When the channel was just starting out, I received an email that thrilled me immensely. It was from iFi, and they proposed a collaboration: they would send me some of their entry-level products —the Zen DAC, the Zen Phono— and I would do a video review. It was the first time someone from outside believed my videos could have some value. I did it enthusiastically.
The joy was short-lived. I soon saw that, just like me, all Spanish-speaking YouTubers were featuring the same products. The same Zen DAC, the same Zen Phono, the same review with a different face in front of the camera. And I felt like just another one in the crowd. Just another one they had bought off with trinkets.
I decided I didn't want to be a conveyor belt for equipment that adds little to the world of high fidelity. And here you might say: but Josep, these are affordable devices, many people enter this world thanks to them. And you're right. As entry-level equipment, they work, and sonically they sound good. But that's not it. The problem is everything else: the manufacturing process, the aesthetic design, the materials used, the ecological impact, and above all, the NARRATIVE. The story a brand and a piece of equipment have behind them. Human stories that tell of people who struggle and overcome adversity. People who imagine and then create. Engineers who build and then improve. For me, a piece of equipment is a compendium of many things, but the most important is the STORY behind it.
So I've ignored all invitation emails to promote equipment in exchange for keeping the gear.
I don't like this system of promotion, and consequently, flooding the networks with videos of soulless equipment. But not because they are affordable devices. I oppose it because they propose a high fidelity of 'here I buy you, here I replace you, here I throw you away or store you in a drawer.' A hifi of exacerbated consumption, diametrically opposed to what I want. The one I want begins with an engineer who has a vision, a passion, who acts, who takes risks and tries. And ends with a person who researches, who trusts, who invests, who enjoys, and who emotionally connects with that equipment and values it with all its depth and nuances.
But sometimes I doubt. Sometimes I wonder if I should reconsider. Because if I'm completely honest, I don't really know where the line is between what I accept and what I don't. Is it an economic matter? Is it a personal matter? Is it a matter of origin? I don't really know.
What I do know is that, until I find that line, I prefer to err on the side of too much discernment rather than too little. On HiFi Café, you will continue to see equipment with a story behind it. And I ask you a real question, not a rhetorical one: where would you draw the line? You, in my place, what would you do?
