 5813 Ear Speakers. Their heavy and lustrous metal casings are brass in the $425 model and steel in the $325 model. Despite their weight, they fit well and don't fall out easily if you pick the right cushion size (took me a couple of tries). Cardas went to a lot of trouble to make the tube mimic the shape of the cochlea, in proportions that adhere to the Golden Ratio, a longtime Cardas design obsession. (It seems to have resulted in a long string of great-sounding products.) The diaphragm is about the size of the eardrum.