Welcome to what would normally be
our Awards issue. However, this year, we decided to take a break and come up
with something a little different. The reason for this is simple; Awards
suggest there are products that are ‘The Best’ in a market where there
might be no ‘best’ – how do you judge whether one preamp is better than
another out of the context of a system and the same applies to any branch of
the audio experience. In other words, what’s ‘best’ in one system may
not be ‘best’ in another. So we have pulled together the finest products
– both from our records and from our sister title The
Absolute Sound in the US – to come up with the longest shortlist
around. Depending on you, we may alternate these concepts every year.
The fascinating part of compiling a group of components like
this is just how many of them there are, in such a relatively small business
like high-end audio. It’s also clear that there are high-end products
without the high-end price, which rub shoulders with products that cost as
much as a small cottage in Wales. How do you stratify such things? The simple
answer is… you don’t! We’ve deliberately viewed these products without
the benefit of their price tags – if something is good, it’s good. Yes,
there are products that are good ‘for the money’ and this is often duly
noted, but there are other products that are just good. They would be good if
they cost 10x as much and they would be good if they cost half as much.
The other fascinating part is the longevity of audio
equipment, and I reckon this is where audio is increasingly out-of-step with
the modern world, in all the right ways. We live in a disposable culture and
today’s technological style icon is tomorrow’s landfill. Good audio
doesn’t subscribe to short product life cycles and that makes it inherently
expensive in the short term, but 10 years time when your latest player is
still current, the resale values suggest otherwise. We’ve put a limit on
this to products reviewed in the last two years, but there are even a couple
of products from issue one of Hi-Fi Plus
that are still made a dozen years later!
However, companies need to adapt or die, and that is perhaps
why Focal and Naim Audio announced the two companies have joined forces. The
two brands already had a reputation for high-tech high-end; between them, the
results could be formidable!
Alan Sircom, Editor Hi-Fi+