During the Sound & Vision Show held in Bristol on 26-28 February, The Clarity Alliance presented the fourth annual “Best of Show” awards, at which it also announced the third recipient of its Honorary Fellowship award.

As one of its founding objectives, The Clarity Alliance pledged to recognise those individuals who have made a significant contribution to the UK hi-fi industry. The third such award, following the Hon. Fellowship of John Dawson in 2014 and Paul Messenger in 2015, was awarded to one of the most respected and long serving industry champions, Sony’s Eric Kingdon.

Presenting the award, Clarity’s chairman, Laurence Armstrong, said, “We have all known Eric for many years and his contribution to the promotion of quality audio through his work at Sony has undoubtedly helped the industry enormously. The board of directors of Clarity felt that in choosing Eric to be the recipient of this year’s Honorary Fellowship, they were recognising, on behalf of the whole industry, the tremendous contribution he has made to the promotion of hi-fi at home and across the world.”

Eric Kingdon is senior European technical marketing manager at Sony, whose career with the electronics giant started during the introduction of the CD. His face has been a familiar one at hi-fi shows for years, but behind the scenes, in his role with Sony, he has been responsible for shaping the sound of many of the class-leading products the company has developed for the European market.

Clarity also awarded prizes in the “Best of Show” awards to five companies whose efforts in putting on the best displays and demonstrations were considered to be exceptional by the panel of anonymous judges who visited every room at the show.

Awards were presented to:

“Best Sounding Hi-Fi Room’ – PMC

“Best Home Cinema Room” – Arcam

“Best Presented Room” – Audioquest

“Most Innovative Room” – Musical Fidelity

“Best Stand in Open Areas” – Sennheiser

Of course Hifi Pig will be publishing a special publication covering the Bristol Show with loads of photographs and comment from the show. The supplement will be sponsored by Clarity Alliance as it was last year. You can read last years publication here.