Sony CAS1 AUDIOPHILE DESKTOP STEREO

SONY CAS-1 INTEGRATED DESK TOP HIGH RESOLUTION STEREO MUSIC SYSTEM DON'T LET THE PRICE OR SIZE FOOL YOU. THIS IS A TRUE HIGH FIDELITY, HIGH RESOLUTION STEREO SYSTEM DESIGNED FOR PERSONAL LISTENING.  In fact, at a few feet back this system create astounding detail, stereo imaging and depth, and amazing bass from these tiny little speakers. The woofers are a carbon fiber design with a rigid cone but very low moving mass. The woofer is 2 1/2 inch size.  A half inch soft dome tweeter reproduces the highs. So, they have excellent transient detail. The system comes with heavy metal plates, to place on the desk or table, and you place the speaker on top. This insures a solid surface... very solid from which the port fires down on.   The speaker cabinets is solid and made of scandinavian birch, which Sony uses in their $27,000, highly related audiophile speakers. Sony claims that would improves the sound! There is a front USB input and rear. Both flat and square USB inputs are provided. There is a heavy duty front headphone jack with a separate headphone amplifier to drive almost any headphone. It plays all high resolution files, 96, 192 24 bit plus of course regular CD quality. It also plays DSD, Direct Stream Digital, the format of the Super Audio CD.  You know, you can now buy DSD music albums, create DSD music albums from vinyl and extract DSD files from Super Audio CD Discs. The Sony App  SongPal operates the system, and shows album covers, song etc on your phone. This includes music on thumb drives or hard drives plugged into the system. Heavy duty 5 way speaker connections are on the back and on the speaker. There is a large easy to use old school volume control, but of course volume can be controlled via the app.  The amp is 2.2 in wide and 6.75 in tall. Each speaker is 3.75 in wide by 6.75 in tall. The amp uses Sony's advanced S-Master HX digital circuitry. Sony pioneered digital Class D amps with the TAN88 back in the late 1970s.  THERE IS NO ANALOG INPUT. THERE IS NO COAX OR OPTICAL INPUT. NO subwoofer output. Please check out the FEB/MAR issue of Sound and Vision. There you will find a glorious review on how detailed and 3 dimensional this little system is, plus how it drives headphones that sell for almost twice the price. It is Sony's "special sauce" that makes difference. Sony invented digital audio. Sony designed and manufactured the digital audio chips that got digital started.  Whether they still manufacture the chips inside the CAS-1 is not known, but their expertise in digital is second to none. Their latest Blu-ray player which sells for only $350 was just rated by Stereophile Class B in sound quality amongst disc players selling for thousands of dollars.  This is a true audiophile personal high resolution music system.