Issue 154    December 2017
Hi-Fi+ Awards 2017 Celebrates Audio's Best
Editorial By Alan Sircom

  Our annual Awards issue not only is the perfect showcase for the best products we have seen over the last 12 months, but gives us a moment of reflection over the wider audio market. If we are being truly honest, the last 12 months or so have been difficult, especially in the UK as uncertainty over our post-European future has caused consumer confidence to rise and fall chaotically until relatively recently. And it may still fluctuate.

This is not a period of recession, so the average person in the street is not in constant fear of losing their jobs in the way we were a decade ago. But that fractured consumer confidence does have an effect on buying habits. We are all guilty of forgetting how to enjoy spending our money, even those with disposable income to spend.

What's needed is a spark to get people listening and buying new audio again. As a magazine, our awards help put people in stores to audition the best of today's audio, but that's not enough at the moment. So we've teamed up with high-end hi-fi expert Audiofreaks for an exclusive offer available to all readers of Hi-Fi+ magazine. Simply use the code printed on the Audiofreaks advert on page 12, go to the audiofreaks.co.uk website, enter our exclusive discount code and grab yourself a bargain!

This is something of an experiment. In the future, we hope to be able to provide such discount services from more manufacturers, distributors, and dealers alike. Discount vouchers that you can redeem at your audio store, for example. This is not designed to cut out the middle man; it's to put us back in the mind to enjoy great new audio again!

Our congratulations go out to Kevin Jewula, in Fleet, who won a pair of excellent Neat Acoustics Iota Alpha loudspeakers, and to Sam Vasco-Jarvis in Girton who wins an Audioplan PowerFilter S and FineFilter S, Valerie Seaman in Fornham St Martin who wins an Audioplan PowerPlant S, and David Dinenage in Walsall, who wins Audioplan PowerStar in our most recent competitions. Well done, all! 

Errata: In our review of the Ecosse Master Reference DCT interconnect cables in issue 153, we attributed the term ‘monocrystal' to both Ecosse and Nordost. We would like to point out that the copyright to the term ‘Monocrystal' is held by Ecosse, and that should not be confused with ‘Micro Mono-Filament' used by Nordost. Our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Alan Sircom, Editor Hi-Fi+