EISA Audio Awards 2003-2004

EISA is the largest editorial multimedia organisation in Europe, with a membership of 50 Audio, Mobile Electronics, Video and Photo magazines drawn from 20 European countries.

Once a year all EISA member magazines come together in Geneva for the elections of the European Awards. From all products introduced during the preceding twelve months, each panel must choose the best equipment in each category.

Reviews and photos of the hi-fi products that won the European Audio Awards 2003-2004 can be seen at
http://www.eisa-awards.org/awards/2003-2004/audio.htm

DENON DVD-2900 Universal player and ROTEL RA-02 Stereo Amplifier keep winning awards left right and center!

 

Sadly Max, IMHO it's just a marketting excercise. Whilst I have no problem with awards for the 2900 and RA02, both of which are excellent products, I do take exception to the following

Sony's S-Master technology realises a long-standing ambition of digital audio engineers and enthusiasts alike: direct numerical conversion from Pulse Code Modulation to Pulse Width Modulation at high power levels. For the first time, this enables creation of an extremely high efficiency power amplifier requiring no feedback from output to input. Furthermore, S-Master technology introduces a wholly novel volume control, replacing input digital attenuation with a variable power supply at the output switching stage. This preserves the smallest nuances of an original signal -even at the lowest listening levels.

Utter Bollox, Tact have been doing it for years, but of course they don't have the marketing budget to qualify for one of these awards

In fact if you read the awards page and imagine that the testimonials were in fact written by the manufacturers concerned, it makes a lot more sense

When you take these factors into account, I feel the EISA awards have about as much importance as WM's opinions on Jazz

 

Sony is not even the first company to do this at an affordable price as I believe Sharp got there first.

Are these the same awards that voted the NAD C370 the European amplifier of the year last year. Says it all really

 

correct, and yes, the Sharp 1 Bit system trashes the Sony S-Master for sound quality too

those EISA awards are as said above, just for marketing hype. Bit like Euro Car of the Year.

 

No mention of the 40Gb iPod either

 

Why is that companies such as Naim and Musical Fidelity do not get EISA or other awards from the hi-fit press?

Anything to do with their advertising budgets or are they naff products?

 

Probably for the same reasons that Ferrari, Rools Royce ......etc have never won Car of The Year award. Naim, MF and most other specialist HiFi companies would not appeal to the mass market for various reasons such as cost.

 

I hear what you say merlin but TacT products cost the earth and are big boxes. The Sony S-Master demo I saw at Heathrow was pretty bloody impressive. It was a tiny thing about the size of cigarillo case (looked like one aswell) which was taking a TOSLink feed from a Discman in one end and had some speaker cable hooked up on the other end. Within the limits of show demos I was extremely impressed.

I think the award is fair and not really untruthful. You get the same kind of thing in the motor industry. A volume car maker will be hailed as the "first" to do something when the same technology may have been in use for years in motorsport and/or the higher echelons of the industry like Ferrari & Porsche.

By "first" they mean "first at an affordable and widely marketable price". S-Master is going to revolutionise small audio applications like phones, PDAs, mini-systems etc. TacT may have had a similar technology in £10K esoteric hifi boxes before but that's not really relevant to the industry at large.

Michael.

 

about hifi

The EISA awards are a not only focussed on the result, but in particerly on the design, comfort, price/quality
It's a bit hared to say, really.

I have just recently 'discoverd' a good integrated amp:
A300S => $1790

http://www.bvaudio.com/

They have reviews on their site, and they handle factory-direct.
These are one off the many hidden steals in the audio industry.
You can connect a sub on it

OdysseyAudio has great speakers, I like the:
Epiphony

Check also:
http://www.tnt-audio.com/int.html


I'm just providing you info, to give you a better look on the equipment on this earth.
TagMclaren for instance is way to expensive.