Issue 118 December 2014
Looking Back At 2014... And Looking Forward To 2015
Editorial By Alan Sircom
It's the end of another year, but this one came
tinged with some great sadness. Early in November, it was announced that Harry
Pearson, the founder of our sister title The
Absolute Sound, had died at the age of 77. His influence on the
field of observational audio reviewing is incalculable, and his loss leaves
the whole audiophile community diminished. We asked our Chairman and CEO,
Thomas B. Martin, Jr. to remember the late, great HP.
This has meant that our coverage of the CanJam at Rocky
Mountain Audio Fest and our report on The Hi-Fi Show 2014 will be postponed
until the next issue. Our apologies to all those wanting to see the latest
headphones and high-end audio devices, but I hope this is acceptable under
these difficult circumstances.
However, as I said at first, we are at the end of 2014, and
about to welcome in 2015. The audio world has (as ever) gone through some
change, and even some changes back. Are we beginning to see a resurgence in CD
as we did with LP? Who knows? It's too early to call it either way, but the
general switch-over to downloading hasn't happened quite yet, despite the
launch of TIDAL high-resolution streaming and HDTracks final arrival to the UK
market. We'll explore these new formats, and more, in 2015.
Next month, we'll ring in the New Year with a special Hi-Fi+
calendar. That's right – twelve months of the hottest, top-notch
audio pin-ups. Fortunately, those dozen delightful pin-ups will be taken from
some of the finest audio products made today, in part because it's a bit too
nippy out there at the moment for me to cavort around in my leopard-skin
mankini. Maybe next year, if you're 'lucky'... 2014 has
been a bumper year for competitions in Hi-Fi+,
and with both Audiodesksysteme's Vinyl Cleaner and Peachtree Audio's Nova220SE
given away in this issue, 2015 is looking pretty good for the competition
haul, too.
However, to round off the year with a bit of joy, here's a
list of recent lucky winners. From our National Audio Show prize draw,
congratulations go to Malcolm Summers, who wins an iFi Micro iDSD portable
headphone amp, preamp, and DAC. Our other lucky iFi winners were Doug
Dickinson, Cosmo Hynds, Terry Cymbalisty, and Jeremy Honeybun.
Congratulations, too, to Don Howden of Alberta, Canada, who won the excellent
Ayon Audio Orion III integrated amplifier, while Gerard Peters of London won
the Hi-Fi+ Signature pair of
superb Wilson Benesch Square One loudspeakers, Lucas Armstrong of Wellington,
New Zealand won a fantastic pair of Final Audio Design Pandora Hope VI
headphones, and Matthew Silvester, of Wallington, UK who one the sublime
Vertere Pulse R interconnects.
Merry Christmas.
Alan Sircom, Editor Hi-Fi+