CES & THE Show 2011 • Hot Product

New from Shunyata Research -- and the fertile mind of Caelin Gabriel -- are the Hydra Talos (top, $2995) and Triton (middle and bottom, $4995) power conditioners, which are rather radical redesigns of the Shunyata Hydra.

Within the Talos and Triton are sealed tubes that isolate each conductor and distribute its electrical field over a larger area. The filters of earlier Hydras have been replaced with a surface-mount board containing more than 30 elements. Caelin Gabriel called this "a multiband EQ" that targets certain types of noise from from each audio component. Both units also feature a unified bus-outlet block, which uses the same type of brass throughout. The main differences between the new units are the number of outlets (the Triton has eight and the Talos six) and the size of the sealed tubes.

Also new, and perhaps even more significant, are three completely new lines of interconnects and speaker cables that feature "virtual tube" geometry and technology that minimizes crosstalk and self-induced distortion along the dielectric. Most significant are the prices; each of the new cables costs far less than the model it replaces. The Black Mamba interconnects are $700 per meter pair and the speaker cables are $1495, while the Python cables are $1495 and $2495, and the Anaconda $2495 and $3495 respectively.