The prestigious Audio Video Lifestyle awards were given last night at the rather nice colonial era Windsor Hotel.

This was a black tie event that the likes of Paul and myself would normally have waited outside of to either panhandle or mug the aristocratic attendees as they left but some suppliers invited us in so as not to end up compromised themselves in one of Melbourne's dark alleyways ...

Pleasingly a number of our prime products collared this top of the pile local accreditation.

The new Aktimate Micro won the best "Desktop speaker" and Mr Creek's designs also won with his excellent Epos Epic 5 floorstanding loudspeakers.

The Epsilon Music Centre was adjudged the best lifestyle system of the year.

Sennheiser HD800's were unsurprisingly chosen as the best headphones available.

Possibly for its sheer sex appeal the Thorens TD309 took the award for turntables. nobody in 1986 would have expected vinyl to be on such ascendancy 25 years later.

In the very competitive projector section it was the Sharp XVZ17000 that took the honours.

And finally the Denon AVR3312 surround receiver of course picked up the prize for Receivers under $2000 ...