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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
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