Available online
                hi-fi+ Products of the Year Awards 2000
                hi-fi+ Products of the Year Awards 2001
                hi-fi+ Products of the Year Awards 2002
                hi-fi+ Products of the Year Awards 2004 introduction
                hi-fi+ Products of the Year Awards 2005 introduction
                hi-fi+ Products of the Year Awards 2006 introduction
                hi-fi+ Products of the Year Awards 2007 introduction

Available in print only
                hi-fi+ Awards 2003
                hi-fi+ Awards 2004
                hi-fi+ Awards 2005
                hi-fi+ Awards 2006
                hi-fi+ Awards 2007

Available in issue 36

hi-fi+ Product of the Year Awards 2004

There are lots of magazines, and between them they hand out a lot of awards. Ours are a little different…

For starters, we don’t have meaningless categories:
There again we don’t have rules either. All we do is select, in a completely arbitrary manner, those products that have really impressed and entertained us this year. We like them – we think there’s a good chance you will too!

Unfortunately, even something this simple can’t escape without a degree of explanation. You’ll soon realise that there are two distinct categories within the awards themselves: Product Of The Year awards and Discovery awards. Oh, and then there are the Record Of The Year awards, but those at least should be self-explanatory.

So, why the distinction? Well, it is intended to reflect a difference not so much in the products themselves but in the companies behind them. The most striking example is the contrast between the Avalon Eidolon Diamond and the Marten Design Coltrane. It would be easy to treat the two speakers as virtual clones, so much does a quick glance suggest that they share. However, look a little deeper and actually take a listen and you’ll soon realise just how different these products are. What is more, those differences are inextricably lodged in the technologies employed and the very different philosophies that have selected them. Where the Eidolon Diamond is a logical extension of Avalon’s evolutionary approach to loudspeaker design, a lineage that stretches back across many years, the Coltrane is a debut product that selected the latest available materials and technology in a cleansheet design exercise. And that’s the point: you couldn’t have got to the Eidolon Diamond in any other way; the Coltrane pretty much has to come from a new company.

But the implications run far deeper than that. Dealing with a new company offers potential benefits but risks too. Buy a product from an established company and you should have a good idea of what to expect sonically speaking as well as reasonable security when it comes to servicing and back-up. Many new companies, especially the more interesting ones, bring new technology or new approaches into the industry. These can deliver previously undreamt of results, as well as totally unforeseen problems. Longevity is certainly possible (all those established companies started out somewhere!) but it isn’t guaranteed. That’s why we have introduced the Discovery awards – a category that reflects as much the novelty of thinking behind a product as the newness of the company that produces it. They generally indicate products that are from companies new to us (as opposed to necessarily new to the world of hi-fi). They are not lesser products or lesser awards, simply different. Indeed, in some cases (such as the Blue Pearl turntable) they rewrite the rules as regards what’s possible.

Next year, I might well introduce a third category to reflect companies that have been in continuous production for ten years or more, but hey – one step at a time, a thought prompted by the reappearance of some familiar faces. But then that’s no surprise either. The guys who’ve been doing it right for a while quite often continue to do so: Take a bow conrad-johnson, Koetsu, ProAc, Nordost, Rotel, Focal JMlabs and a few others…

Meanwhile, congratulations to all our award winners and thanks from everyone at Hi-Fi+ for lighting the way. You can’t have a great magazine without great products. These are all great products.

Roy Gregory