We have announced the first winners of the What Hi-Fi? Awards 2025.
The Awards are now in their 43rd year, and are brought to you in association with Richer Sounds. Once again, they celebrate the best hi-fi and home cinema products and beyond, acknowledging class-leading kit across 24 categories, from awe-inspiring amplifiers and stunning stereo speakers to terrific TVs and superb soundbars.
Our reviews team has been busy over the past 12 months putting all kinds of audio and video products through their paces, ranging from entry-level to the highest of the high end.
We have whittled these down to 110 winners – with a further five special Awards yet to be announced. It has been a long process, but worth it to bring you expert recommendations you can trust. Buy one of the products below, and you can rest assured you're getting the best in its class.
As ever, there are some familiar faces – but there are plenty of newcomers too.
Let's see which products feature.
Our TVs category features all-new winners, including the LG C5 (pictured) for the Best 40-43-inch TV, Best Mid-range 55-77-inch TV and Best Gaming TV gongs. LG's C-series has long represented fantastic value, but it has faced fierce competition in the past couple of years from the likes of Sony. So it's good to see LG back on form.
Speaking of Sony, the Bravia 8 II impressed us massively this year, and takes the Best Premium 55-77-inch TV Award. TCL picks up three of the remaining four Awards, and Panasonic the Best Premium 48-50-inch TV. Deserved winners all.
The soundbar category again features lots of new products, including the KEF XIO, which is the brand's first soundbar. To make a competitive product on your first effort is no mean feat, but to make an Award-winner first time out is phenomenal. Congrats to all at KEF on a job well done.
Sonos again fares well, winning for its Beam Gen 2 (for the fifth straight year!) and Arc Ultra, while Hisense and Samsung win the other two soundbar gongs.
Our standmount speaker category sees the return of models by PMC and Epos, plus new speakers from Acoustic Energy, Ruark and PMC. The Dali Kupid are a particular highlight, adding a pop of colour and some much-needed accessibility to a product category that has been in danger of becoming staid.
Floorstanders? We've got you covered. The Wharfedale Diamond 12.3 and PMC Prodigy 5 make welcome returns, alongside three newcomers. And Rega continues to dominate the turntable category with three of the seven winners. JBL’s new Charge 6 and Flip 7 continue the brand's winning streak in the field of wireless speakers, and are joined by its Xtreme 4 and the reigning champ Apple HomePod 2, plus the new Audio Pro C20 W.
The only new entry in the wired headphones category is the Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro X (pictured), but the wireless headphones sector has plenty of new winners, including many from Sony (to no one's surprise). But Sony doesn't dominate the world of wireless earbuds quite like it used to, with Technics and Bose picking up gongs here.
Elsewhere, there's plenty of change. Five of the six winners in our projectors category are new models, as are three of the four victors in the stereo amplifier category. There some great new models in the music streamers category, and there's even a new winner in the world of CD players. Who said CDs were dead?
Radios and speaker packages see some returning winners from the likes of Roberts, Ruark, Wharfedale and B&W, and there are some familiar faces in the DACs and home cinema amplifier categories.
That's just a taster of the full list of winners. And to see which products are bestowed Product of the Year – marking them out as the best of the best – you'll have to wait until the Awards ceremony on Thursday 13th November. We'll also announce our special Awards that night: Temptation, Readers' Award, Outstanding Contribution, Hall of Fame and Innovation of the Year.
We'll post these results on the night, so stay tuned to What Hi-Fi? to see them all then.
The What Hi-Fi? Awards issue of the magazine will also go on sale in both print and digital editions the following day (Friday 14th November).
We thank all the manufacturers who have gone above and beyond to deliver new products to our test rooms in time for the What Hi-Fi? Awards judging process, and offer a hearty congratulations to all the What Hi-Fi? Awards 2025 winners.
Until the ceremony itself...
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