The editors of Home Theater magazine have announced the winners of their first annual Recognizing Audio Video Excellence (RAVE) Awards. The RAVE awards are open to all manufacturers whose components are reviewed in Home Theater magazine in the 12-month period ending in April.

The RAVE awards will be presented during a ceremony at this year’s Home Entertainment Show, HE2003, on Friday night, June 6, from 7pm to 8pm in the Windsor Suite at the Westin-St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco.

Each winner is chosen based solely on feedback from the writer who reviewed the product in Home Theater. The reviewer will have spent, on average, at least one month with the product, and will have based his decision on performance, value, ergonomics, and features.

Commented Editor Maureen Jenson, “The Home Theater team feels it is important to recognize excellence in the design and manufacture of superior audio and video components. I asked the reviewers to nominate gear that, after having spent weeks testing, they had a tough time shipping back to the manufacturer—equipment the reviewers loved so much they wanted to keep it for themselves.”

Full List of the 2003 Rave Award Winners

Product of the Year
Pioneer Elite DV-47Ai Universal Disc Player

Best High-End Speaker System
MartinLogan Odyssey

Best Mid-Level Speaker System
NHT Evolution

Best Entry-Level Speaker System
Infinity Entra

Hot Ticket Value Speaker System
Athena Point 5

Best High-End Preamplifier-Processor
Meridian 568.2

Best Mid-Level Preamplifier-Processor
Krell Showcase

Best Entry-Level Preamplifier-Processor
Anthem AVM 20

Best High-End Power Amplifier
Lexicon LX-7

Best Mid-Level Power Amplifier
ATI AT2007

Best Entry-Level Power Amplifier
Anthem PVA 7

Best High-End A/V Receiver
Denon AVR-5803

Best Mid-Level A/V Receiver
Rotel RSX-1065

Best Entry-Level A/V Receiver
Sony STR-DA3ES

Best High-End DVD Player
Meridian 598

Best Budget DVD Player
Samsung DVD-P421

Most Worthy of Its Controversy
SONICblue ReplayTV RTV4000 PVR

Best HTIB
Kenwood/Boston Acoustics Unity

Best Plasma HD Monitor
Fujitsu PDS-5002

Best Direct-View Display
Sony KV-34XBR800 HD Monitor

Best Rear-Projection Display
Mitsubishi WS-73711 73-inch HDTV

Best DLP Projector
PLUS Piano Avanti HE-3200

Best HD-Capable Projection System
NEC HT1000 DLP Projector

Best Custom Product
Xantech MRC44 Control System

Best Convergence Product
Klipsch ProMedia 5.1 Personal Computer Audio System

Hot Gear
Epson PowerLite TW100 LCD Projector

Hot Gear
B&W CDM 9NT Speaker System

Hot Gear
Polk DS7200 A/V System

Hot Gear
Bryston 9B SST THX Amplifier

DVD of the Year
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Platinum Series Extended Edition (New Line)

On the opening day of the 114th AES Convention in Amsterdam, surround audio technology leader DTS is hosting a presentation addressing the latest developments in high-quality multi-channel audio for digital broadcast.

Those attending the presentation will be treated to the first-ever public broadcast of DTS 96/24 Digital Surround, via Swedish Radio’s 1.5 Mbps DVB multi-channel satellite transmission. The digital audio service has been operating in test mode since February, and has been enhanced to handle the high-resolution DTS signal for the AES demonstration.

The presentation at 12 noon tomorrow (Mar.22) will be introduced by leading sound recording engineer and producer Stuart Bruce, who will also deliver this year’s keynote address at the AES Convention.

Mr. Bruce is a leading proponent of multi-channel audio production, with almost 20-years’ experience in stereo recording. His credits include work with artists such as Stevie Wonder, Roy Orbison, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Barry White and Bob Marley. He is based in his own production suite at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios.

The presentation will address all aspects of implementing high-quality multi-channel sound in the broadcast chain, including production, contribution and transmission issues.

Other participants in the presentation will include will Bosse Ternstrom and Lars Mossberg, senior engineers from Swedish Radio who have first-hand experience transmitting the first publicly available 96 KHz, 24-bit quality 5.1 broadcast service.

Swedish Radio’s DVB multi-channel test transmission service uses the DTS Coherent Acoustics compression/decompression algorithm. The free-to-air broadcast service is being transmitted across Europe using the Nordic and European beams of the Nordic Satellite AB (NSAB) Sirius 2 satellite (5 degrees East), on 12.245.34 MHz Vertical and 12.379.60 MHz Horizontal, respectively.

The test also includes terrestrial transmissions over DVB-T supplied by Teracom. SR’s transmission follows the inclusion by the DVB of DTS Digital Surround as part of its Digital Television specification.

DTS Web Site

Yamaha consoles made a strong showing in the 2003 MIPA Awards, presented at Musikmesse ProLight+Sound in Frankfurt.

Yamaha’s DM2000 digital console won the Best Mixing Desk (High End) award, ahead of the other category nominees – Solid State Logic’s XL9000K, and Yamaha’s own 02R96.

The Yamaha 02R96 came into its own in the Best Mixing Desk (Project Studio) category, where it won the award and finished ahead of Behringer’s DDX 3216, and the Soundcraft Spirit E.

The Yamaha DM2000 repeated in the Best Mixing Desk (Live) category, where it was up against DiGiCo’s D5 Live, and the InnovaSon SY40.

The MIPA Awards (Musikmesse International Press Awards) are the result of voting by representatives of 55 major music and audio magazines, published in 25 countries including the U.S.A., Canada, U.K, Germany, France and The Netherlands. The 2003 awards were given out in 40 categories, covering recording and live sound equipment; music and audio software; instruments including keyboards, drums, bass and guitar; and dance/groove-gear.

Other notable awards in the audio hardware and software categories included:

• Line6 Variax (Best Innovative Product)
• Digidesign Pro Tools HD System (Best Recording Hardware)
• Emagic Logic 5.5 (Best Recording Software)
• Lexicon MPX550 (Best Recording Effects – Hardware/Software)
• Waves 360 Surround Toolkit (Best Surround Tools)
• Dynaudio Acoustics Air-Series (Best Studio Monitor – Nearfield)
• Blue Baby Bottle (Best Studio Microphone)
• Neumann KK105-S (Best Live Microphone)
• AKG D 440 (Best Drum-Microphone)
• Nexo Geo (Best Large-Format PA System)
• Dynacord Cobra (Best Club PA System)
• Propellerhead Reason 2.0 (Best Software Instrument)
• Native Instruments Kontakt (Best Sampler – Hardware/Software)
• Vienna Symphonic Library (Sound Library)
• Pioneer DJM-3000 (Best DJ-Mixer)
• Stanton Final Scratch (Best DJ Software/DJ Tools)
• Numark TTX-1 (Best Turntable/CD-Player)

Complete List of 2003 MIPA Awards Winners & Nominees

More News from Musikmesse

Musikmesse ProLight+Sound Web Site

At Musikmesse, Sweden’s Propellerhead Software has been showing a new, updated version of its Reason virtual studio package – Version 2.5 – featuring several new software synth and processing modules.

Now Propellerhead is proud to announce that the current Version 2.0 of Reason has been awarded the Musikmesse International Press Awards (mipa) award for Best Software Instrument – for the second year in a row.

Propellerhead co-founder Ernst Nathorst-Böös accepts the 2003 MIPA Award for Best Software Instrument at Musikmesse in Frankfurt

The mipa awards are voted on and presented by a coalition of over 55 magazines from over 25 different countries. The awards were presented to the winners at a special mipa Party and Awards Ceremony, attended by more than 300 international representatives of manufacturers and distributors of musical instruments and audio equipment.

Reason is an enormously successful software program for both Windows and PC platforms that emulates a rack of electronic synthesizers, samplers, drum machines and recording equipment. Reason has been awarded Editor’s Choice Awards from Electronic Musician, Mac World, Remix, Computer Music magazines and cnet.com, mipa award for Best Software Instrument and the highly coveted TEC award.

The new Version 2.5 of Reason, which made it’s debut during Musikmesse, will be available in the second quarter of 2003.

Propellerhead Web Site

More News from Musikmesse

Musikmesse ProLight+Sound Web Site

Universal Audio, manufacturer of vintage audio hardware and DSP software plug-ins for digital audio workstations, will receive Blue Ribbon Awards from EQ Magazine for 2003 for its 6176 Channel Strip and 2192 Dual D/A & A/D Converter.

The 6176 combines two of Universal’s most successful products – the 2-610 tube-based mic/instrument preamplifier, and the 1176LN compressor – into a single “channel strip” product.

Universal's 6176 combines the quality and character of the 2-610 mic pre with the tone, lightning-quick attack and release times of the legendary 1176 compressor

The 2192 is a single rack unit analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converter with simple front-panel controls. It supports sample rates up to 192KHz, and transcodes between AES/EBU, S/PDIF and ADAT digital formats in realtime, with single- and dual-wire AES modes.

Universal Audio's 2192 offers tremendous flexibility in signal routing and monitoring

EQ Magazine’s Blue Ribbons are presented in 22 categories, with the winners selected by EQ’s panel of editors and industry experts. Winners were chosen from the new products introduced at the Fall 2002 AES show and between the months of September and December 2002.

Universal Audio Web Site

More Universal Audio 2192 Info

More Universal Audio 6176 Info