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It happened 30 years ago, but I remember it as if it were yesterday: My best friend's brother's friend showed me his record player—an AR turntable equipped with an SME 3009 Mk.III tonearm and a Shure V15 Type V-MR cartridge—and offered to sell it to me at a price that, until that moment, I would never have considered spending for a complete system. "It's audiophile gear," he said with a knowing smile.

Audiophile? The word sounded exotic—and grown-up.

Hitting newsstands, mailboxes, and tablets today, the February Stereophile features its renowned "Records2Die4" feature, now in its 28th year! The magazine's editors and writers each recommend two recordings that they couldn't live without—the 46 albums reviewed this month would be the basis of a great audiophile music collection. Ayre's EX-8 "Integrated Hub" amplifier is featured on the cover and also reviewed in this issue are speakers from Revel and Audio Physic; amplifiers from Air Tight, CH Precision, and First Watt; and tonearms from Swedish Analog Technologies and Sorane. And don't miss Herb Reichert's account of his visit last fall to amplifier maven Nelson Pass.

By Day Three of four-day CES 2019, reality had set in for most of the few high-end audio exhibitors who set up shop in the Venetian: the curtain has closed on CES as "the place" for high-end audio product introductions and business transactions. Several of the smaller companies I spoke with were already done with waxing nostalgic on the glory days of CES—an era when there were so many distributors, dealers, and journalists clogging the hallways and rooms that some exhibitors had to either close up shop at the factory or recruit extra help to cater to everyone. After wiping tears from their eyes, they had decided to move on.

A few surprises and delights still awaited on Wednesday afternoon, January 9. That was when I began to realize: save for Harman International's off-site exhibit at Hard Rock Café and two products I encountered on January 10, I would have plenty of time to write blogs and pack on my final day in Vegas.

Of all the systems I auditioned at this year's CES, Nagra's was the unquestionable standout. Its sound was full-range and transparent, with brilliant and glistening highs, a totally realistic midrange, astounding low bass reach, and an ability to flesh out complex overtones and undertones without distortion. Had this thoroughly musical system been placed in a much larger room at AXPONA or the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, perhaps even with one of Wilson's larger speakers in place of the excellent new Wilson Audio Sasha DAW seen here ($37,900/pair), it could easily have topped many of the other big rigs that I've raved about in the past.

Although I no longer attend the audio pageant that was once the annual Consumer Electronics Show, I now seem to be traveling more, in hopes of recapturing the excitement CES had once provided. Last May I attended High End, in Munich, and found that while it was entirely as advertised, there was, alas, not enough emphasis on the playback of high-resolution files, and hardly any attention paid to multichannel music.

As a longtime user of Nordost's cable and AC-power products, my ears opened wide when they released their three QKore Ground Units and QKore Wire at High End 2017, in Munich. While I've never questioned the importance of proper electrical grounding, to prevent problems with safety and noise—the latter including measurable noise generated by transformers, appliances, LED lighting, power supplies, and Bluetooth, WiFi, and cellular devices—I couldn't fathom what difference a passive grounding device might make in a high-end system that, in my case, is fed by an 8-gauge dedicated line with its own copper ground rod driven into the terra infirma of the fault-ridden Pacific Northwest.