As of today, the award ceremony during this year's Audio Video Show seems to go smoothly: Wojciech Pacuła and I have named the award winners quite early, the invitation is ready, both winners will be in Warsaw and have kept the evening free for the handover. Now only the awards have to be ready in time.

While the readers of hifistatement.net could already recently read the article of the colleague that led him to choose his award winner, the readers of highfidelity.pl will have to wait until the beginning of November to see the Polish version of a test, based on which our choice was made. However, that should be easy to get over, since Wojciech Pacuła already presented the same component to his readership in January 2021. An English version of his assessment can be found here. However, the subject of consideration in highfidelity.pl was not the set of four, i.e. two bridged power amplifiers per channel. And therefore the hifistatement article about this configuration will then be accessible in Polish in November.

But now for the prizewinnig components. This year Wojciech Pacuła chose J. Sikora's tontarm KV12 Max Zirconium: „The thing that stayed in my mind after the test of the KV12 Max arm is that you could listen to music with it on lower volume levels, because everything was still legible with it. The arm allows the needle to read an incredible amount of information and gives it in an extremely dynamic way. The older arm has its advantages, such as warmth, density and internal focus. However, the zirconium suspension arm is so resolving that I don't think any other arm I've ever tested has topped it. And anyway, the most important thing is that you listen to the music with excitement, with curiosity. There is no room for lingering, there is action, and when needed breath, but without exaggeration. With KV12 Max even the silence carried with it some energy and made musical sense. And I guess that's what music is all about.“

Hifistatement's choice for the Statement in High Fidelity | Polish Edition 2023 are WestminsterLabs pre and power amplifiers Quest and Rei. The statement about the trio of pre and two mono power amplifiers read: "For me, WestminsterLabs Quest and Rei embody contemporary and intelligent high-end in its purest form. Free of all superfluous and bling bling, they convince with clear lines, moderate dimensions and a short signal path with few components - and the very best sound. I don't even know of a handful of amplifier combinations with such a spontaneous power delivery, such good detailing and such a wide-ranging spatial representation. A dream trio!" The set of four power amplifiers was also convincing all around: "WestminsterLab manages the feat of making its power amplifiers sound even more fluid, harmonious and elegant thanks to the bridge circuit and despite the quadrupling of power that goes along with it. With four monos, paradoxically, you hear less technology and - still - more music."

Congratulations to the award winners!

The previous Statements in High Fidelity:

2023 GERMAN EDITION

Ayon Crossfire Evo
dCS Vivaldi APEX DAC

2022 POLISH Edition

Crystal Cable Da-Vinci-Serie
Raidho X1t

2022 GERMAN EDITION

Børresen 05 Silver Supreme Edition
Soulnote P-3 SE

2021 POLISH EDITION

Siltech Classic Legend Kabelserie
Thiele TA01

2021 GERMAN EDITION

Ferrum Hypsos
RCM Audio Big Phono

2020 POLISH EDITION

Ayon CD-35 II HF Edition
Transrotor TRA 9

2020 GERMAN EDITION

Gryphon ETHOS
Melco S100

2019 POLISH EDITION

Nordost QPOINT
Audioquest NIAGARA 1000, 5000, 7000, TORNADO, THUNDER, NRG-Z3