NEWS EISA re-brands for
NEWS EISA re-brands for a global future The awards organisation gets a new name to match the widening horizons of the consumer electronics business EISA used its annual awards gala on Friday night to confirm a bold new rebranding of the organisation. The European Imaging And Sound Association will now become the Expert Imaging And Sound Association in a move designed to mirror the awards’ increasingly global reach. Judged by representatives of more than 50 expert magazines from 25 countries around the world, the EISA awards represent the expert views of the world’s largest combined editorial force in the field of consumer electronics. EISA began life more than 35 years ago, when the editors-in-chief from five European photo magazines came together to select the LIKE THE INDUSTRY IT SERVES - EISA HAS GROWN EXPONENTIALLY camera of the year for the first time. Since then it - like the industry it serves - has grown exponentially. Welcoming the crowd of high-level media and industry executives to this year’s gala at Berlin’s Kempinski Hotel Bristol, EISA president Paul Miller introduced four new member magazines. They bring major world territories: India, Japan, Canada and Hong Kong under the EISA umbrella. The acronym and iconic EISA logo with its blue background and yellow stars remains the same, but both now more accurately represent the increasingly global role of the organisation. Miller underlined that EISA - through its growing number of member publications - allows manufacturers to reach out to a wide number of photo, video and audio opinion leaders, to help inform and influence consumers worldwide. Earlier this year, members met to discuss nominations and cast their final votes behind closed doors. Friday’s ceremony marked the crowning moment, for award winners and for the EISA calendar. Several well-known players scored big at the awards, with LG picking up prizes in the Artificial Intelligence TV, Premium OLED TV, Sound Bar and Artificial Intelligence Loudspeaker categories, and Philips’ haul included a Best Buy OLED TV award for the 55OLED803, and Best Home Theatre TV 2018 award for the 65OLED903. Sony’s mirrorless a7R III was named Camera of the Year. The firm also won in the Best Buy UHD Blu-Ray and Premium Projector categories, among others. Sennheiser took an award for its HD 660 S headphones. Yamaha’s R-N803D was named best stereo receiver. Harman scooped an award for its smart loudspeaker, the Harman Kardon Citation 500, while TCL’s Marek Maciejewski picked up the EISA award for Best Buy Paul Miller EISA, President LCD TV for the new 55-inch C76. Samsung’s 65Q9FN was named Best Premium LCD TV. In the mobile sector, Huawei’s P20 Pro picked up the prize for Best Smartphone, and AKG’s N700NC were honoured as the year’s best noisecancelling headphones ADVERTORIAL Yamaha R-N803d stereo receiver takes EISA award for Best Stereo Receiver The R-N803D is the first stereo network receiver equipped with YPAO automatic calibration by Yamaha. At the push of a button the built-in measuring microphone scans the acoustic properties of the room – from speaker position to room size and the reflective properties of the walls. Based on these data the system automatically optimises the setup to achieve the best possible sound experience. The additional YPAO R.S.C. function corrects irritating reflections. YPAO Volume ensures good sound at every level through precise 192 kHz / 64-bit equalising. The Yamaha Multiroom system MusicCast combines all network enabled Yamaha audio elements into one big system – including the R-N803D. All sources connected to one MusicCast device are available to all other parts of the MusicCast network – from receivers and soundbars to design audio systems and streaming speakers. Even a record player connected to the R-N803D transmits its signal to all MusicCast elements Hall 1.2 Stand 101 www.ifa-international.org IFA International • Monday 3 rd September 2018 11
