There are certain times when you test a piece of audio tech and, while you’re impressed with how it sounds, how it's built and pretty much any other criteria one would need to bag a five-star haul, there’s never a time when you wish you had one for yourself. Be it a pair of speakers or some new headphones, your feelings are more of admiration than genuine infatuation.
The flip side of this, of course, is that occasionally something will enter our doors and immediately grab me by the heart, bypassing the rational sinews of the brain and heading straight for the emotional centre. Certain products simply have the “I want one of those" factor, and while I’ve certainly seen it in the realm of headphones (Grado GS3000X and Focal Bathys) and wireless speakers (the Sonos Era 300 and Era 100), two products from a far more niche corner of the market have caught – and kept – my attention this year: the Ruark Audio R410 and the Revo SuperConnect Stereo music systems. They’re both bold, beautiful and brilliant, but they have many of the What Hi-Fi? team, me included, asking the same question: why aren’t there more products like these on the market?
