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Harman Highlights Performance with a Retro Twist

1/5/23

Retro is shaping to be one of the CES themes at Harman Luxury Audio Group, which today offered a preview of several products it will unveil when the show opens tomorrow, including four additions to its stylish Classic Series — an integrated amplifier, streaming media player, CD player, and turntable — all featuring elegant machined-aluminum faceplates.

The SA550 integrated amp (middle, $2,000) features a high-output class-G topology designed to mate perfectly with the MP350 media player (bottom left, $800), which supports high-quality wireless streaming via Wi-Fi or aptX Adaptive-enabled Bluetooth. The streamer is Roon Ready and provides direct access to Spotify, Tidal, and a host of other music services via Google Chromecast and Apple Airplay. Both components incorporate a reference-caliber, high-resolution digital-to-analog converter (DAC) with time domain jitter elimination and the SA550 has a built-in phono preamp.

The CD350 CD player (top left, $700) and TT350 turntable ($1,000) make it easy for music lovers to bring these retro yet still popular music formats into a Classic Series audio setup. In addition to spinning CDs through its robust tray loading mechanism, the CD350 plays CD-R and CD-RW discs with support for FLAC, WAV, MP3, AAC, and WMA file formats and is equipped with a hi-res-capable USB-A input.

The TT350A is direct-drive turntable featuring a speed sensor to ensure optimal disc rotation, a curved aluminum tonearm, and a high-quality moving-magnet phono cartridge pre-installed on a removable head shell for easy replacement and upgrade. The table rests on adjustable feet, which are damped to reduce vibration and includes a hinged dust cover tinted to match the walnut chassis.

All of the new Classic Series models are expected to ship by the end of June.

Harman is also introducing a new 10-inch powered subwoofer that will sell for $700, a $4,500/pair addition to its Studio Monitor series of powered speakers, and a $399 Bluetooth-enabled turntable — all due out later this year.

Check out the full video here!

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