Hi Marius.
It's a good question but Soundstage has heard our demos many, many times in Vegas and other places and they were very impressed with what they heard with our demo in Vegas. So I think that was part of the reason as well as they have always felt our amplifiers represented the best available at affordable prices and based on the demo would expect the same from the Cubed series.
Also as you say judging things at a show is seen as difficult but everyone of the manufactures are faced with similar issues and as I have said many times "the demo is everything." The rest is rhetoric!
James
It might also be like the criteria used for "Car of the Year" awards from magazines (eg Motor Trend) or journalists (eg Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC); to be in the running at all, you pretty much need to be a new model or a significant update (new "generation") of an existing model.
We see an illustrative example this year in that the GMC Canyon / Chevrolet Colorado won some awards last year (2015) as a new model introduction, and again this year due to the new availability of a Diesel powerplant option; the Diesel versions (only) are winning awards this model year (2016) but the awards do not include the gas engined versions.
I think since the x3 versions of the Bryston power amps are a new "generation" introduction, they are on the radar for product of the year / show / etc awards this year, in competition with other all-new power amplifiers and audio products in general.