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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.

One of several small, wireless speakers unveiled at the Venetian Hotel, Audioengine's A2+ ($269/pair), with built-in DAC and aptX Bluetooth, is manufactured in China, and scheduled to ship at the end of January. I didn't get a chance to hear the A2+, but our niece, who has the wired version, raves about its sound with her Mac laptop.

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.

After a few minutes in the VTL/Wilson/Nordost room on the 29th floor of the Venetian Hotel, the challenge I faced in covering CES 2019 was staring me in the face. The good news for me, and the bad news for exhibitors, was that visitor traffic was extremely light. To only two rooms did I need to backtrack because exhibitors were totally occupied with other visitors when I paid an initial visit. But, on the other hand, the sound in some rooms was so good, the musical selections so compelling, and the exhibitors so hungry for attention from someone that I had an extremely difficult time tearing myself away and moving on.

Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch, conductor
RCA Victor LSC-2608 (LP). TT: 48:40

It is easy to forget that the hi-fi movements—the "March to the Scaffold" and the "Dream of a Witches' Sabbath"—comprise barely a third of the music in the Symphonie fantastique, yet when we listen to most of the available versions of this, we can understand why the first three movements are usually passed up by the record listener. Two are slow and brooding, one is a wispy sort of waltz, and all three require a certain combination of flowing gentleness and grotesquerie that few orchestras and fewer conductors can carry off. It is in these first three movements where most readings of Berlioz' best-known work fall flat. Either they are too sweetly pastoral or too episodic and choppy, or they degenerate into unreliered dullness.

"They expect 180,000 people this year," the Lyft driver told me as we headed to the Strip shortly after sunset. "That's 10,000 more than last year!"

Does that mean there will be 10,000 more gadgets on display?