As music lovers and audiophiles, we live in an astonishingly exciting time. It should come as no surprise that as improvements in engineering capabilities, taken in combination with advances being made in materials sciences, marching along in step, are yielding even more creative and effective methods for the most gifted of designers to apply and create the most advanced, exciting, and authentic-sounding audio components in the history of our industry.

Today I’m going to identify the audio products which I see as the most influential to have come to market over the past decade, finally naming one of those as the most prestigious, THE product of the decade. I will cover five basic categories: accessories, cables, sources (analog and digital), electronics, and speakers. You may note that most of the products receiving today’s honors have all been released much closer to the end of this decade than its beginning, and for the obvious reasons already mentioned. Given the brevity necessitated by the scope of information covered today, you will find additional relevant web links here.