CES & THE Show 2012 • TABlog

by Jason Kennedy | January 10, 2012

Having royally stuffed myself at the Mirage breakfast buffet, I headed over to the Venetian to discover what high-end audio had to offer in the way of new delectations for my eyes and ears. After a few rooms of fabulous-looking equipment but not entirely inspiring sound, I found April Music and its lively US sales manager Jay Paul Apodaca. April Music has some challengingly feminine electronics called Eximus. I say "challengingly feminine" because rarely do I come across audiophile hardware with a snowflake motif engraved in the chassis. However, April Music is not afraid of style. The DP1 (right) is a $2995 preamplifier with two analog and six digital inputs, including USB and I²S. It runs a pair of 24/192 DACs and offers filtering and switchable upsampling. The partnering S1 power amp at $2495 is spec'ed to deliver 125Wpc, but it can be bridged to offer 500 watts, as was the case for the company's demo, which used Wilson Sasha W/Ps and a MacBook Pro running Amarra.

Things went smoothly enough until I asked Jay Paul to play a track I had on USB, "Just Kissed My Baby" by The Meters, a piece of music that defies sitting still. My host did nothing to resist the urge to strut his stuff. As soon as that piece ended, he put on some James Brown and took the opportunity to show everyone present that audio appreciation need not be a po'-faced pursuit.

I don't think I've seen anyone dance at CES before, and I have to say it was most entertaining. The system didn't sound bad either!