One cool thing about the 2007 CES is that no matter how big TV screens get, how small portable devices become, or how compressed the bitstream is, there are those who only want the best sound for their music. Here are some nice setups that I wish I could afford to put in my house. The above device is a tube-driven (even the timing circuit!) CD player from PrimaLuna.

It’s nice to see that the art of making speakers hasn’t fallen by the wayside in the iPod era. There were Electrostatics from companies like Quad (#11) and King’s Audio (#6), traditional designs from firms like RBH (#7, with me) and Usher (#9), and more exotic offerings by companies such as German Physiks (#4) and MBL (#2).

On the component side you had things like a money-is-almost-no-object audio/video receiver from McIntosh (#1), massive turntables from ClearAudio (# 4 & 5), tube amplifiers, and even a battery-powered phono (No line noise) head amp from Sutherland Engineering (the one with the batteries in it, duh).  A company called MSB unveiled a tweaked “audiophile” iPod interface (#2) called iLink that modifies the iPod to allow digital audio to be sent to the iLink and output via toslink optical, coaxial, or balanced AES/EBU format.  Pioneer even had a demo (#8) showing high-end gear being driven by one of their Optical Digital Reference car units to demonstrate their new sound calibration technology.