Peace and Love Dept.: Pro-Ject's new Yellow Submarine turntable launched at CES 2018. Embargo on this news just lifted. Price TBD.

Opening day was the one day needed to pretty much cover the entire High End segment at CES 2018 and I wasn't exactly rushing. What's happened? Most of the business these days is at Munich High End. It's more of an international event (for the High End) and Spring is a more opportune time for fall and holiday season buying. For a few years meeting with west coast dealers was sufficient reason for exhibiting at CES but the dealer network has shrunk. I was handed the vintage Stereophile issue in the Paradigm/Anthem room.

AnalogPlanet got invited to ta pre-CES Show opening launch of the new Technics SL-1000R and SP-10R Reference Class turntables and the sound was impressive! This was the first time these turntables were shown working and the sound based on about an hour of listening on the eve of the show's opening day was impressive!

Every time I attend CES in Las Vegas, I wonder if this is the year the seemingly fragile analog bubble has finally burst. That day may eventually come, but not 2001. On Day One in the Alexis Park's ballroom booth area, where the record and accessory vendors hold court, I ran into Music Direct's Josh Bizar, who volunteered, "This December through the Christmas season we sold more turntables, more cartridges, and more vinyl than in any Christmas we've ever had. This is the biggest vinyl heyday we've had in our company's history."

Silly me! I thought all Hans Zimmer lifted for The Gladiator soundtrack were bits and pieces of Holst's "The Planets". Everyone does that so no offense, but after playing this reissue I heard from where came the best parts of The Gladiator soundtrack. Surely this was on the CD player when Zimmer created his track. Don't get me wrong, it's still a masterful soundtrack and filled with sonic and musical jolts, but here's from where it originated.

Step away from your predictable audiophile fare and consider this double 45rpm LP set from the U.K.'s Gearbox Records of artists you've mostly never heard of playing music you've probably never heard either.

Before getting to the audiofool controversy surrounding the release of a 3M digital recording on expensive vinyl, there's the music. You're smacked in the face on the side openers "I.G.Y." and "New Frontier" (on the original single LP) by the exuberance and sunlit optimism of the "certain fantasies" entertained by "a young man growing up in the remote suburbs" back when science was venerated and not denigrated as it is today in certain circles as a "liberal plot".

In 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick depicted a Pan American Airlines shuttle whizzing space commuters to an orbiting circular station, where they communicated with earthbound loved ones via a Bell Telephone videophone. Pillbox-hatted stewardesses served up vacuum-bagged space gruel sucked from straws.

During the great folk music revival of the 1960s how many buyers of Peter, Paul & Mary's stunning debut album knew who was the Reverend Gary Davis, writer of the apocalyptic side 2 opener "If I Had My Way"? Probably very few. In those days you'd have to visit the local library to find out who he was, assuming you paid attention to label credits in the first place.

What always felt like it would be a nasty bump in the Dylan Bootleg Series road turns out to be a smooth walk on the water thanks to a concept the Dylan boot team perfectly executes by covering the mutable artist's evangelical period with highly charged live performances, outtakes and rehearsals that will turn you into a believer, if not in Christ, then in Dylan's absolute commitment to what he then preached and in the power of the songs and especially the supercharged performances he delivered.