The spec sheet says what the $300 buys. The KUPID is a 4.5 inch two-way at 83 dB and 4 ohms. The SONIK 1 is a 5.25 inch two-way at 86 dB and 6 ohms, reaching 51 Hz against the KUPID’s 63 Hz. Three decibels of sensitivity is a lot: the KUPID needs twice the amplifier power to play as loud, and it wants it at 4 ohms. I said the same thing when the KUPID won its EISA award in August, and it is still the one number on this list I would check before buying. A $600 pair of speakers on a cheap all-in-one will play politely and no louder.
The other five standmount winners are not in the database. PMC took two of them, the Prodigy 1 at GBP 1,000 to 1,500 and the Prophecy 1 over GBP 2,500. The Epos ES-7N took GBP 1,500 to 2,500. The Ruark MR1 Mk3 took the desktop class, which we do not cover. And the Acoustic Energy AE300 Mk2 took GBP 500 to 1,000. We hold the original AE300 from 2017 at $1,099, 86 dB and 6 ohms, but not the Mk2 that won. More on the missing ones at the end.
| FEATURE and SPECS COMPARISON | |  |  |  |
| Model | Wharfedale Diamond 12.3i | DALI SONIK 5 | Fyne Audio F502S |
| Speaker Type | Passive Floor-standing | Passive Floor-standing | Passive Floor-standing |
| Enclosure Type | Ported | Ported | Ported |
| Driver Setup | 2-way | 2-way | 3-way |
| Woofer | 2 x 5" Mica-infused polypropylene Woofer | 2 x 5.25" Wood fiber Woofer | x 8" Woofer |
| Frequency Range / Low | 45Hz | 39Hz | 30Hz |
| Frequency Range / High | 20kHz | 26kHz | 34kHz |
| Impedance Nominal | 8Ω | 6Ω | 8Ω |
| Sensitivity | 89dB | 88dB | 91dB |
| Max Power (RMS) | 150w | 150w | 180w |
| Crossover Frequency | 2200Hz | 2200Hz | 250 Hz, 1700 Hz |
| Height | 985.0mm | 824.0mm | 1112.5mm |
| Width | 180.0mm | 250.0mm | 299.7mm |
| Depth | 350.0mm | 269.0mm | 381.0mm |
| Weight | 19.55kg | 10.82kg | 28.49kg |
| MSRP(pair) | 1198USD | 1800USD | 3499USD |
| Check Current Price | Amazon | Amazon | Amazon |
Read down that table and the three winners are three different ideas of a floor-stander. The Diamond 12.3i is a 985 mm, 19.6 kg box at 89 dB and 8 ohms, an easy load for any receiver. The SONIK 5 is smaller at 824 mm and 10.8 kg, and I wrote up how little its spec sheet changed from the Oberon 5 only yesterday. The F502S is a 1,112 mm, 28.5 kg tower with Fyne’s point-source IsoFlare driver, rated 91 dB and reaching 30 Hz. That is the only one of the three that would fill a big room on its own, and at three times the Wharfedale’s price it should.
Wharfedale Diamond 12.3i in Stone Grey, the floor-stander that took the under 500 pound class
The two missing floor-standers are the PMC Prodigy 5, which took GBP 1,000 to 2,000 for the third year, and the ProAc D20R over GBP 3,000. Neither brand is in our database yet.
Stereo amplifiers: five awards, two of them ours, and a catch with Arcam
Rotel took both ends of the list. The A8 kept the under GBP 500 class: 30 watts into 8 ohms, Class A/B, 5.8 kg, $499. From Rotel’s Michi line, the Prestige X430 took over GBP 3,500: 220 watts into 8 ohms, 340 into 4, 16.9 kg, $4,999. Ten times the price for seven times the power, and a very different kind of box.
Rotel A8, the cheapest amplifier on the list at 499 dollars and 30 watts, winner of the under 500 pound class
| FEATURE and SPECS COMPARISON | |  |  |
| Model | Rotel A8 | Michi Prestige X430 |
| Type | Integrated Amplifier | Integrated Amplifier |
| Amplifier Class | Class A/B | Class A/B |
| Power into 8 ohms | 30 watts | 220 watts |
| Power into 4 ohms | 40 watts | 340 watts |
| Minimum Impedance | 8 ohms | 4 ohms |
| THD | 0.03% | 0.03% |
| Signal to Noise Ratio | 90 | 105 |
| Frequency Bandwidth | 20 Hz-20 kHz | 10 Hz-100 kHz |
| Built-in DAC | | |
| DAC | - | ESS ES9039Q2M 32-bit/384kHz |
| Max Bit Depth | - | 32 |
| Max Sample Rate | - | 384 |
| Phono Input | | |
| Phono Type | - | MM |
| Optical Digital Inputs | No | 3 |
| Coaxial Digital Inputs | No | 3 |
| USB Input | No | Yes |
| HDMI Input | - | 1 |
| HDMI ARC | - | ARC |
| XLR Input | - | 1 |
| Preamp Outputs | No | Stereo RCA, Sub |
| Subwoofer Output | - | Dual |
| Headphone Output | 3.5mm | 3.5mm |
| Bluetooth | - | Yes |
| AirPlay 2 | | |
| Chromecast built-in | - | |
| Roon | No | Tested |
| BluOS | | |
| HEOS | | |
| Room Correction | - | No |
| Tone Controls | - | |
| Handheld Remote | - | |
| Height | 74.0mm | 149.2mm |
| Width | 432.0mm | 431.8mm |
| Depth | 353.0mm | 444.5mm |
| Weight | 5.82kg | 16.92kg |
| MSRP | 499 USD | 4999 USD |
| Check Current Price | Amazon, B&H Photo | Amazon, B&H Photo |
The middle two classes went to Arcam, the A5+ at GBP 500 to 1,000 and the A15+ at GBP 1,000 to 2,000, and here is the catch. We hold the A5 at $699 and the A15 at $999, the 2023 models. The “+” versions that won arrived in late 2025 with Bluetooth 5.4, an HDMI eARC input on the A15+, and some power supply revisions. The power ratings did not change: still 50 and 80 watts a side. What did change is the US price. Arcam’s own announcement puts the A5+ at $1,199.95 and the A15+ at $1,499, which is 72 and 50 percent more than the amplifiers we hold, for the same watts. In the UK the A5+ is GBP 749 against GBP 750 for the old one. So the award is for an amplifier whose spec sheet you can read on our A5 page, at a price you cannot. Those two rows are on my list to add.
The fifth amplifier, the Cyrus 40 AMP at GBP 2,000 to 3,500, is from a brand we do not hold.
Rotel Michi Prestige X430, 220 watts and 4999 dollars, the dearest stereo amplifier on the list
Speaker packages: four awards, three of them complete in our database
This is the category where holding the data matters most, because a package is four or five products and the award is for the set. Three of the four winners are sets we hold every piece of.
The Wharfedale Diamond 12.1i HCP took GBP 500 to 1,500. It is two pairs of Diamond 12.1i at $499 a pair, the Diamond 12.Ci centre at $399 and the SW-10 subwoofer at $849. What Hi-Fi? notes the centre is hard to find in the US right now, which matches what we see.
The DALI Sonik 5 5.1 took GBP 1,500 to 3,000, and that is the package I compared piece by piece against the Oberon 5 5.1 it replaces yesterday. All four pieces are linked there.
The KEF R Meta 5.1 took over GBP 3,000. It is a pair of R7 Meta floor-standers at $4,998, a pair of R3 Meta as surrounds at $2,199, the R6 Meta centre at $1,999 and the KC92 subwoofer at $1,999. That adds up to about $11,200 at the prices on our pages. What Hi-Fi? quotes $13,200 for the same four, so one of us is working from an older price list, and I would check the dealer before quoting either. All seven speakers in the R Meta series are on file.
| FEATURE and SPECS COMPARISON | |  |  |
| Model | KEF R7 Meta | KEF R3 Meta |
| Speaker Type | Passive Floor-standing | Passive Bookshelf |
| Enclosure Type | Ported | Ported |
| Driver Setup | 3-way | 3-way |
| Tweeter | 1" Vented dome Tweeter | 1" Hard-Dome Tweeter |
| Mid-Range | 5" aluminum cone with Uni-Q Technology Midrange | 5" aluminum cone with Uni-Q Technology Midrange |
| Woofer | 2 x 6.5" Hybrid Aluminum Woofer | 1 x 6.5" Hybrid Aluminum Woofer |
| Frequency Range / Low | 48Hz | 58Hz |
| Frequency Range / High | 28kHz | 28kHz |
| Impedance Nominal | 4Ω | 4Ω |
| Impedance Minimum | 3.2Ω | 3.2Ω |
| Sensitivity | 88dB | 87dB |
| Max Power (RMS) | 250w | 180w |
| Crossover Frequency | 400Hz and 2400Hz | 420Hz and 2300Hz |
| Port Position | rear | rear |
| Available Colors | Black Gloss, White Gloss, Walnut, Titanium Gloss Special Edition | Black Gloss, White Gloss, Walnut, Indigo Gloss Special Edition |
| Height | 1112.0mm | 423.0mm |
| Width | 312.0mm | 202.0mm |
| Depth | 385.0mm | 337.0mm |
| Weight | 29.36kg | 12.41kg |
| MSRP(pair) | 4998USD | 2199USD |
| Check Current Price | Amazon | Amazon |
The one we do not hold is the Wharfedale DX-3 HCP, which took the under GBP 500 class. It is a small satellite set that has been on sale for years, and it is the one package on this list that would struggle to be a hi-fi system as well as a cinema one.
KEF R7 Meta, the front pair of the R Meta 5.1 package that took the over 3000 pound class
Home cinema amplifiers: two awards, one of them ours
The Marantz Cinema 30 took the over GBP 1,500 class. It is an 11-channel receiver rated 140 watts, 19.4 kg, $4,800, and it sits in our table of 58 home theatre receivers. The Sony TA-AN1000 took under GBP 1,500 for the second year and is not in the database.
What readers were already comparing
We do not publish traffic numbers, but the ranking is worth having. Since the start of August, before any of these awards were announced, the KEF R3 Meta has been the most-compared speaker on this list by a wide margin, most often against the Q Concerto Meta below it and the original R3 it replaced. The DALI SONIK 1, SONIK 5 and KUPID are next, and the pairs readers open are DALI against DALI: SONIK 5 against Oberon 5, SONIK 1 against KUPID, SONIK 1 against Oberon 1.
DALI SONIK 5 in black ash, the floor-stander readers have compared against the Oberon 5 more than any other pair since August
On the amplifier side, readers compare the Arcam A5 against the Audiolab 6000A more than against anything else, the A15 against the Audiolab 7000A, and the Rotel A8 against Rotel’s own A10 MKII. The Michi X430 is opened far less, which is what you expect of a $4,999 amplifier, and when it is, it is against the Michi X3 Series 2. None of the Audiolabs won anything this year. If you were deciding between a winner and its most-compared rival, the rival did not lose on a spec sheet. It lost in a listening room in Bath, and the spec table is the only part of that you can check from home.
The part the trophy list leaves out
Half the list is missing from our database, and that is on us. Twelve of the 25 winners are not here. Three of them, the PMC Prodigy 1, Prodigy 5 and Prophecy 1, come from a brand we have never added, and PMC took more trophies than any brand except DALI. Epos, ProAc and Cyrus are the same story with one trophy each. The Acoustic Energy AE300 Mk2 and the two Arcam “+” amplifiers are new versions of products we do hold, so you can read the previous generation’s numbers but not the winner’s. If you want to compare a PMC against a KEF on this site today, you cannot, and I would rather say so than pretend the 13 are the whole story.
Arcam A5, the 2023 amplifier we hold at 699 dollars, the A5+ that won is the same 50 watts at 1199 dollars
A What Hi-Fi? Award is a listening verdict in one room. The magazine tests in its own rooms against the other speakers in the same pound band. That is a real test and a useful one. It is not a measurement, and it is not a test in your room with your amplifier. The KUPID is the clearest case: a five-star, award-winning speaker that will disappoint on the wrong amplifier, and nothing in the citation tells you that. The amp-speaker matcher takes the sensitivity and impedance from any speaker on this list and shows which amplifiers we hold that suit it.
The bands hide the US price. Three of the winners here, the SONIK 1, the SONIK 5 and the Arcam A5+, cost 50 to 70 percent more in dollars than their pound band suggests. A UK best buy is not automatically a US one.
The full list of 25
| Class | Winner | US price | On Speaker Decision |
|---|
| Standmount under GBP 300 | DALI KUPID | $600 | Specs and compare |
| Standmount GBP 300-500 | DALI SONIK 1 | $900 | Specs and compare |
| Standmount GBP 500-1,000 | Acoustic Energy AE300 Mk2 | n/a | 2017 model only |
| Standmount GBP 1,000-1,500 | PMC Prodigy 1 | n/a | Not yet |
| Standmount GBP 1,500-2,500 | Epos ES-7N | n/a | Not yet |
| Standmount over GBP 2,500 | PMC Prophecy 1 | n/a | Not yet |
| Desktop speakers | Ruark Audio MR1 Mk3 | n/a | Not covered |
| Active under GBP 700 | Fyne Audio Cubitt 5 | $899 | Specs and compare |
| Active over GBP 700 | KEF Coda W | $999 | Specs and compare |
| Floor-stander under GBP 500 | Wharfedale Diamond 12.3i | $1,198 | Specs and compare |
| Floor-stander GBP 500-1,000 | DALI SONIK 5 | $1,800 | Specs and compare |
| Floor-stander GBP 1,000-2,000 | PMC Prodigy 5 | n/a | Not yet |
| Floor-stander GBP 2,000-3,000 | Fyne Audio F502S | $3,499 | Specs and compare |
| Floor-stander over GBP 3,000 | ProAc D20R | n/a | Not yet |
| Stereo amp under GBP 500 | Rotel A8 | $499 | Specs and compare |
| Stereo amp GBP 500-1,000 | Arcam A5+ | $1,199.95 | 2023 A5 only |
| Stereo amp GBP 1,000-2,000 | Arcam A15+ | $1,499 | 2023 A15 only |
| Stereo amp GBP 2,000-3,500 | Cyrus 40 AMP | n/a | Not yet |
| Stereo amp over GBP 3,500 | Rotel Michi Prestige X430 | $4,999 | Specs and compare |
| Package under GBP 500 | Wharfedale DX-3 HCP | n/a | Not yet |
| Package GBP 500-1,500 | Wharfedale Diamond 12.1i HCP | $2,246 as parts | All pieces on file |
| Package GBP 1,500-3,000 | DALI Sonik 5 5.1 | $3,600 plus sub | All pieces on file |
| Package over GBP 3,000 | KEF R Meta 5.1 | about $11,200 as parts | All pieces on file |
| Home cinema amp under GBP 1,500 | Sony TA-AN1000 | n/a | Not yet |
| Home cinema amp over GBP 1,500 | Marantz Cinema 30 | $4,800 | Specs and compare |
The US prices are list prices from our database today. The Arcam “+” prices are from Arcam’s North American announcement, since those two rows are not on file yet. The Wharfedale package total is two pairs of 12.1i, the centre and the subwoofer at our prices; What Hi-Fi? quotes GBP 999 for the UK bundle. The categories we do not cover (wireless speakers, soundbars, headphones, turntables, streamers, televisions) are on the What Hi-Fi? awards page.
Thirteen of the 25 winners are a click away from a spec table. For the other twelve, the trophy is all you have, and three of them come from a brand we have never listed. Both of those facts are worth knowing before you buy on a badge.
Questions answered
When were the What Hi-Fi? Awards 2026 announced?
The Best Buy winners were published on 13 October 2026, in partnership with Richer Sounds. There are 111 winners across 24 categories. The overall Products of the Year, plus the Readers’ Award, Innovation of the Year, Hall of Fame and three Golden Anniversary trophies, follow at the awards ceremony on 12 November.
How are the winners chosen?
What Hi-Fi?’s reviewers test each product in the magazine’s own listening rooms against the other products in the same price band, and the class winner is the one they rate highest. It is a listening verdict by experienced reviewers, not a measurement, and the bands are set in pounds.
Which 2026 winners can I compare on Speaker Decision?
Thirteen: the DALI KUPID, SONIK 1 and SONIK 5, the Fyne Audio Cubitt 5 and F502S, the KEF Coda W, the Wharfedale Diamond 12.3i, the Rotel A8 and Michi Prestige X430, the Marantz Cinema 30, and every piece of the Wharfedale Diamond 12.1i HCP, DALI Sonik 5 5.1 and KEF R Meta 5.1 packages. Each one is linked in the table above.
Why are PMC, Epos and ProAc not on the site?
They have never been added. All three are British brands with small US dealer networks, and our database was built out from the brands US readers compare most. PMC took three trophies this year, so it is the obvious gap to close first.
Thirteen of the 25 I can put in a spec table. Twelve I cannot, and three of those twelve are PMCs. If you own one of the missing twelve, which spec would you want to see next to the winner that beat it in its class?
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