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2014 BEST PRODUCT AWARDS „HIGH FIDELITY”
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And I believe being awarded by “HighFidelity” magazine is something worth bragging about. I think that during our 10 years in business we have managed to develop quite a precise and delivering good effects system that allows us to offer high quality reviews. It starts with a selection of what we want to review, then products undergo our evaluation and finally the best of the best are awarded with „Best Product” awards. There is a limit to the number of products we are able to review each month, and thus just a fact that some product is chosen for a review already indicates its extraordinary value. We simply do not review products we don't like or don't understand. Life's too short to waste time on such products. Yearly Best Sound Awards are a pinnacle of our yearly work. I know for a fact that these awards are eagerly used by many brands in their world-wide promotional campaign. In fact that puts even more pressure on us as it gives us more responsibility as the information put on the Internet stays there forever. I also believe that we have built our position, our status in audio world through our credibility so that Readers know they can trust our opinions. We intend to keep doing just that! You are welcome to find out what products are awarded and we hope you will join us in appreciation of award winners' success. On the other hand we would like to congratulate all the awarded – manufacturers, distributors, musicians, producers and record labels – great job everyone!!!  
Gramofon Turntable There is no perfect audio system. All the more – there is no perfect audio device. Air Force One turntable from a Japanese company TechDAS delivers such a stunning performance that it is easy to forget about that truth. And it is even easier to lose oneself in the music played by this deck. It's an ingenious sound source, according to Wojciech Pacuła one of the best there are. Only some top professional reel-to-reel tape recorders are able to deliver even better performance with high quality mother tapes. But actually they outperform Air Force One only by a small margin. This turntable is on a short “to die for” list of chief editor, Wojciech Pacuła. Linestage Ayon Audio A preamplifier is a heart of a classic, analogue audio system. The final sonic effect relies a lot on how well this “heart” works. Many manufacturers don't understand that, treating this element of the system lightly, often not realizing how different it is from other system elements and thus treating it not differently than a headphone amplifier or D/A Converter's output. Compared to them, Gerhard Hirt seems to be an alien from another planet. He treats preamplifier as one of the biggest challenges. He devoted a lot of time and spent even more money to achieve proper results. Spheris III is the product that took Ayon's engineers and Gerhard himself most time ever to develop. Since “HighFidelity's” chief editor, Wojciech Pacuła, spent last few years with Ayon's Polaris linestage, using its consecutive versions: II, III, and finally III (Custom Version), he knows the path Gerhard worked his way through. That is why he can claim with utmost certainty that Spheris III outperforms all previous models by a large margin. It is the best preamplifier that ever played in Wojciech Pacuła's system. Power amplifier Kondo There was no way this very particular product could not be included in our awards' list. For the second consecutive year Marek Dyba had a great pleasure and honor to review one of the products of Japanese legendary manufacturer, Kondo. Already during High End Show in Munich on 2013 Marek spent most time in a small room, where a complete Kondo system was presented, that included a prototype version of new Kondo's flagship monoblocks called Kagura. This year he was incredibly lucky to receive current version of these amplifiers for a review, that was accompanied also with Kondo's preamplifier and cables and while the rest of the system could not quite match the class and performance of Japanese devices, Marek lived in his listening room for almost a week not to lose any second of the musical experience of the highest order that Kondo delivered. Price one has to pay for Kaguras is beyond imagination for 99,9999999% of people, but those very few lucky ones who can afford it (in fact one has to spend a lot more for a matching system) will never ever regret this purchase. The level of emotional and musical experience Kaguras deliver is simply priceless! 
ANALOGUE SOURCES Turntable + phonostage Zontek ZONTEK Considering a limited number of products that can be awarded choosing few of them is always difficult. Marek gets to nominate 3 while he'd rather named most of them. This year Marek Dyba was particularly happy giving one of the awards to these two products as they were made in Poland, as some other products he awarded in previous years like Ardento speakers and Amare Musica electronics. Of course it was not just about these products being designed and made in our home country but also about outstanding performance and world-class fit&finish they offered. This year this choice was one of the easiest - Zontek turntable and Linnart P-1 phonostage get a shared award for 2014. This duet seemed to come always together during shows, presentations and other events with music played from vinyl. These devices had matching looks, and what was even more important - matching top level performance, which, as Marek had written in his review, meant that there finally was a Polish high-end analogue system available for purchase! These were products we, Poles, should be proud of and should brag about around the world! Way to go Mr Paweł and Mr Mirosław! Way to go!! Turntable + tonearm PTP Audio SOLID9 Years old technologies seem to be triumphantly coming back these days. After a period in recent audio history that was driven by coming up with and developing modern solutions, a return to “old ways” was inevitable. Usually it is caused by a “nostalgia” for “good old times”, and probably this element played some role in reemergence of tubes, turntables and different NOS elements, too. But what really matters is going back to the truly valuable “old” things, that after their prime time were never brought back to their full glory, or were transformed into something else, less valuable. Turntable + tonearm Fonica The idea was to create an interesting design that would catch people's attention by its looks. But in fact the Violin, one of latest additions to revitalized Fonika brand offer, seems to be, according to Wojciech Pacuła, their top achievement so far also in terms of sound quality. Despite the fact that other mass-loader models seem to offer more in terms of bass performance and scale of the sound, it is the sound of this key-note-shaped like model that is most coherent and most complete. A wonderful appearance, beautiful sound, Polish design and a cult brand. It's all right there. Turntable + cartridge Pro-Ject A complete analogue source (it lacks phonostage actually) at the price of 3.500 PLN? It seems impossible, especially if one got used to prices of good digital sources starting at 10.000 PLN. But Pro-Ject's turntable together with Ortofon's cartridge create a really nice duet complementing each other and allowing their users to enjoy music for hours without an impression of something missing in the sound. This is the best way to promote audio industry especially among young people. Turntable (deck + tonearm) Pre-audio When Wojciech Pacuła learned the price of this turntable he found it hard to believe. Would the price be twice as much he could start to understand how its manufacturer managed to make such a nice device and be able to make some money of it. But hey, one should pay the price as it is and simply be happy about a great deal because one would have purchased an extraordinary turntable with an unique tonearm. Not only does it offer a unique looks that other manufacturers could only dream about, but it delivers a really good, interesting performance. DIGITAL SOURCE Transport Compact Disc C.E.C. If you'd asked Wojciech Pacuła which digital product made a largest impression on him in the recent years, the Compact Disc TL0 3.0 transport would be at the top of his list. CD format might be slowly becoming obsolete but for now it still has a lot to offer and on high end level it will beat any audio files player easily. When combined with top notch D/A converter it will deliver top performance. That's another device on „High Fidelity's” chief editor “to die for” list. Transport Compact Disc Pro-Ject Not only in our opinion this is the best digital source Pro-Ject made so far. This analogue specialist designed a digital system that offers sound inversely proportional to its dimensions. Functional, nice looking, compact, susceptible to modification (power supply!), it is simple a great device. Don't waste time – go and get it! Music server Aurender For Tomek, who wrote the second opinion on this product, Aurender was one of latest “large” purchases for his system. As he said, he'd been building his system for 15 years and finally he felt that he found what he was looking for, and he could finally focus on enjoying the music. D/A Converter / headphone amplifier Cambridge Audio A short summary of this review could look like that: great design, lots of useful functions, rich sounding DAC/headphone amp. As a part of British Cambridge Audio top line ‘851’, 851D is a worthy partner for 851W power amplifier. We don't use this term too often, as it is commonly abused these days, but in this particular case we are happy to call this product: a reasonably priced high end device. INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER G•LAB Design Fidelity The appearance of completely unknown brand, G•LAB Design Fidelity, in Munich at HighEnd 2014 Show took many people by surprise, us included. We never knew neither founders of the company, nor designers, nor people responsible for the concept of G•LAB products. So these people seemed to come from nowhere and maybe that gave them a chance to think outside the box.. The Block amplifier looks like nothing else we've ever seen. The point is – most people, once they saw it, started to wonder why nobody had come up with such an idea before? It's a puristic tube (triode) low power amplifier capable of driving even large speakers. Brilliant combination of design and outstanding sound. And it comes from Poland! Linear Audio Research Wojciech Pacuła has known Mr Czyżewski, the founder and chief engineer of Linear Audio Research for many years. Mr Czyżewski is a well-mannered man with principles that he holds really dear, but he is a very warm person too. His products reflect his personality. A hybrid amplifier IA-120H, for the moment his newest creation, is, in our opinion, also the best one ever created by Mr Czyżewski. It offers fast, colorful, dynamic sound. And at the same time it is a remarkable headphone amplifier. And it is a Polish design! MBL Sticking to ones heritage is the right thing to do. In audio industry it is even more important as it proves that people behind the brand have proper knowledge and good hearing. These elements allow however to build also something new, something leaning towards future. An integrated amplifier MBL Corona C51 is an example of such device working in class D. It is not based, however, on modules bought from external vendor, but on designed by MBL's engineers. And this looks! A luxury audio product for a demanding customer. Jeff Rowland Jeff Rowland stays faithful to the design style we've known them of for many years. As you can see devices of this American firm still look very modern and still are able to stir up a lot of emotions. And still it is the performance, the sound that is paramount – everything serves the single purpose of maximum performance, starting with solid casing and ending with every little element of internal design. Advance Acoustic It's getting more and more difficult to come across an inexpensive audio device of a regular size. One reason is a market trend, another is cost-oriented production – smaller device usually means lower costs. There are few examples available on the market and this particular device is one of them showing how this should be done. It combines past (linear inputs and phono input) with future (digital inputs). And it offers a very good performance. There is nothing more one could expect from a device at this price level. X-i60 is a great start point into a life-time passion called Audiophilia PREAMPLIFIER + POWER AMPLIFIER YBA The French are champions in individual sports. This need of “individuality” manifests itself also when it comes to audio devices from this country. At first they might seem no different than products from other parts of the world, the deeper one goes into details the more obvious a divergence from commonly used schemes becomes. They don't deviate from those schemes just for fun of doing it, they do it to achieve certain results. Devices belonging to Passion line, PRE 550 preamplifier and AMP 650 amplifier offer fantastic performance with their deep, powerful sound, accent on lower midrange and large phantom images. As a bonus one gets a unique look of these devices. elinsAudio It doesn't happen often that a product of a new manufacturer is so well-prepared, refined, and offering such a fantastic performance, as elinsAudio Mille is. This Polish company decided to put an integrated amplifier in a three-box casing, so in fact it doesn't look like an integrated at all. It is a complete setup that will be a perfect match for truly demanding Magnepan speakers, as well as for high-efficiency horn speakers. Its presentation gives listener an impression of a very close, palpable, intimate even contact with music. Spacing and imaging is simply spectacular. LINESTAGE Tenor Audio If we were to point out a product offering the most intimate, rich, warm sound that we listened to this year the reference preamplifier of Canadian company Tenor Audio would occupy the top of the list. Its sound is so incredibly rich, so dense that it is hard to believe that it can be achieved to such an extent. And a preamplifier is not the only function of this device as it also sports a headphone output. And it does drive cans in equally outstanding way as it drives power amplifier. It is simply also a reference headphone amp. POWER AMPLIFIER ABYSSOUND Mr Julian Studnicki has every reason to be proud. Thanks to company Abyssound his ideas for power amplifiers he worked for many years on, finally became real, commercial products. The ASX-1000 power amplifier is unique in so many ways that it could be a subject of almost endless discussions. This amplifiers delivers a powerful, rich, slightly dark sound with focus on vocals. It's huge power headroom allows it to deliver proper drive to a very dense sound. |
TRIODE We sort of take it for granted that every time we get a Japanese tube amplifier for a review it has to be a very special product. So it would be easy to say that Triode TRX-M300 Reference Edition amplifier is just another, great example of Japanese approach to designing a high quality tube device. But in fact it is much more than that. The Japanese company that has been specializing in manufacturing relatively inexpensive products this times created a high end reference amplifier, with a single 300B triode. Beautifully made, wonderfully sounding, it is sort of “statement” product in Triode portfolio. LOUDSPEAKERS Manger X It took 45 years of the existence of the brand for Marek Dyba to have a chance to listen to and immensely enjoy one of their products. A close encounter with Manger MSSp1 speakers was a valuable and incredibly intense experience for him. He's been a fan of wideband drivers (and speakers using them) for years. He has never been blinded by this passion as he realized also weaknesses of this solution. Mangers proved that widerange drivers are one of the good ways of music reproduction for a music lover. Ingenious coherence of the performance, without, usual for widebanders, limitations of range extremes results in astonishing, natural music presentation. These speakers put listeners in the middle of musical event so that the performance sounds incredibly real. Many even more expensive multidriver bass-reflex speakers are not capable of such realism. If you love music most, if natural sound is more important for you than a race for most detailed, most transparent sound, deepest bass and so on than you have to try Mangers out. But be AWARE – that might start a relation ship that will last till death do you part...! Kaiser Acoustics There is a special use for monitors. They can't deliver such a scale of the sound and large floorstanders can, they are simply too small for that. And yet, in many aspects Kavero! Chiara by Kaiser Acoustics sound better than many huge floorstanding boxes with multiple drivers. They deliver large, rich, dense three-dimensional sound, that is also very clear with no distortions or whatsoever. It is possible due to ingenious cabinets and high performance drivers. The performance they deliver goes beyond any expectations one might have for a two-way standmounted speakers. In this particular case buyer gets speakers with stands designed for them. Graham Audio Engineers from BBC Engineering Department not only became part of the history but also shaped part of the history of audio industry. Loudspeakers that for several years have been one of reference point for other were created thanks to their work and inspiration they gave others. Their vision of sound has been attractive for many manufacturers even in recent years and thus some of them recently started to produce loudspeakers basing on licenses from BBC. One of such manufacturers is Graham Audio. Their first and (for now) only model LS5/9 monitors offer unique naturalness, dynamics and a chance to truly enjoy the music. These speakers are a part of „High Fidelity's” SYSTEM B . Pylon Audio One of the most important news we heard during Audio Show 2014 http://highfidelity.pl/@main-2250&lang= was the one that Polish company Pylon Audio shared with us. They have received a financial support from European Union that would allow them to start production of their own drivers. It's a wonderful news considering that even using drivers made by other manufacturers Pylon Audio managed to make a truly inexpensive speakers that offer absolutely fantastic price/quality ratio! They look really well, their finish is very good, and they offer dynamic, open sound. Any true music fan could be proud having them in his/her room. PMC Professional manufacturers hire sound engineers with a lot of experience brought from recording studios and/or live concerts. They bring with them priceless knowledge and experience. And yet it does not happen so often that these people create products to the liking of perfect audio enthusiasts. One of few companies that managed that is British Professional Monitor Company (PMC). One of their products, DB1 Gold monitors deliver open, selective sound, and one of their advantages is incredible dynamics. When buying PCM speakers we can be sure that what we get is a professionally designed product that was made using knowledge, experience but also love for music. GoldenEar In his review of these American speakers Wojciech Pacuła wrote, that he would use following tags for them: richness, depth, openness, delicacy, forgiving nature, energetic, large scale. These are quite big loudspeakers with multiple drivers and yet offering very coherent, liquid sound. The „folded ribbon” tweeter delivers delicate and yet detailed sound, and it seems that this is a case of particularly successful application of this driver. Tritons will work equally very well in a home theater system (and you won't need subwoofer anymore) and in a stereo rig. Excellent, reliable product for everyone. APS A material for UnCovered by Audiofeels was recorded in APS's presentation room, using their AEON monitors. It is one of the highest quality recordings made in Poland ever. Achieving such quality wouldn't be possible without these monitors. Model Trinity is significantly larger and much better. Its dynamics is remarkable, its resilience to overdrive and sudden shifts of signal is outstanding. You might not know this but many Polish recordings and remasters were done using these speakers. They can be also used for a minimalist but outright system for an audiophile who wants to hear exactly what is recorded on a CD (or in a file). Trenner&Friedl Might, classic, remarkable. Soundstage they offer is phenomenal, incredibly natural in size, planes, mass, and “feeling” the air. Tonal balance is perfect, but even though bass will take most listeners by surprise. It goes very deep, but it is never overdone, or overstretched. Sound seems a bit soft and very pleasant. Ones of very few speakers Chief Editor of „High Fidelity” could gladly live with every day. Albedo Italian products are usually beautiful designs. We got used to it. Many products from this country also sound very well. But there are quite few that offer such a great performance as Albedo's Aptica speakers. It is incredible how “large” and wonderful sound comes from such small speakers that in fact look like the design itself was the key element, not the sound. Ceramic drivers offer, unlike in many other cases, warm, sweet sound but keeping their usual great dynamics too. Aptica will look amazing in any modern interior. And they will sound equally great. Dynaudio When a particular model of speakers is a favorite of both, the owner of the company and its chief engineer, it must mean that it is actually a very particular product. In this case of Confidence C1 it gets even more interesting considering that these are shelf speakers, and not even from the flag line. But it is Confidence C1 that are loved by Mr Wilfried Ehrenholz, the owner of Dynaudio. The Platinum is its newest and best version that proves how fantastic can a sound of a shelf speaker be, how to use all advantages of such design without “pretending” to be a floorstander. Outstanding fit&finish only confirms how unique speakers these are. CABLES Interconnect + speaker cable Acoustic Revive A new material used for these cables means a different, new philosophy of the sound. Company Acoustic Revive used this moment for an improvement of quality while keeping the same, very good styling of their products. The new Triple C-FM cables offer some unique features like combining huge amounts of details into the larger picture, like conveying perfectly both: tonality and dynamics. It is simply a reliable manufacturer. They prove it with each new product. These cables are part of „High Fidelity” REFERENCE SYSTEM. Interconnect + speaker cable + power cable (system) Tellurium Q The key word of this review was: „good”. It was used to describe tonality, dynamics, coherence. The point is that these British Tellurium Q cables are “GOOD” in EVERYTHING they do, in EVERY aspect of the sound. That's why they deliver a refined and exciting performance. They should fit into any system adding some emotions and colors to the presentation. Power distributor + power cables (system) KBL Sound KBL Sound power distributor looks like it was made by a company with several years of experience on audio market that just prepared its newest, top model. Fit&finish, packaging and sound – all these features of this Reference Power Distributor are great. That is amazing especially considering that this is in fact one of the first KBL's products. Together with Red Eye power cables it creates a complete power system that should work very well in every high-end system. Reference Power Distributor and Red Eye power cable are now elements of „High Fidelity's” SYSTEM B. ANTI-VIBRATION SYSTEMS Anti-vibration platform Pro Audio Bono The Lignofol AVP by Pro Audio Bono is one of the few offered by this manufacturer that are not decoupled, it means it does not sport sub-platform that the main platform could be decoupled from. Resonances are damped due to large mass of the platform made of plywood (lignofol) and inside feet with roll elements. Together they create an amazing combination that allows Lignofol AVP to compete with reference pneumatic platforms by Acoustic Revive. This platform offers a great resolution and dynamics. Anti-vibration platform Rogoz Audio The platforms “offers” rich, warm sound, with tonal balance slightly shifted towards bass. It's a rare achievement as usually using anti-vibration elements results in a more precise, though less rich sound – but not in this particular case. A patented decoupling solution offers deeper, richer sound. This platform should give any system more authority and more “weight”. 
CZESŁAW NIEMEN A re-issue of artist's catalog We all have known him for years, we all realize how important he is, how his music became a part of our lives, how many emotions it brought us. So it is obvious that the information about Polskie Nagrania restoring the whole catalog of Czesław Niemen was very exciting for everybody. In case of the first titles already issued on Compact Disc a cooperation between many people engaged in the process like: Ms Anna Grzywacz, (supervisor of this re-issue from Polskie Nagrania), Ms Eleonora Atalay (remastering, restoration), Mr Jacek Gawłowski, sound engineer (transfer from tapes and remastering; awarded with Grammy 2014) and last but not least Repliq Media company, that prepared covers and dealt with pressing, presented results beyond expectations. Their cooperation simply resulted in an exemplary digital re-issue of Czesław Niemen's works. Ale previous re-issues were merely mediocre attempts and nothing more. Incredible! See HERE and HERE ZAPACH PSIEJ SIERŚCI Mr Wilczyński, the founder of GAD Records, should be awarded a medal for his achievements in the field of bringing Polish, already forgotten but of great artistic value, music back to live. One of the examples is a soundtrack from Jan Batory's Zapach psiej sierści (1981), by Włodzimierz Nahorny. It is an amazing soundtrack restored in a perfect way. It sounds better than 90% of music recorded today. It is a limited edition of only 500 pieces which adds even more value to every copy. Morton Subotnick Electronic music is usually associated with New Romantic style, or in best case scenario with Kraftwerk. But in fact already in the 1960ties there was some music recorded that defined for the years to come a Krautock, later New Romantic and finally Gothic. One of the most important representatives of it is Morton Subotnick with his Silver Apples of the Moon album. Show Band The picture used on the cover makes a great impression, especially on the cover of vinyl record. It's author, Jan Morek, is a legendary Polish press photographer. The recording itself is as great as this picture. Show Band, today almost forgotten, was a band of bass player, Andrzej Wojdyna. The material for this record was recorded in mono during just one day, February 2nd 1974, in Wytwórnia Filmów Dokumentalnych in Warsaw. Sound quality is excellent due to (as we would say today) a very puristic approach to recording, but also thanks to Mr Andrzej Poniatowski, a former Klan member, who took remastering upon himself, working with original analogue tapes. The effects of his work are astonishing. Sound quality is great and so is the cover. Alan Parsons Music On Vinyl is a label that greatly contributed to the fact that almost every major music shop offers vinyl records today. This company remasters and presses as many records monthly as few years ago were released on the market yearly. Its portfolio included re-issues, remasters, but also titles released on vinyl for the first time like Alan Parson's The Time Machine. Vinyls are used to be called “black discs”, but in this particular case records is practically clear. Sound is really good, and the cover very nice. And the price is quite reasonable. Bravo! Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Tacet label specializes in analogue recordings of classic music and jazz. And it does a great job. Their newest vinyl with Mozart Serenade in B flat Major performed by Stuttgard Winds is a a very good example. It offers very rich, “tube-like” sound and a close perspective for a listener. That's how contemporary realizations of small ensembles playing early music should sound like. Marek Biliński This re-issue of Marek Biliński's biggest hits might not have been that interesting if it wasn't for a great job that was done on original material by the artist himself. The result of his work is truly impressive and we can't wait coming re-issue of his first albums. This Best of the best is a fantastic selection of hit with high quality sound. It is available as CD and as LP – both highly recommended! Robert Kanaan & Krzysztof Duda & Przemysław Rudź This music is a tribute to Czesław Niemen, and was made by a Polish trio „EL”. The music is simply beautiful and the recording allows to enjoy true emotions while listening to it. That's the type of music that is a pleasure to buy and listen to. Highly recommended! Neutral Noise I bet few of you associate Solec Kujawski with a powerful, rock music. That's a mistake! A debut album of young guys from Neutral Noise proves their great potential as well as the fact that they already are skilled and developed musicians. What's more they know how to record their music so that is sounds damn well. Their album delivers a detailed, warm, dynamic sound. Many “audiophile” recordings don't even come close in terms of both musical value and a quality of the sound. |
nformation about yearly „High Fidelity's” awards are firstly presented during AudioShow each year. The show is a perfect opportunity for Distributors and Manufacturers to „spread the word” to their customers, to „brag” about being awarded and we are happy to see that many of them actually use this opportunity. Also Srajan Ebaen, chief editor of „6moons.com”, noticed that in his show coverage (See
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