CES 2017

The Digital Entertainment Group brought high quality sound in the form of high resolution digital audio to the gadgeteers at the main convention center.

Music Hall's always cheerful Roy Hall introduced a new budget-priced $299 three-speed belt-drive turntable that includes among its many features electronic speed control, a built-in switchable MM phono preamp, a dustcover, as well as an Audio-Technica AT3600L cartridge.

Audio cables are probably the most contentious component in a system's chain. There are those who insist they cannot produce sonic differences once you account for the basics: resistance, inductance, capacitance, and of course the outer sheath color.

The photo here is from C.E.S. 2005. C.E.S. 2017 coverage begins Thursday, January 6th. Editor Michael Fremer has been attending The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas since 1978, making this his 39th consecutive C.E.S.

Clearaudio manufactures an unusually wide range of turntable and tone arm models. In all the years I've attended C.E.S. or Munich for that matter, no one lays it all out (at the very least the lines imported to America by Musical Surroundings) so clearly and precisely as does Musical Surroundings' Customer Service Manager Michael Fajen in this video.

Japan-based DS Audio introduced at CES 2017 its latest optical cartridge design, the DS002 at an attractive $5000 price point. The DS002 places the optical sensor in front of the elastomer suspension, which should produce faster response analogous to Audio-Technica's ART1000 cartridge that puts the coils on top of the stylus (not that there's really an comparison to be made between a coil and magnet based generator and one that uses an LED and optical shutter to generate a voltage).