Stereophile Awards 2020

The Stereophile 2020 awards have just been published.


Overall Product of the Year and Amp of the Year is the interesting choice of the NAD M33 integrated amp. These all-in-one just-add-speakers amps that do everything from phono through internal DACs, streamers, room correction and Bluetooth seem to be getting better and better. The similar Goldnote IS-1000 also received excellent reviews over the past year. Perhaps integrated one-box solutions will compete with multiple boxes in sound quality too? I'm feeling that they will get close - I have an integrated amp and it sounds much better than the four Naim boxes it replaced, and cost less too.


And it is fantastic to see the CAD Ground Control Grounding Boxes get Accessory of the Year in the Awards. And apparently it was a landslide in the votes from the Awards judges.   These are remarkable devices and I am pleased that Stereophile has recognised them - they made a big difference to the sound of my system and I have never heard anyone report otherwise.   Some folk say Grounding Boxes cannot work as they are not easily measured, but Stereophile under the leadership of Jim Austin is even more measurement-focussed, so for measurement-Jim to support the CAD units is a great testament to their undeniable effectiveness in a system.


Other winners:
Analog Component - PS Audio Stellar phono preamp
Digital - Holoaudio May DAC
Headphones - Focal Stellia
Speaker - Magico M2
Budget - Audioquest Dragonfly cobalt usb dac