Issue 116    October 2014
Coopetition
Editorial By Alan Sircom

  It goes by the slightly clunky term 'coopetition' and it's short for ‘cooperative competition'. It means, you view your competition as fellow travellers on the same path... at least, when it suits! It dates back to the time of the Danelaw, when traders used to fight to the teeth before and after their longboat journeys, but were the best of friends when it came to securing the best rates from the longboat captains. If the Vikings could do it, why can't we?

So, last month there was The National Audio Show, of which we were a media partner, and at the very start of

Where the National Audio Show has become the centre for some of audio's new and (let's be honest) leftfield brands, The Hi-Fi Show (now in its second year), promises to be an altogether more top-line event, with many of the bigger and more established names in the world of high-end audio showing their latest and greatest.

The ‘coopetition' part in all this is The Hi-Fi Show is sponsored by 'fellow traveller on the longboat' Hi-Fi News & Record Review magazine. By all rights, rival companies should treat the competition as at best invisible, and at worst bitter rivals, but we don't think that way. A good event is a good event, and by supporting it, we each further the cause of good audio in the home.

We will be at the show, although this time not manning a full stand. Not only will we be there to report on the selection of products from brand names that run from ADL to Wisdom Audio, and including many of the brands seen in the pages of Hi-Fi+ (not least the Devialet Ensemble system and Tellurium-Q cables reviewed in this issue), but I will be giving a lecture (currently titled, ‘Compression: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly') during the event (time and room to be confirmed).

The show runs from 9.30am-5pm on both Saturday 1 and Sunday 2 November, 2014. Tickets are £22 on the day, but £20 if booked online, and this figure drops to £15 for Hi-Fi News subscribers. Full details are available from the organiser's website.

Our industry is full of grown-ups. We need to start behaving like grown-ups. Petty rivalries need to be set aside in order to help re-establish our little world in the 21st Century. Our little act of coopetition is part of us doing our bit; it might not be much, but at least it's a start.

Alan Sircom, Editor Hi-Fi+