Here’s another Stereophile milestone, our second one this year. In August, we celebrated the magazine’s 500th issue. This month, we celebrate a number that’s smaller but almost as round: our 30th Annual Product of the Year Awards.
PotY finalists and winners form a Who’s Who (or, rather, a What’s What) of high-end audio over the last 30 years. The first year’s overall winner, in 1992, was the Mark Levinson No.30 D/A processor (priced at an impressive $13,950), one of the first great-sounding DACs. The following year’s winner was the Convergent Audio Technology SL-1 Signature preamplifier ($4950 in 1993), a legendary tubed design that, after several further revisions, is still in production. (Bob Deutsch has one. So does my good friend Bryan.) Want to read more? All online.
As I pointed out in last year’s introduction to this feature, the average price of a category winner (excluding the Budget category) in PotY’s inaugural year—1992—was $6259, which is about $12,200 in today’s dollars. Over the subsequent three decades, it was rare for a nominated product to exceed, say, $50,000—rare but not unheard-of: 1995’s winner, the Wilson Audio Specialties X-1/Grand SLAMM loudspeakers, cost $67,500/pair, about 121,000 of today’s dollars. An even more expensive Wilson won eight years later: the $200,000/pair Alexandria XLF. Indeed, with occasional exceptions, like the $108,496 dCS Vivaldi stack from 2014, if a nominated product is impressively expensive compared to the norm, it is probably either a Wilson loudspeaker …
… or a turntable. The Rockport Technologies System III Sirius turntable ($73,750 with tonearm, or $121,000 in 2021 bucks) won the overall award in the year 2000. The Sirius became Michael Fremer’s reference but only until 2006, when the Product of the Year was the Continuum Audio Labs Caliburn with Cobra tonearm and Castellon stand ($99,500), which sat in Mikey’s listening room until quite recently.
This year’s nominees continue that pattern and extend it ever upward. One of this year’s Wilson Audio Specialties entries—there were two—costs $329,000/ pair. And this year’s contenders include three turntables priced between €150,000 (sans tonearm) and $450,000 (for the basic version).
In the past, Stereophile‘s reviewers—who are invited but not required to factor perceived value in their decisions—have rarely flinched when faced with the prospect of voting for expensive stuff, but a $450,000 turntable and a $329,000 pair of loudspeakers is a whole new level. Will reviewers follow these products right on up the price ladder and offer their support? Or—to intentionally mix locomotion metaphors—are prices like these a bridge too far?
How We Did It
In early September, I compiled and shared with reviewers a list of all the products reviewed over the 12 months between the November 2020 and October 2021 issues. This year, reviewers were invited to nominate five products in each of eight categories: Loudspeaker of the Year, Amplification Component of the Year, Analog Component of the Year, Digital Component of the Year, Headphone Product of the Year, Accessory of the Year, Budget Product of the Year, and Overall Product of the Year.
Last year, I put an absolute price limit of $2000 on products qualifying for the Budget category. This year, I employed a more flexible method, designating Budget products based on my perception of value: $500 is cheap for an amplifier or a pair of loudspeakers but not for a phono cartridge or an interconnect.
Just like last year, only products that received their first reviews during those 12 months qualified for this competition—except for Editors’ Choice, which was open to products reviewed earlier but auditioned by the nominating reviewer during the past 12 months. I then went through the nominations and totaled them up. In each category, the six (or so) products with the most reviewer support became finalists. I compiled a list of finalists and sent it to reviewers, who were asked to award three points to their favorite product in each category, two points to their second favorite, and one point to their third favorite. I counted up the points. I then sent an email to reviewers, reporting the results. And then I wrote this essay.
Some final notes: The prices listed herein were current at the end of August 2021. Finalists in each category are listed in alphabetical order. To order back issues mentioned in this article, call (888) 237-0955 or visit shop.stereophile.com. All the reviews are also available online, free.
And the winners are …
NEXT: Amplification Component of the Year »
ARTICLE CONTENTS
Page 1
Amplification Component of the Year
Joint Analog Components of the Year
Joint Digital Components of the Year
Headphone Product of the Year
Accessory of the Year
Loudspeaker of the Year
Budget Component of the Year
Component of the Year
Editors’ Choice
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