EISA announced the winners of its 2026-2027 awards in Berlin on August 24. The hi-fi group alone gave out 37 of them. That is a lot of trophies for one year, so this is the full list in one place, sorted the way you would actually shop: speakers, then subwoofers, then amplifiers, then the vinyl and headphone side.
Seven of the winners are already in our database with full specs. That means you do not have to take the award on trust. You can put the winner next to the speaker or amplifier you were already thinking about and look at the numbers. Every one of those seven is linked below.
EISA Hi-Fi Award winners 2026-2027 that are in our database
Quick facts
- 37 hi-fi awards, announced in Berlin on August 24, 2026.
- DALI and Pro-Ject took four each. NAD and Eversolo, two.
- Nine of the 37 went to amplifiers. Nine different kinds of amplifier.
- Seven winners are on Speaker Decision, from $600 to $7,399.
What an EISA award actually is
EISA is the Expert Imaging and Sound Association. It is a group of 51 magazines and websites from 26 countries. It started out as a European club and opened up to North America, Asia and Australia in 2016. Each expert group votes, all five groups announce together once a year, and the winners collect their trophies at a gala in Berlin on September 4, the opening day of IFA.
So it is a jury prize. Nobody publishes graphs, nothing is tested blind, and the panel is made up of people who write about gear rather than measure it. What an award does tell you is that a room full of people who listen to new equipment all year kept coming back to the same box. That is worth knowing. It is just a different thing from a spec sheet, which is why every winner we hold is linked to its own page here.
An EISA award tells you that a room of reviewers liked it. It does not tell you whether it suits your room, your amplifier or your budget. Those three are still your job.
Floor-standers and standmounts
Ten of the 37 awards went to loudspeakers, and the biggest of them, EISA Floorstanding Loudspeakers, went to the Paradigm Premier 820F V2. It is the largest model in Paradigm’s second-generation Premier range and a proper three-way: a 1 inch AL-MAC tweeter sitting in an Oblate Spheroid Waveguide, a 6 inch AL-MAG midrange behind a perforated phase-aligning lens, and two 7 inch CARBON-X woofers underneath. Our record puts it at 52Hz to 23kHz, 93dB sensitivity and a nominal 8 ohms, which is a friendly load for a tower this size.
Paradigm Premier 820F V2, winner of EISA Floorstanding Loudspeakers 2026-2027
The other five box-speaker awards went to models we do not carry yet. Radiant Acoustics Clarity 66 took Premium Floorstanding with a two-way using Purifi woofers and an AMT tweeter, and the Wilson Audio Sabrina V, Wilson’s smallest tower, took High-End Floorstanding. On stands, Triangle Solstice 3 won Standmount Loudspeakers, which is the first speaker from Triangle’s brand new Solstice range after three decades of Esprit. We do hold the rest of Triangle’s current line, and there is a size and specs comparison of the Borea range here if you want to see what the Solstice is replacing. JBL Summit AMA took High-End Standmount and Arendal Sound 1610 Bookshelf 8 took Premium Standmount.
DALI had a very good year
Four of the 37 awards went to DALI, which is more than any other brand on the list managed except Pro-Ject. Two of the four are in our database.
The DALI KUPID won Compact Loudspeakers. It is a small two-way with a single 4.5 inch wood-fibre bass and midrange driver and a 1 inch soft dome, in five finishes, at $600 a pair. DALI ships wall brackets in the box, so it will sit on a shelf, hang on a wall or go on a stand.
DALI KUPID in Black Ash, winner of EISA Compact Loudspeakers 2026-2027
Here is the part the award citation will not tell you: the KUPID is a 4 ohm speaker rated at 83dB. That is a demanding combination on a $600 pair. A cheap all-in-one will drive it to a polite volume and no further, and if the room is big you will hear the limit before you hear the speaker. Give it a real amplifier, or buy something easier. The DALI Oberon 1 next to it is 6 ohms and 86dB for roughly the same money, which is a genuinely different proposition.
The SONIK range won Loudspeaker Series, which is an award for a whole family rather than one box. We have five of them on file. Every model gets a new 29mm tweeter, and the two big towers add DALI’s hybrid design, where that dome is joined by a planar magnetostatic ribbon and the top end runs out to 30kHz instead of 26kHz.
| FEATURE and SPECS COMPARISON | |  |  |  |  |  |
| Model | DALI SONIK 1 | DALI SONIK 3 | DALI SONIK 5 | DALI SONIK 7 | DALI SONIK 9 |
| Speaker Type | Passive Bookshelf | Passive Bookshelf | Passive Floor-standing | Passive Floor-standing | Passive Floor-standing |
| Enclosure Type | Ported | Ported | Ported | Ported | Ported |
| Driver Setup | 2-way | 2-way | 2-way | 3-way | 3-way |
| Tweeter | 1.125" Soft-Dome Tweeter | 1.125" Soft-Dome Tweeter | 1.125" Soft-Dome Tweeter | 0.6875 x 1.75" Planar Tweeter | 0.6875 x 1.75" Planar Tweeter |
| Mid-Range | - | - | - | 1.125" Midrange | 1.125" Midrange |
| Woofer | 1 x 5.25" Wood fiber Woofer | 1 x 7" Wood fiber Woofer | 2 x 5.25" Wood fiber Woofer | 2 x 7.0" Wood fiber Woofer | 3 x 7.0" Wood fiber Woofer |
| Frequency Range / Low | 51Hz | 47Hz | 39Hz | 36Hz | 34Hz |
| Frequency Range / High | 26kHz | 26kHz | 26kHz | 30kHz | 30kHz |
| Impedance Nominal | 6Ω | 6Ω | 6Ω | 6Ω | 6Ω |
| Sensitivity | 86dB | 87dB | 88dB | 89dB | 90dB |
| Max Power (RMS) | 100w | 150w | 150w | 180w | 300w |
| Port Position | rear | rear | rear | rear | rear |
| Available Colors | Black Ash, Natural Oak,White,Walnut | Black Ash, Natural Oak,White,Walnut | Black Ash, Natural Oak,White,Walnut | Black Ash, Natural Oak,White,Walnut | Black Ash, Natural Oak,White,Walnut |
| Finish | MDF/Wood-grain laminate | MDF/Wood-grain laminate | MDF/Wood-grain laminate | MDF/Wood-grain laminate | MDF/Wood-grain laminate |
| Grille | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Height | 275.0mm | 351.0mm | 824.0mm | 1005.0mm | 1126.0mm |
| Width | 162.0mm | 201.0mm | 250.0mm | 305.0mm | 320.0mm |
| Depth | 224.0mm | 307.0mm | 269.0mm | 331.0mm | 377.0mm |
| Weight | 4.10kg | 6.42kg | 10.82kg | 16.23kg | 24.65kg |
| MSRP(pair) | 900USD | 1200USD | 1800USD | 2800USD | 4500USD |
| Check Current Price | Amazon | Amazon | Amazon | Amazon | Amazon |
Reading down that table, the jump that matters is between the SONIK 5 and the SONIK 7. You are paying $1,000 more, and you get the hybrid tweeter, 7 inch drivers instead of 5.25 inch, and roughly three more Hz of bass extension for it. The 5 is the value pick of the range. The 9 exists for people with a big room, and at $4,500 a pair it should be judged against much older money.
DALI’s other two wins are not with us yet: the SUB V-16 F took Premium Subwoofer, and the VEGA, an all-in-one with ten drivers inside it, took Lifestyle Music System.
Wireless speakers and subwoofers
The Cambridge Audio L/R X won Wireless Bookshelf Loudspeakers. It is the biggest of Cambridge’s L/R wireless pairs, built around the company’s Torus tweeter and its StreamMagic platform, with 400 watts a side. What makes it interesting is the input list: HDMI eARC, a moving magnet phono stage, USB, S/PDIF, line in, and a subwoofer output. That is a whole system in two boxes, and it is why it costs $2,399 rather than $549 like the L/R S below it.
Two subwoofer awards were given out. Premium Subwoofer went to the DALI SUB V-16 F, a 16 inch driver with 1500 watts behind it. Hi-Fi Compact Subwoofer went to the SVS 3000 Micro R|Evolution, which we do have. Twin opposing 9 inch aluminium drivers, a 1200 watt class D amplifier, 20Hz at the bottom, all inside a cabinet about a foot on a side.
SVS 3000 Micro R Evolution, winner of EISA Hi-Fi Compact Subwoofer 2026-2027
$999 is a lot for a small subwoofer, and that is the honest trade. You are paying for the cabinet you do not have to hide, not for output you could not buy more cheaply in a bigger box. If the sub can live behind the sofa, a full size sealed model will beat it for the money. We wrote up how much size you actually save going sealed a while back, and the same maths applies here.
Nine amplifier awards, and two of them are ours
Nine of the 37 awards went to amplification. Nine.
- Tube Amplifier: Fezz Titania MK2
- Best Value Integrated Amplifier: NAD C 3030
- Integrated Amplifier: Musical Fidelity M6xi
- Premium Integrated Amplifier: MOON 371
- Best Value Streaming Amplifier: Pro-Ject Uni Box S3
- Multi-Room Amplifier: Bluesound POWERNODE
- Amplifier: Hegel H200
- Streaming Digital Amplifier: Lyngdorf TDAI-2210
- Smart Amplifier: NAD M33 V2
NAD took two of the nine. The NAD C 3030 won Best Value Integrated Amplifier: 50 watts a side into both 8 and 4 ohms, illuminated VU meters, HDMI eARC, aptX HD Bluetooth and a moving magnet phono stage, at $1,199. It is a deliberate nod to the original NAD 3030 and it looks the part.
NAD C 3030, winner of EISA Best Value Integrated Amplifier 2026-2027
One oddity. There is also a C 3030S at $1,499 that adds BluOS streaming, and it won nothing. Same amplifier, same meters, $300 for the streaming board. If you were going to add a streamer anyway, the two side by side make the decision quickly.
The NAD M33 V2 took Smart Amplifier at the other end of the price list, at $7,399. It swaps in the latest Purifi Eigentakt modules for more than 200 watts into 8 ohms and 380 into 4, adds a redesigned DAC stage, and runs Dirac Live with Bass Control so it can time-align up to two subwoofers for you. That last feature is the one that earns the word smart.
A note on the Bluesound win, because it would be easy to click through and get the wrong box. The award is for the new three-channel POWERNODE with GaN output devices, Dolby Digital decoding and Dirac Live readiness. The POWERNODE on our site is still the 2021 model, and it is going on the list to update.
Vinyl, headphones and the rest
The rest of the list runs outside what we cover, so here it is in one breath. Turntables went to Pro-Ject Debut Reference 10, Thorens TD 404 DD and the SME Model 35, with Dynavector ASKA-L taking Phono Cartridge and Pro-Ject Tube Box S3 B taking Phono Preamplifier. Digital went to LAiV Harmony µDAC and Eversolo DAC-Z10, with Volumio Primo Plus as Streamer and Eversolo T8 as Digital Player. Headphones and headsets went to Loewe leo, ASUS ROG Kithara and Audeze Maxwell 2 ANC. CANVAS HiFi took Premium Soundbar and Pro-Ject Wireless Box E took Accessory, which is Pro-Ject’s fourth win of the day.
The full list of 37
| Award | Winner | On Speaker Decision |
|---|
| Floorstanding Loudspeakers | Paradigm Premier 820F V2 | Specs and compare |
| Premium Floorstanding Loudspeakers | Radiant Acoustics Clarity 66 | Not yet |
| High-End Floorstanding Loudspeakers | Wilson Audio Sabrina V | Not yet |
| Standmount Loudspeakers | Triangle Solstice 3 | Not yet |
| High-End Standmount Loudspeakers | JBL Summit AMA | Not yet |
| Premium Standmount Loudspeakers | Arendal Sound 1610 Bookshelf 8 | Not yet |
| Compact Loudspeakers | DALI KUPID | Specs and compare |
| Wireless Bookshelf Loudspeakers | Cambridge Audio L/R X | Specs and compare |
| Wireless Loudspeakers | Denon Home 200/400/600 | Not yet |
| Loudspeaker Series | DALI SONIK | Five models on file |
| Premium Subwoofer | DALI SUB V-16 F | Not yet |
| Hi-Fi Compact Subwoofer | SVS 3000 Micro R|Evolution | Specs and compare |
| Lifestyle Music System | DALI VEGA | Not yet |
| All-in-One System | Primare Allt-i-Ett | Not yet |
| Tube Amplifier | Fezz Titania MK2 | Not yet |
| Best Value Integrated Amplifier | NAD C 3030 | Specs and compare |
| Integrated Amplifier | Musical Fidelity M6xi | Not yet |
| Premium Integrated Amplifier | MOON 371 | Not yet |
| Best Value Streaming Amplifier | Pro-Ject Uni Box S3 | Not yet |
| Multi-Room Amplifier | Bluesound POWERNODE | Previous model only |
| Amplifier | Hegel H200 | Not yet |
| Streaming Digital Amplifier | Lyngdorf TDAI-2210 | Not yet |
| Smart Amplifier | NAD M33 V2 | Specs and compare |
| Best Value DAC | LAiV Harmony µDAC | Not covered |
| DAC | Eversolo DAC-Z10 | Not covered |
| Streamer | Volumio Primo Plus | Not covered |
| Digital Player | Eversolo T8 | Not covered |
| Phono Cartridge | Dynavector ASKA-L | Not covered |
| Turntable | Pro-Ject Debut Reference 10 | Not covered |
| Premium Turntable | Thorens TD 404 DD | Not covered |
| High-End Turntable | SME Model 35 | Not covered |
| Phono Preamplifier | Pro-Ject Tube Box S3 B | Not covered |
| Gaming Headset | ASUS ROG Kithara | Not covered |
| Wireless Gaming Headset | Audeze Maxwell 2 ANC | Not covered |
| Over-ear Headphones | Loewe leo | Not covered |
| Premium Soundbar | CANVAS HiFi, CANVAS L | Not covered |
| Accessory | Pro-Ject Wireless Box E | Not covered |
What the list actually tells you
Three things stand out once you have the whole thing in front of you.
- The categories are cut very finely. Nine amplifier awards, three turntable awards, three separate floor-stander awards split by price. Slice it that thin and almost every serious brand goes home with something, which is lovely for the brands and less useful for you. An EISA badge on a box is a real signal, but it is a signal about a category of one to five, not about the whole market.
- Best value now starts around $1,200. The cheapest thing on this list wearing the words Best Value is the NAD C 3030 at $1,199. The cheapest loudspeaker winner is the KUPID at $600 a pair. Nothing here is aimed at somebody spending $300.
- Wireless and streaming took a third of it. Between the wireless speakers, the streaming amplifiers, the all-in-ones and the multi-room box, the boxes with a network port well outnumber the plain ones. Five years ago this list was mostly amplifiers and passive speakers.
If you take one thing from this list, take the DALI KUPID and the NAD C 3030. A $600 pair of speakers and a $1,199 amplifier is a complete system, both of them won their category, and neither one asks you to pretend $7,000 is normal.
For context on the rest of it, we have 876 loudspeakers, 187 subwoofers and 177 amplifiers on file, all with the same spec fields filled in, so any winner above that we hold can be put against anything else in a couple of clicks. Start from bookshelf speakers, floor-standers, subwoofers or integrated amplifiers.
Questions answered
What are the EISA Awards?
EISA stands for the Expert Imaging and Sound Association. It is a group of 51 magazines and websites from 26 countries who vote once a year on the best consumer electronics in five fields, one of which is hi-fi. The 2026-2027 awards are the 44th edition.
Who decides the winners?
Each expert group is made up of editors and reviewers from the member titles, and they vote among themselves. There is no published measurement and no blind listening. It is an informed opinion poll of people who handle a lot of equipment, which is a genuine thing but not the same as a test.
When do the awards take effect?
They were announced on August 24, 2026 and run as the 2026-2027 awards, so you will see the logo on boxes and in advertising for the next year. The trophies are handed over at the EISA gala in Berlin on September 4, the opening day of IFA.
Which winners can I compare on Speaker Decision?
Seven of them: the Paradigm Premier 820F V2, DALI KUPID, the DALI SONIK range, Cambridge Audio L/R X, SVS 3000 Micro R|Evolution, NAD C 3030 and NAD M33 V2. Each links to its own page above, and from there you can put it against any other speaker or amplifier in the database.
Nine amplifier awards is the part I keep coming back to. Cut the categories that finely and nearly everybody wins something, and the word winner stops doing any work at all on the front of a box. I would rather EISA gave out four amplifier awards and made each one count. Which four of the nine above would you keep?
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