The Best So Far
 Each December, we usually
go through the list of products we’ve reviewed during the preceding year that have
received GoodSound! Great Buy awards, and choose one of those products as
our GoodSound! Product of the Year. This year, there’s a twist. Instead of one
product, two will be selected: a loudspeaker, and an electronics item or accessory. We
review so many products in any given year that it seems only fitting that more products
get a chance at this prestigious award.
But the end of 2008 is still a long way off. Here at the
midpoint of the year, we thought it appropriate to at least start thinking about what the
frontrunners for the two 2008 Product of the Year awards might be. Of the seven components
that have so far won Great Buy awards, here are the best:
In his review of the Axiom Audio M60 v2 loudspeaker, Philip Beaudette said, "The Axiom
M60 v2 performs so far above its price that it might be the best speaker bargain
today for under $1000/pair." Need we say more?
Perhaps a little. I’m not surprised that Philip
liked the M60 v2 so much and found them such a bargain at $990 USD per pair. In 2001, we
reviewed the M3Ti, the predecessor of Axiom’s current M3 v2 speaker. The M3Ti not
only won a Great Buy award, it was also our Product of the Year for 2001. Since then,
we’ve reviewed a number of Axiom products across the SoundStage! Network, and they
always earn top marks for high value.
 Another product that makes the cut is
the Usher Audio Technology S-520
loudspeaker, which Thom Moon reviewed at the beginning of June: "The Usher S-520
is the small speaker to seriously consider." The S-520 costs $479/pair and, as
with the M60 v2, I’m not at all surprised to see that it’s made the grade --
last year, Usher’s X-718 speaker was our Product of the Year. Like Axiom, Usher Audio
Technology seems to have a knack for creating award-winning products.
 On the electronics side, the Tangent CDP-50 CD player ($259),
which Philip Beaudette reviewed in May, is a contender. Philip compared the CDP-50 to his
own NAD C542 CD player, which costs about twice as much as the Tangent. When all was said
and done, Philip said that they basically sounded the same. Given that the NAD is
considered a high-value machine -- the main reason Philip owns one -- this makes the
Tangent CDP-50 a topflight player that must be on the list at the end of the year.
Finally, there’s Blue Circle Audio’s USB
Thingee, which Colin Smith reviewed in May. This is probably the biggest surprise of
the year so far -- the USB Thingee is small, ugly as sin, and relatively inexpensive
($169-$189, depending on output configuration). When we first got one, we didn’t
think it would amount to much. A "digital converter"? Who cares? But when we
figured out all that it could do and how well it performed those tasks, we were more than
impressed.
 First and foremost, the Thingee
converts the digital bitstream from a computer’s USB port to S/PDIF, TosLink, or
AES/EBU. This lets you stream music files from your computer to a non-USB DAC (many
new DACs have USB ports, but even DACs only a year or two old often don’t). The
digital-conversion capability is handy enough, and many will be happy to buy a Thingee for
that alone. But the Blue Circle also has a headphone jack and, what’s most
impressive, a built-in DAC section of its own that sounds good. I mean, really good
-- so good that it compares favorably with DACs costing many times more. Colin brought the
Thingee over to my house, along with a laptop full of hard-drive-based music files, so
that we could compare it to the many topnotch digital sources I had on hand. I was blown
away by how well the Thingee held up against them all. This versatile device is a
stone-cold bargain, whether or not you use all of its features.
Those are four frontrunners for 2008 . . . so far.
We’re only halfway through the year, and the race is far from over. We have plenty
more reviews to publish, and no doubt even more Great Buy awards will be given out before
December rolls around. The very best may be still to come.
. . . Doug Schneider
E-mail comments to the editor@goodsound.com.
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