CES 2015

If your audio memory extends back far enough you’ll recall Audio Alchemy. That company marketed an extensive line of inexpensive DACs long before streaming and downloading digital music was possible and D/A converters were the hot ticket.

Audio Alchemy is now under the ownership of one of the original founders, Peter Madnick. While its new products are not exactly Blue Light Specials, they’re not outrageously priced. The DDP-1 Decoding Preamp, at $1995, offers asynchronous USB, digital coax, digital optical, AES/EBU, and I2S digital inputs. It also has two pair of single-ended analog inputs, one balanced analog input, and single-ended, balanced, and headphone analog outputs. The PS-5 Power Station 5 is an optional power supply upgrade for the DDP-1.

There’s also an Audio Alchemy DMP-1 Digital Music Player ($1595) and DPA-1 Digital Power Amp ($1995, 2 channel at 150W/channel into 8 ohms), the latter with a class A discrete FET input buffer stage and a class D output stage. An internal power supply upgrade for dual mono operation is an option for the amp.