HIGH Fidelity

BEST PRODUCT 2008

WOJCIECH PACUŁA

It’s December again and the Awards of the Year… again. All those awards are a bit like Christmas presents, something that is a result of a full year’s work. And although such awards are also a call upon the reviewers, editors house, etc subjective opinions, what makes them stand in opposition to what we underline in all our tests, the many paths of reaching the target of “the absolute sound”, still we decide every year to give them. Because in the end this all is a kind of a game and a way of pointing to especially interesting things, ideas and people behind those. To make sense to the awards, mostly for the Readers, we have to know some things that constitute such choices, not only in “High Fidelity” www.highfidelity.pl .

Regardless of what people claim the choice of the “best” device is always a subjective thing. Of course this is true when we assume that there exist many parallel ways of reproduction, that are equal to each other. I think there are. This means, that something better for one music lover, fitting in his system, can be worst than the “worse” unit we did not choose. But if a reviewer is reliable, he will be able to justify his choices anytime, regardless of his actual preferences and likings. Secondly, many of the ratings are “poisoned” with the used methodology of choosing the units for testing, namely choosing the devices to fill-in the blanks in the given categories. So those are chosen looking at their purpose and price. We could imagine a situation when a good device is rejected, because we already have a winner in that category, and take something less interesting, because there is still a spot free in the rating.

This does not mean our “High Fidelity” rating is flawless. There are no such ratings. I was just taking good care that our choices would not only be exceptional in terms of sound, construction but also value. Because value is something completely different than quality. It is composed of:

Sound quality

Construction quality

Conception (the ideas behind, the man behind, etc)

Ergonomics

Design

Brand

Customer service

Price

Do you see what I am talking about? A device is not just a “playing brick”, but a utilitarian object, something far beyond “quality of sound”. The hierarchy given by me is not coincidental, those are my preferences. So it is subjective, again.

When I first saw the propositions for the awards, when I verified them, I saw a list of devices that were in my memory, and which I will be able to recommend always and ever. Not for every system, but always without hesitation. Those are devices that combine the audiophile ethos with something extra, an “added value”, what will make the product valuable now and tomorrow. As you can easily see there are no categories in the Product of the Year 2008 awards. The products were chosen only for themselves, regardless of their price or type. This will make it less easy for the buyers, because this is not a “buyer’s almanac”, but I believe it will be helpful more and more often in time. The only distinction was made to honor two brands with the Main Award. We wanted to really point to Reimyo and Ancient Audio in an absolute scale, as the two that are really state-of-the-art products. All products were listed alphabetically. A distinct category was also made for the recordings, which were reviewed with regard to the sound quality and artistic value (whatever it means). You can treat this list as a “compulsory list”. If you want to know what we value, what is important for us – just listen to the devices on the list. I believe this will be an educational journey, after which nothing will be the same anymore. And it is not about that you should agree with all our choices – like I wrote, the ratings are subjective from the start. But you will know WHY you do not agree with us. And this is the basis for each discussion. And audiophilism is (or rather should be) a never ending discussion, during which, priorities are set – even the short lived and flashy ones.

Main Award:

ANCIENT AUDIO LEKTOR GRAND SE