While we prepare this year’s Sound+Image Awards for full publication (after a few leaks following the Awards presentation during Sydney’s Australian Hi-Fi Show 2026), there is one award which we can reveal – the public-voted Best Sound of Show.
It’s an informal award, but comes with great kudos, since it counts written votes made by showgoers as they leave the Show, asked which room created their favourite sound, and why. Comments are encouraged by doubling these nominations up with the competition card for the Show, loaded with great prizes which can be won by collecting stamps at the Show and then making a suitably prize-winning comment on the Show and its rooms.
One note for next year: a surprising number of people told us why they liked the sound, but neglected to tell us which room they had chosen…
Otherwise the votes were notably well-spread, among more rooms than usual, confirming our Show Report’s suggestion that there was barely a room this year which wasn’t on song, despite the limitations of hotel rooms, large suites and shared corridors. Solid rooms, some decent treatment and careful planning all combined to keep such issues at bay during the three days and across the food floors of the Show.
WINNER: Synergy Audio-Visual with Sonus faber, McIntosh & REL
The room gathering most votes was one of the Ground Floor suites, the Elizabeth Bay Room, home to brands from distributor Synergy Audio-Visual.
While there were two systems available for demonstration in the room, we suspect the system gathering the votes was the main one, total value around $716,000: Sonus faber Amati Supreme speakers in ‘Terra Rossa’ red, supported by no fewer than six REL S/550 subwoofers configured as two three-high line arrays at the back of the room, with a stack laden with McIntosh electronics and topped with Rega’s flagship Naiad turntable.
You can get more details of how it was connected and how it sounded (and that second system) in our Show Report here. Meanwhile our congratulations to the Synergy team for executing (and continuously improving) this impressive system.
RUNNER-UP: Bowers & Wilkins - Marantz (Harman)
In a fairly narrowly-contested second place was the room next door, another Ground Floor suite, this time loaded with Marantz electronics and Bowers & Wilkins’ 800 Series D4 speakers. It made an interesting comparison with Synergy’s room – a far lower box count, with just the Marantz Link10n preamp and two Marantz Model 10 amplifiers in single-channel monoblock mode, and no subwoofers supporting, the 802 D4 speakers.
Bonus goodies included classic Bowers & Wilkins speakers on one side and the current ‘Abbey Road x Bowers & Wilkins 801 D4 Limited Edition’ speakers and Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus on the other. More info in the Show Report…
Also in the votes
A great many rooms gathered collections of votes for Best Sound, including a pleasing group of Australian companies operating out of the ‘Homegrown Hi-Fi’ section of the Corridor of Power.
Congratulations in this regard to Lenehan Brothers with its new System One loudspeaker, to Serhan Swift with their prototype analogue active mμ2 standmount/mμ3 floorstander, and to Mcleans Smart Home Entertainment, whose tall Magnepan MG2.7X planar-magnetic loudspeakers proved popular with visitors.
Pantheone Audio’s sculptural lifestyle speakers also scored well, as did Richter with its new Series 7 SE Dragon floorstanders and Aurora standmounts. MaxMedia was in the running (for twin systems serving its Avantgarde horn speakers and the coolly retro award-winning Pylon Jades).
Yamaha pulled votes for both its hi-fi and soundbar rooms; Stax (Audio Marketing) garnered praise for demonstrating the full range of finely-etched sounds available from its electrostatic earspeakers.
Adding to these, our own congrats to every demonstration in every room; as we say, the quality this year was exceptional: see our full Short Report here. Thanks also for everyone who put their comment cards in the reception box: we’ll be contacting prize winners shortly.
