Sharon, MA — NAD Electronics, the highly regarded manufacturer of high-performance audio-video components, has been awarded the prestigious international 2009 red dot award for Product Design for its new Modular Design Construction (MDC) T 775 Audio Video Receiver.
The 28-member red dot jury of noted design experts from around the world commended the T 775 AV Receiver for ”its outstanding and innovative design.” The T 775 faced a serious challenge as competitors from 49 nations submitted 3,231 products for coveted red dot honors in this year’s competition.
The award is NAD’s second consecutive red dot for Product Design, following 2008 honors for NAD’s VISO FIVE DVD/CD Surround Sound Receiver and VISO TWO DVD/CD Receiver. NAD accepted this year’s award in a formal ceremony June 29 in the Aalto Theatre, Essen Opera House, Essen, Germany, before about 1,000 international guests from the fields of design, the arts, business and politics. NAD distributes its products in 83 countries.
The T 775 AV Receiver then joined other winning products in the “design on stage” exhibition at the red dot design museum on the premises of the Zeche Zollverein World Cultural Heritage Site. The exhibition runs a full year at the museum, which houses the world’s largest permanent exhibition of contemporary design products.
“We’re thrilled to be recognized for the innovative design of our products,“ said Greg Stidsen, NAD director of product development. “This award honors the dedicated designers and engineers at NAD who work so hard to attain this level of excellence.”
In conferring the award, the jury singled out “The visual design of the T 775,” which it said “represents a new stage in NAD’s traditional design language, which emphasizes functional simplicity and a restrained overall look. The front-panel vacuum fluorescent display (VFD) is complemented by a more comprehensive on-screen display available at the video outputs to give immediate feedback for all control actions.”
The jury also praised the receiver for its support of “sophisticated third-party control systems used in home cinema solutions” and “a simple yet flexible user interface (that) allows any combination of the 37 inputs in nine different signal formats to be defined for up to ten program sources. Each of these program sources can be independently selected,” the jury noted “and sent to any of three remote zones in addition to the primary surround sound media room.”
The T 775 AV Receiver is based on an earlier receiver significantly upgraded with NAD’s exclusive High-Definition Modular Design Construction (MDC) architecture, which provides enhanced performance, features, flexibility, upgradeability and simplified service. MDC is also featured on NAD’s T 785 and T 765 AV Receivers, its T 175 Preamp-Tuner-Processor, and on its Masters Series M15HD Preamplifier. In addition, installers can upgrade existing models with MDC capability to add new features and functionality.
Equipped with NAD’s new AM 200 and VM 100 MDC Modules, the T 775 boasts dual 32-bit Aureus 7.1 high-speed DSPs by Texas Instruments, MultEQ XT, Dynamic EQ and Dynamic Volume processing by Audyssey; and decoding for Dolby True HD, Dolby Digital Plus and DTS-HD Master Audio.
It also employs the latest HDMI 1.3 Repeater from Analog Devices, and supports all input resolutions up to 1080p at the output, as well as the cross conversion of legacy analog formats. All existing analog inputs are also available for up-conversion to HDMI output. The T 775 supports Deep Color and xvYCC Expanded Color Space to fully realize the highest possible video resolutions, now and for the foreseeable future. The HDMI repeater also generates an on-screen display (OSD), and de-interlaces standard-definition legacy formats. The T 775 is available now at a suggested retail price of $2,999 (U.S. MSRP).
Products submitted to the red dot design award are assessed by an international jury that examines and tests the products according to such criteria as degree of innovation, functionality, ergonomics, longevity, ecological compatibility, and clarity of function.
