The special What Hi-Fi? Awards categories are some of the most interesting each year, and this is especially true of the Readers’ Award.
This is because, unlike our other categories, which are decided by our review team, it is judged by you, our wonderful readers. Your choices usually surprise and delight us. Last year, for example, we were pleased to see you opt for the amazing-value Q Acoustics 5050 floorstanders, which also happened to be our Product of the Year in their category, over something flashier.
This good taste continues into 2025 with your decision to crown the Ruark Audio R610 streaming amplifier as this year’s Readers’ Award winner. The five-star just-add-speakers system stormed the category, edging out 11 big-name rivals to secure the lion’s share of this year’s vote.
The R610 also won the best hi-fi system £1000-£1500 in our music systems category; it may not have received a Product of the Year trophy – that went to NAD’s C 3050 (with MDC2 BluOS-D module) – but we can see why you like it so much.
The Ruark R610 earned a solid five-star rating and this year’s best hi-fi system £1000-1500 Best Buy trophy for a reason. Pleasingly retro-chic and charmingly compact, the unit comes with a number of welcome quality-of-life features. These include a five-inch, full colour TFT display screen and tactile on-unit controls, which make it easy to control the device and see all the information you need on what is playing at any given moment.
For greater flexibility, it also features Ruark’s wireless RotoDial controller. Its palm-sized dimensions and intuitive physical-button interface offer an equally intuitive way to control the amp if you’re not next to it.
At the heart of this beautifully made unit is Class D amplification with 75 watts of power per channel, and a Burr Brown DAC that supports hi-res files up to 32-bit/384kHz.
There is also support for nearly every modern streaming service you might want – as well as DLNA and UPnP compatibility for those of us storing music on NAS drives. It also has HDMI ARC, a moving-magnet phono stage, USB-C input and DAB/FM radio tuners.
Most importantly, it sounds great. We got the best results pairing the R610 with the Ruark Sabre-R, a pair of standmount speakers specifically designed to match the streaming amplifier. But it is easy to get solid results with other price-appropriate speakers, too. The unit delivers an engaging, dynamic sound with a smooth, open and fluid presentation across every genre we throw at it.
Our review’s glowing verdict sums it up: “Proving you can have it all, Ruark’s compact streaming amplifier delivers a wonderfully modern hi-fi performance in every way – gorgeous design, ample features, and excellent sound.”
Once again, What Hi-Fi?’s readers have proved to have incredibly good taste.
MORE:
See all the What Hi-Fi? Awards 2025 winners
Read the full Ruark Audio R610 review
