Friday, May 21 -- Part 1

All prices are quoted in euros unless otherwise noted.
1 €  is approximately 1.19 US dollars at time of report.

The new German company Ballmann Electronica debuted the extremely interesting Behold series of products, most of which we profile in ShowStoppers Series 2. Above is the DAC768 (approximately 3500 €), which features a remote volume control and 768kHz upsampling. It's intended to be used with the company's all-digital preamplifier and a traditional analog-input power amplifier. The company's own power amplifier, the BPA768-484 (below), accepts only a digital signal.

The 25,000 € Behold BPA768-484 is not your normal 600Wpc (into 4 ohms) power amplifier. See our ShowStoppers Series 2 section for more information.

Germany's Audio Physic seems to have at least one new speaker every time we cover this show. On the left are the new Tempo loudspeakers priced at 3000 €  per pair. On the right is an updated version of the Luna subwoofer, which features a 10" driver and is 2400 €.

Japan's CEC had the CD 5300 CD player (top, 999 €) on display. It features 24-bit/192kHz DACs as well as single-ended and balanced outputs. Below it is the AMP 5300 integrated, which delivers 150Wpc into 8 ohms and is priced at 1499 €.

CEC also showed the AMP 71 class-A integrated amplifier that is said to deliver 200Wpc into 8 ohms, and is a dual-mono design. The price is 5999 €.