Stereophile magazine's excellent coverage of the high-end audio scene at CES '08 at the Venetian Hotel has kept me on the edge of my seat since Monday. So many great new products, from old and new companies say a lot about the thriving, worldwide audiophile market. I've picked five products to show you, but Stereophile's site has dozens of really cool sightings.
B&W's $45K flagship Nautilus speaker.
(Credit: Stereophile)
Stereophile magazine's Stephen Mejias stands next to Wilson Audio's new Thor's Hammer subwoofer.
(Credit: Stereophile)
That's the rear end of Mark Levinson's new $15K No. 532 power amplifier.
(Credit: Stereophile)
Tube amplifiers from, of all places, Viet Nam. The Navision amp goes for $21, 800! Power to the people!
(Credit: Stereophile)
The CD may be on its way out, but vinyl is going strong. Revolver's new Replay turntable, $3499, looks killer.
(Credit: Stereophile)View complete CES 2008 coverage from CNET.
The new Jag will pounce in 2008.
(Credit: Jaguar Cars LTD)Premium car audio systems from Bose and Mark Levinson are all too commonplace, so it's about time one of the world's leading high-end speaker manufacturers, Bowers & Wilkins (B&W) joined the fray with its all-new system for Jaguar's gorgeous XF sedan. At a joint press event last week in New York City Jaguar and Bowers & Wilkins showed an advance prototype of the 2008 XF model.
Unlike most car audio/auto manufacturer relationships where the audio supplier is forced to work with the "leftover" spaces to place its speakers and electronics, Bower & Wilkins engineers began their collaboration with Jaguar before the new car was conceived. The engineers were given free reign to place the system's fourteen speakers in acoustically optimized locations. The 7.1 channel array utilizes four metal dome tweeters, nine Kevlar mid/bass drivers, and one subwoofer.
The view from the inside of this right hand drive model.
(Credit: Jaguar Cars LTD)Furthermore, each tweeter, mid/bass driver and the sub is powered by its own amplifier (total power is spec-ed at 440 watts). The system employs digital signal processing to monitor the vehicle's interior ambient noise levels and adjust its sound quality to compensate for changing road conditions.
Unfortunately, the Jag did not have a working audio system, so I stood there ogling the interior, imagining the system's state of the art sonics. I also spent a little time fantasizing about how much all this beauty would cost, but the car and audio system's prices have yet to be determined, the debut is expected by the spring/summer of 2008.
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