The best products of 2021

As 2021 began, despite the roiling world outside our doors I began to ponder how difficult it might be to choose those components that provided solace, peace, and a quiet escape via music. The difficulty came in there being so very many incredible components—DAPs, DACs, headphones, IEMs, headphone/amplifiers, integrated amplifiers, etc.—and me, not wanting to provide awards willy-nilly, looked to tighten the awards process further. The further being only two awards given per price category, though this year there would be honorable mentions.

The above said, we are living in a Golden Age of Music wherein millions of songs are, literally, available at our beck and call 24/7/365. Our most recent ancestors would be wide-eyed-stunned at the possibilities, that most of us now take for granted. And hand-in-hand with this Golden Age of Music is the progress of technology, which now plays back our music better than we have ever heard it before and in many cases spectacularly!

If music is a love, if it is a balm in challenging times, a refuge, an avenue for pure enjoyment, a time machine, when needed most, then we understand each other. Please find below in Best Product of 2021, Best Products of 2021, Editor’s Choice, and Best Budget Product of 2021 a few components that can lead you to your comfort spot. 

And that a good number of these products happen to be electrostatics, should  be very informative and curiosity invoking. 

The best product of 2021

MOLA MOLA TAMBAQUI

A time and space machine, indeed, for the when and where the Mola Mola Tambaqui transports one. Impossible it is, to write the concluding notes of this review, to break away from the spellbinding music or magic that this DAC/Headphone amplifier creates. Max Richter’s The Blue Notebook plays and the music sweeps over me as though my yellow-chair-tardis finds its way, through time and space, to this venue and that. And depending on the track of this album, I am at a beach, in deep space, in a room where a typewriter drums out a poem or a verse on white, textured paper. Or, perhaps, I am in a cathedral amidst angelic voices. The Mola Mola Tambaqui is an incredibly musical time and space machine, that some might even consider otherworldly. We award the MOLA MOLA TAMBAQUI our Best Product of the Year Award for 2021.

EDITOR’S CHOICE AWARD 2021

STAX SR-009S

The STAX SR-009S may represent, for many, a transcendent listening experience. It may move you beyond expectation to that which you never imagined possible in a earspeaker or headphone. And should its stable of playmates be able—of good musical repute and like ability and up to task—then you will find yourself in another world of music, altogether and, like me, traveling across time and space, from venue to venue, experiencing sublime enjoyment. The STAX SR-009S receives our Editor’s Choice Award for 2021.

BEST PRODUCTS OF 2021 TO $500

MEZE 99 CLASSICS

The Meze 99 Classics ($309) is  primarily for music (and movie) lovers, in our quite subjective opinion, as it gets to the heart of the music, but with a transparency that nicely defines the venue, whether intimate jazz club, symphony, arena rock concert, etc., while also providing great insight into the performer(s) and performance. And most important of all, the Meze 99 Classics will perform its magic with smartphones, computers, DAC-dongles, DAC/Amps, DAPs, etc. And don’t forget the movies or you’ll be missing out entirely on another of its wonderful strengths! The 99 Classic is musical, transparent, engaging, with great bass, superb aesthetics, and good sound-staging!

FIIO FD5

The FiiO FD5 ($299 ) from a design, aesthetic, build, and operational perspective is, indeed, a flagship product. It also provides a wealth of accessories that few flagships have, to date, matched. If you’re looking for a flagship IEM but don’t have the money traditionally associated with owning one, then your journey may well end with the FiiO FD5. And one listen, after it is properly burned in, will find you with an IEM of tremendous value and impressive, musical talent. We very highly recommend the FiiO FD5! The FiiO FD5 which consistently performed far above ITS price designation often competing with products at multiple of its respective cost and thus the designation.

BEST PRODUCTS OF 2021 TO $1.75K

SHANLING M8

The Shanling M8 ($1,659) is an extraordinary “Portable Music Player” more detailed and extended than the DX220 AMP1 MkII, more musical and engaging than the Cayin N6II/A01, and it is as powerful as some desktop systems (and more transparent). The Shanling M8 also proved outstanding as a digital transport to the Border Patrol SE-i DAC. The iBasso and the Cayin are both quite good, highly rated DAPs, the M8, however, is on another level altogether in what it brings to the rendering of one’s music. If you are a music lover, and for me, I imagine that in every music lover there is a bit of the romantic, the artist/poet, habituated realist, and the lover of all things beautiful (art, architecture, design, etc.), then this may well be your last DAP. 

STAX SR-L700MKII

The STAX SR-L700MkII ($1,649) electrostatic earspeakers are something quite new, at least to me, as they represent my first hearing of an electrostatic earspeaker/headphone. The experience has been, at the very least, a revelation and, at most, magical. As I write the conclusion, I am still listening to music. Sophie Hunger’s Headlights (Rules of Fire, Two Gentlemen) plays and I am fooled again, as I turn to see where a particular sound has come from. It’s on the track %$&*@! The STAX SR-L700MkII will also bring you closer to your music than you may have ever imagined possible And in so doing, you will rediscover that which you believed you knew, over and over again. It'll take your breath away! A Best of 2021!

STAX SR-007A

The STAX SR-007A ($2,205) is exceptional! They do that thing that electrostatic earspeakers do with transparency—they bring it like no other headphone technology can (planar, dynamic driver)—and they marry that transparency to incredible musicality, free of distortion in all its forms. Suffice to say,  that transparency, clarity, speed, soundstage are all next-level plus with the SR-007A. Further, the STAX SR-007A weaves a  naturalness and a coherency across the frequency spectrum, coupled with all of its other talents, that induces, as mentioned above, a quasi-conscious ecstasy. When I drafted our motto—transparency, musicality, engagement, and naturalness—I had not then listened to an electrostatic earspeaker. Easily one of the Best of 2021.

BORDER PATROL SE-i DAC

The Border Patrol SE-i DAC ($1,950) is a true gem, that hides its wondrous capabilities beneath a simple, clean, unadorned facade. To look past it though is to look past the tattered, dirt-crusted Van Gogh at a garage sale, posing as nothing more than an amateur's well-intentioned, paint-by-numbers, work. Don’t do that.The simplest thing to say about the Border Patrol SE-i DAC is that it never disappointed or failed to amaze. However, to carry on about SE-i DAC is to speak to its whole-cloth coherency, its top to bottom frequency reach (dependent on system configuration/synergy), its natural and wholly transparent rendering of the music, and its beguiling, analog ease across the entirely of the frequency range. A best of 2021!

STAX SRM-700S

With regard the STAX SRM-700S ($3,400), count me twice surprised by a tubed electrostatic headphone amplifier—STAX SRM-700T—sporting 6SN7 tubes in the power role—and now by a solid state electrostatic headphone amplifier that stands at the doorway of two worlds—tube and solid state. Though bereft of a single tube it can, nonetheless, speak both world’s languages rather fluently. The STAX SRM-700S is an extremely capable earspeaker energizer that, simply, must be heard! I don’t know what to tell you. Apparently, STAX’s nearly 100 years in business has taught it a thing or two about electrostatic audio components and earspeakers. 

STAX SRM-700T

The STAX SRM-700T ($3,400) is a superb electrostatic headphone energizer (amplifier) that worked exceptionally well with every electrostatic headphone that it was paired with! Prior to hearing the SRM-700T, as mentioned above, I did not expect much, having had exposure to amplifiers sporting the 6SN7s in a primary power role. There was no need, whatsoever, to worry. The summary effect of the STAX SRM-700T is wondrous musicality, very good control of the bass regions, exceptional detail and resolution, and incredible dimensionality. And this mix of these traits contributed to a rather fascinating you-are-there realism, which I have mentioned throughout my notes and in my reviews of, literally, everything STAX.

LTA Z10e

The LTA Z10e ($6,950) is, perhaps, one of the most versatile integrated/headphone amplifiers on the market today. It is certainly the most versatile headphone amplifier that I have ever come across. And it will align beautifully with all headphones types and technologies—Dynamic, Planar, Electrostatic, and even IEMs! And, it even drives efficient speakers (90dB+) too. I have spent quite some time with the LTA Z10e and have heard it with every headphone in house and those that have come and gone. And the Z10e will bring to them a profound naturalness and musicality, an air-filled-spaciousness, and a transparency that is, in my experience, astonishing! The LTA Z10e is a GoldenKey Note award winners and a Best Product of 2021!

BAKOON AMP-13R

The Bakoon AMP-13R ($6000) is much like a great leader or coach or a superstar athlete in that its inclusion with any combination of capable components will lift all boats to levels that they may not have previously experienced. Please don’t take my word for it, seek out the Bakoon AMP-13R and discover this for yourself. The truth in this case will be in the listening and the subsequent lifting of all boats/components in your respective, head-fi systems.The Bakoon AMP-13R is a form-follows-function work of modern art. Further, the AMP-13R is incredibly transparent, of a natural/organic musicality, and wondrously engaging. It is on of our DIAMOND award winners and it is easily a Best Product of 2021!

AUDIONET DNP/EXP

 AudioNet DNP & EPX’s symbiosis is incredible! In truth, I can scarce believe that someone would hear them together and not take them both immediately, after, of course, hearing the AudioNet DNP without the EPX. Let me state clearly, there is a world of difference when one splits the twins and takes the DNP home without its sibling. And though the DNP will make music and make it rather enjoyable, it will be but half, if you will, what it makes in tandem with its twin. I thought the DNP quite good, a possible award winner on  its own merits. However, when the EPX came home too, game over and the twins walked away with two awards—a Golden KeyNote and a Best of the Year! 

OBRAVO RA-C-CU

The Obravo RA-C-CU ($10,000) is a TOTL IEM not unlike the TOTL super cars—the Bugatti Chiron, Ferrari 488 Pista, Koenigsegg Jesko, Lamborghini Veneno, and Pagani Zonda Revolucion. Though one must make sure to take care of its very specific needs (see TOTL super cars). The price of admission is substantial in the extreme, however, those able to indulge, like the owners of the super cars listed above, will find next-level musicality, transparency, and engagement, from which it may be difficult to escape. Perhaps not unlike the goddess CIRCE’s island—Aeaea. Another DIAMOND award winners and another Best Product of 2021!