CEDIA Day Three
September 6, 2008 — Multichannel/surround is the default mode at CEDIA, of course, but there are interesting two-channel products to be found. Perhaps the most surprising was from McIntosh, released in celebration of the company's impending 60th Anniversary. Would you believe a mini-system from McIntosh? Well, it looks like a McIntosh but look at it. It consists of a two-channel preamp/amp (75wpc) with a prominent tube stage and characteristic McIntosh power transformer. Docked underneath is an SACD/CD player, and a pair of speakers complete the ensemble. Price is expected to be in the $6000–$8000 range.

CEDIA 2008 also saw the reappearance of the Cambridge Audio DacMagic D/A Convertor. This classic now sports three S/PDIF coaxial/optical inputs, RCA and XLR outputs and a new USB input to complement innards featuring Wolfson DACs and Anagram upsampling. With ability to handle signals up to 24/192, the DacMagic is only $399.

Krell showed a new line of amplifiers in monoblock and stereo configurations. Now, these are small for Krells but they are designed for stacking and bridging and they are indeed sleek. The larger stereo S275 ($5500) is, surprise, 275Wpc and bridgeable to 550W as monoblocs. The (almost) cute S150 ($2500) is on a narrow but full-depth chassis but this 150W monoblock is meant to be used in multiples.