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Winner of the CD category was the Yamaha CDC-745 5-disc player. This has a number of worthwhile features including “peak search” which finds the highest level signal on a disc & lets you set the correct recording level on your tape deck for copying. The 1994-95 Sound & Image Awards The 1994-95 hifi awards were judged in 16 categories and a total of 243 products were submitted. Two Japanese companies, Yamaha and Pioneer, did very well with several awards each but some awards went to companies that are not well known at all. By LEO SIMPSON The 1994-95 hifi awards, or to give them their full name, the 1994-95 CESA Sound & Image Awards, are a cooperative venture conducted by “Sound & Image” magazine in conjunction with the Consumer Electronics Suppliers Association and have been conduct­ed each year since 1989. Four judges were involved with these latest awards, listed as follows: Greg Borrowman, editor of “Australian Hifi” magazine; Paul Burrows, technical editor of “Sound & Image” magazine; Les Cardilini, lecturer in electronics at the RMIT and for many years a writer for “The Age” newspaper; and Leo Simpson. We don’t have the space to list all the products that were up for judging so this report will concentrate mainly on Arguably the lowest power unit in the amplifier category was the NAD 310, rated at just 20 watts per channel. Our taste is for at least 10dB more. 14  Silicon Chip the winners and runner-up contenders. Nor do I propose to go into how the judging was done except to state that it was a tedious and time-consuming process involving comparison of performance speci­fications, features and prices and, most important, listening tests. Some winners stood out like a beacon in their category while in others it was quite difficult to separate the winner from the runner-up. However, it was eventually done and these are the results. Best amplifier There were 18 entries in this category and they ranged in price from a low $349 for the NAD 310 amplifier to $3977 for the ME 850 power amplifier, an Australian made system built like a battleship and using little or no negative feedback. The NAD310 did not get an award but it must stand out as the one with the lowest power; just 20 watts per channel. The winner was a brand relatively new to the scene, the Grundig Fine Arts model V3, rated at 120 watts per channel into 4Ω loads and priced at $899.00. The V3 stands out because of its value for money, its styl­ing and its easy-to-use remote control. One particular feature that was commended Winner in the amplifier category was the Grundig Fine Arts model V3. It is rated at 120 watts per channel into 4Ω loads & is priced at $899. It has a commendable feature whereby it automatically rotates its volume control to zero in the event of a short circuit across the speakers. Below: winner of the tuner category was the Pioneer F-403 which can store up to 40 stations together with 4-letter names – sounds fairly provocative to us. What would you call the parliament/news station on 630kHz? Definitely the swankiest equipment submitted in the 199495 hifi awards was this Marantz 1020 Slim series system which is teamed with Mordant Short loudspeakers. Consisting of a 45 watt per channel receiver, a CD player and a cassette deck, the system has fully concealed controls which are revealed by motor driven dress-panels which open at the touch of tiny buttons at the sides. FX403, priced at $429. Some of its features include random presets for 40 stations, 4-letter station name memory, RF attenuator, selectable IF bandwidth and three-speed station search. Best cassette deck was found by accident when using the amplifier during listening tests on loudspeakers. As with virtually every amplifier these days, the V3 can withstand momentary shorts across the loudspeaker outputs, without blowing fuses. However, many amplifiers will dissipate a lot of power and many eventually overheat if the short circuit condition is maintained. The Grun­dig V3 ensures against this by rotating its volume control fully anticlockwise when a short is detected. This is a brilliant “common-sense” innovation which is likely to be seen on many other amplifiers in the future. Two entries which were highly commended were the Yamaha AX-380 and Kenwood KA-4060R. Best receiver & tuner There were 12 entries in this category with the winner being the Pioneer SX-303R. Highly commended were the Technics SA-GX170 and the Yamaha RX-385. Eleven tuners were submitted, ranging in price from $1699 for the Audio­ lab 8000T down to $359 for the Technics ST-GT350 (how do they come up with these numbers?). The problem with judging tuners is that many of them have similar performance, operating features and price. In this case, the winner was the Pioneer Another hotly contested category, with 11 entries priced from $499 for the Philips FC-930 to $999 for the Sony TC-K717ES. Many decks had dual transports which does add convenience if you are dubbing but the judges went for the Yamaha KX-580, a single transport deck with maximum Dolby features (ie, Dolby B, C, S & HX Pro), automatic tape tuning and bidirectional intro scan. It sells for $599.00. The Sony TC-K717ES was highly commended. Best CD player In this category the entries fall into single CD players or multi-disc models. The price range for this category was large, ranging from $499 for the Winner of the cassette deck category was the Yamaha KX-580, a single transport deck with maximum Dolby features (ie, Dolby B, C, S & HX Pro), automatic tape tuning & bidirectional intro scan. February 1995  15 Yamaha has been prominent with Dolby Pro-Logic receivers for quite a few years so it was no surprise that it won the home theatre category with the model RXV870, priced at $1599.00. It has three channels rated at 80 watts into 8Ω loads & two rear channels rated at 25 watts. Technics SL-PD867 5-disc player to $3399 for the Quad 67. Included in this range was the JVC-XLMC100 100 disc player priced at $2499. It is a brilliant product which might have fared better if it had been entered in the category for technical innovation. As far as sales are concerned, the multi-play models have much wider acceptance than single disc units and the judges went along with the majority of consumers in plunking for a multi-play model, the Yamaha CDC745 5-disc player. This has a number of worthwhile features including “peak search” which finds the highest level signal on a disc and lets you set the correct recording level on your tape deck for copying. Another worthwhile feature is PlayXchange; when five discs are loaded, the one that is playing is on a separate tray. It will continue to play while the main tray slides out so that the other discs can be replaced. The Yamaha CDC-745 is priced at $599.00. Digital audio product of the year This category includes MiniDisc and DCC products although it is fair to say that none of these has had outstanding success to date – they are just too expensive. Even so, they are brilli­ant examples of large scale integration and the Sharp MDM-11ABK is quite incredible. It is so small that you need to remind yourself that it is a full MiniDisc recorder and it includes a titling facility. It is priced at $1199.00. Loudspeaker of the year As you might expect, the sky is the limit as far as loud­speaker prices are concerned so they are split into In the over 52cm class, which included wide screen sets, the winner was the Hitachi CMT-2998, priced at $2495. This includes surround sound & picture noise reduction. 16  Silicon Chip three price ranges: up to $700; $701 to $2000 and $2001 to the stratosphere. The lowest price range was the most hotly contested, with no less than 21 entries. The winner was the Krix Equinox. In the middle category the winner was the Dynaudio Image 3, Mk II, a very successful speaker designed in Australia. Its stablemate, the Dynaudio Image 7, figured in the closely contested open category ($2001 and up) but it was edged out by the more expensive and considerably larger Mirage M3S1. Home theatre When you look at the whole hifi scene this is the one with the most interest and the most sales. What we’re talking about is full-on stereo receivers with Dolby Pro-Logic decoding, DSP (ie, ambience simulations of theatres, churches, jazz clubs, etc), and five power amplifiers, although oddly, some of the entries were speak­ ers for surround sound. Be that as it may, the winner was the Yamaha RXV870 priced at $1599.00. It has three channels rated at 80 watts into 8Ω loads and two rear channels rated at 25 watts. While many of the contenders in this class offer a lot of electronics for the price, they also impressed the judges for their downright complexity – do average users ever come to grips with all their features? Audio systems These used to be called “rack systems” but now they embrace the full Big, bold & bright, the Pioneer SD-M1407 40-inch rear projec­tion set won the award for best video projection product. It can handle PAL, NTSC & SECAM programs & has hifi stereo sound. CAM) and Teletext. What more could you want? In the over 52cm class, which included wide screen sets, the winner was the Hitachi CMT-2998, priced at $2495. This in­cluded surround sound and picture noise reduction. Video projection units Winner of the hifi VCR category was the JVC HR-J615 machine which includes G-code programming & very flexible editing facilities. gamut from economy to quite elaborate systems which anyone would be proud to own. Some of them are very elegant but they have prices to match. So much so, that there were three price ranges: up to $1000, $1000 to $2000 and over $2000. In the lowest price range the winner was the Denon D-08 while in the mid-range the Kenwood UD-552 got the gong. In the over $2000 class, the Grundig Fine Arts R1 Rack was the clear winner, with the same sort of features that made the V3 model the winner in the ampli­fier category. Also highly commended were the Pioneer XP-840F and the Mar­ antz 1020 Slim series teamed with Mordaunt Short loudspeakers. The Marantz system certainly was one of the most elegantly styled products of the year. Other categories included car audio, portable audio, combo units (ghetto blasters?), video cameras and colour TV sets. The latter was split into 51cm and under, and over 52cm. Even in the smaller class, the sets are packed with features, as evidenced by the winner, the Sanyo CPP3186TX (another of those super numbers again!). Apart from a flat picture tube (pretty standard amongst TV sets), this unit had front mounted inputs, stereo audio/video in/out, SCART connector, multi-system (ie, PAL, NTSC and SEOne of the cheapest products entered in the CESA awards, the original G-Code programmer distributed by Philips took out the award for technical innovation. With home theatre products being the big movers this year, it follows that video projection units would be on the up and up to give the largest of screens. Two contenders stood out: (1) the Pioneer SDM-1407, a rear projection 40-inch set (price $7500) with multi-system reception and a host of features; and (2) the Sanyo PLC-200P LCD video projector (price $7999.00) which was reviewed in the March 1993 issue of SILICON CHIP. The Pioneer set took out the winner’s award because of its large bright picture and the fact that it could also serve duty as a normal set. The Sanyo projec­tor, on the other hand, was highly commend­ed for its technical innovation, absolutely flicker-free picture and a screen size limited only by the room. Video recorders Now you might think of VCRs as being fairly ho-hum products but there has been a lot of development over the last few years and the features now included are quite surprising. Many VCRs now have G-Code included for hassle-free recording. The VCR manufac­ turers have seen the light very quickly on this innovation and there has been a rush to jump on the bandwagon. There were two categories for VCRs, one for mono machines and the other for hifi units. In the result, the machines that won in both categories included G-Code programming. The mono machine was an Akai VSG415EA while the hifi unit was a JVC HR-J615, a machine notable for its flexible editing features. Having mentioned G-Code and its impact on VCR programming, it is only fitting that the original G-Code programmer, the Gemstar VIP-88A, distributed by Philips and reviewed in the April 1994 issue of SILICON CHIP, would win the category for technical innovation. At $125 this product has swept the market. Interest­ ingly, it was by far the cheapest product in its SC category. February 1995  17