Last Saturday night Sound+Image Magazine held their annual awards night as part of the Australian Hi-Fi Show in Melbourne.
This is our industries only credible awards event in Australia, so it is widely anticipated.
While there were a few surprises many of the awards went to expectation. As usual a large percentage of the products honoured on the night can be found in our showroom.
Yamaha kept their tradition alive when the RX-A3080 A/V receiver won the AV Receiver of the Year $2,000 – $5,000 category, making it nine years in a row that they have been presented with this award! Yamaha picked up a number of awards on the night, including the Amplifier of the Year under $1,000 with the R-N303.
Another product with a long history of awards is the slimline NR’ A/V series receiver from Marantz. The NR1609 collected the budget A/V receiver category – and if memory serves me correctly every consecutive version of this model since its inception has picked up this award.
Trinnov was named the AV processor/power amplifier of the year – no surprise there, this is an amazing product. The multi-room amplifier of the year went to the Meridian 251 (well deserved), and the multi-room system of the year went to Roon. Sennheiser collecting the award for the HD820 headphones (Headphones of the Year over $1,000) was to be expected (they also collected a couple of other headphone awards on the night).
The TV of the Year was also no surprise with the Panasonic TH-65EZ950 collecting the gong. What was a little left of field though was that they also collected both the UHD Blu-Ray player of the Year under $500 and over $500 awards. The over $500 award was for the yet to be released DP-UB9000. We won’t see it until December, but it has now officially been released overseas, and the excitement surrounding this product was sufficient for it to be recognised on the night. To round the night off Panasonic also collected the award for the TV Recorder of the Year for the DMR-UBT1.
The Rega P6 turntable won its category, as did the Sony VPL-VW760ES projector (AV Projector of the Year over $5,000) and the Marantz ND8006 CD player was awarded CD Player of the Year. The Music Player of the Year went to Cocktail Audio, and Astell and Kern was named as the portable audio player of the year award.
Mark Dohmann deservedly received the Lifetime Achievement award for both his pioneering work on turntable design and services to the industry in general. His Tour-de-Force Helix 2 turntable now holds pride of place in our hi-end room.
And last, but certainly not least, Len Wallis Audio received a Gold Award for the Stereo Installation of the Year for the Naim Statement amplifier system that featured in the pages of Australian Hi-Fi earlier this year.
