During the Audio Video Show in Warsaw High Fidelity.pl and hifistatement.net awarded two prizes for the first time. Of course, they express above all our appreciation of the award winners and their award-winning products, but they also document the positive cooperation between the two online magazines over the years.

My colleague Wojtek Pacula awarded Nordost's QPoint, a so-called resonance synchonizer, whose tonal effects convinced him. As you can see from his review, he also appreciates the courage of the developers to look beyond the strictly scientific field and their openness to audiophile experiences.

Over the last twelve months, I have been most impressed by Garth Powell's developments and the products that have emerged from them, Audioquest's power conditioners and power cables. Garth Powell had already stressed in the interview about his products that they would show their positive effect in all systems, since the filters work linearly over a very large range. Of course we could not test Niagara and Co. in all systems. As a glance at the "listened with" sections in our magazine shows, that three Hifistatement colleagues have been infected by my enthusiasm and purchased a Niagara 5000 and the corresponding cables for each of their systems. If they hadn't been completely satisfied with the result, it would have been less easy for me to award a prize for Audioquest's "LowZ/Noise-Dissipation" mains technology.

Wojtek Pacula and I, of course, had not agreed to award prizes to companies that are primarily active in the cable business. That was pure coincidence, but also no reason to think about other award winners. Since we have known each other for more than 15 years now, meet again and again, talk on the phone much more often, and since my wife and I are members of the Krakow Sonic Society led by Wojtek Pacula, we have such a trusting relationship that we don't consider it necessary to hear the product chosen by our colleague for his STATEMENT in High Fidelity for ourselves. We also quickly agreed that we would not be hosting a prize-giving party. We invited the award winners, Johann Graham and Alex Brady for Nordost and Robert Hay for Audioquest, to a restaurant in Warsaw and spent an evening full of animated conversations with them. We will continue to do so – but not in November of next year in Warsaw, but most likely in Munich next May.

Wojtek Pacula had the idea of presenting an International Award, as he called the STATEMENT in High Fidelity in our advertisement in the Audio Vision Show catalogue, two years ago. However, I was very skeptical at first. The colleague distributes so-called Red Fingerprint Awards monthly in his magazine, which rank among the annual awards in various categories, and then there are also awards for the best sound during a show – not only in Warsaw, but also in Munich. That seems too much of a good thing to me. But perhaps after eight years of complete abstinence from awards at Hifistatement – in its current form – I also see it a little too critical. In addition, it seemed to me extremely attractive to make the cooperation between High Fidelity.pl and hifistatement.net a little more present through our award. And that's why from now on there will be the STATEMENT in High Fidelity twice a year. After the successful evening in Warsaw I can only say: Good that my colleague – and friend – Wojtek Pacula convinced me of the importance of this award.