May 2025

A Clarion Call For Audio Today
The best in audio sound very close to one another.
Editorial By Alan Sircom

  There can be only one! It was a great tag line for a not-so-great movie (who thought casting someone with a broad Scottish accent as a Spaniard locked in a thousand year debate with a Scotsman with a broad French accent was a good idea?). However, it seems that Highlander is the clarion call for a lot of audio today.

Yes, audio converges. The best in audio sound very close to one another compared to a few decades ago. We still have a long way to go, but the differences between Product X and Product Y in audio are not as wide as they used to be. Also, most products in audio today are pretty good. The bad old days when a mediocre product would not only sound dreadful but try to execute you with electricity are long gone. Except for a few very cheap products rarely sold in audio stores that have an alarming records of re-profiling records played on them, modern audio is at least competent, if occasionally, a bit 'Meh!'.

All of this makes it understandable that people want to know which is 'the one'. They want to know which is the single best of everything and AI-generated websites are keen to tell you just that, often based on nothing more than an attempt to skew sales toward their target. The world is not like Highlander, which is a shame because I think I could carry off The Kurgan look.

Like everything from a decent steak to that next car you're thinking of buying, there are always options. And while those AI-generated influencers would like you to pick Car A or Steak B and then laugh at anyone who disagrees with them, the world is seldom that black and white.

But people keep asking 'which is the one'.

I guess this is a positive thing. A decade or so ago, I wouldn't be asked the question; I'd be told the answer with a veiled demand for approval; "I've got a Gruntastic Enfabulator V... that's the best, isn't it?" It just doesn't feel very positive in real terms. This demand to know the best implies that everything else... isn't. And that's not the case. Just as Fender Stratocaster is the best guitar for Strat players and a Gibson Les Paul is the best for Les Paul players, and the same applies to cameras, watches, cars, yachts, and maybe one day, space suits... it also applies to hi-fi.

That's why we have awards; they help point out what's best for you. Remember that you are not the same listener as everyone else, and while a review or someone else's listening session says a lot of things about a device, it tells you nothing about whether or not it's the device for you. You have to make that step!

Congratulations go out to Mark Perry of Bristol in the UK, who won a fantastic Network Acoustics eno2 streaming system worth £1,395. Well done!

Alan Sircom, Editor hi-fi+

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