If we were living in normal times, I would have met my friend and colleague Wojtek Pacula during the High End and together with him I would have presented the joint award of our magazines to Gryphon and Melco in a larger group the next day. We are not deterred by the current adversities and will make up for the handover – if necessary via Skype.

Shortly after the first award ceremony in Warsaw we agreed to present two awards again at the most important hifi show in Germany – if not internationally – again without much effort at a dinner to which we invite the winners. Even though there are four awards per year, the STATEMENT in High Fidelity should not become on of the inflationary scattered awards so quickly. Like the first time, we didn't 'talk each other into making our selection. In our opinion, the different points of view make the matter really interesting. On the one hand there is the supporter of unbalanced connections, on the other hand there is the advocate of balanced signal transport, one swears by CDs and the corresponding players, the other by streaming and HighRes files. And this is also reflected in the decisions for the first STATEMENTS in High Fidelity of the year 2020: Wojtek Pacula has chosen Gryphon's Ethos, a true high-end CD player with an almost prohibitive price tag, as the prize winner. Its converter section, which enables both PCM upsampling to 384 kilohertz and DSD128 conversion, can also be used by external data suppliers. The streaming fan – and author of this lines – has been most impressed by Melco's S100. This may not be the best-sounding switch in the world, but in my opinion it's the one with the best price/sound ratio.

The awards are now finished, well packed and already on their way to the receivers. As soon as they arrive there, there will be a video conference where you can at least have a virtual toast. Until then, I recommend reading Wojtek Pacula's very detailed review, which we are publishing today. According to his guidelines there will be chapter headings and pictures without explanations, unlike usual in hifistatement. Shortly more of the STATEMENTS in High Fidelity.