The new look hifi+

the size change gets me more than anything else, + sits on the bookshelf, and the new size sits there completely out of place against a rack of teh old size issues - all the others , world, news etc, get put away after reading - i fear + will end up the same in my house - shame

 

I agree. Same here!

 

I wonder if any hifi magazine would pick up the mantle for what I would like to see -

1) construction articles and tests on kit products
2) articles on building speakers (such as a Tannoy Autograph for example)
3) vintage products -looked at, and discussing bringing them up to date.
4) hot-rodding exisisting products for increased performance.

The DIY/self build/or 'tweaking' part of the industry is bigger than ever, and largely ignored IMO.

 

Turn the new sized ones on their side!

 

This is largely the domain of HFW. It does this better than anyone on the market. And even HFW seems to be moving away from these sectors.

DIY does not sit at all comfortably with the current high-end ethos. And in the high-end, hot rodding with a few exceptions seems to be limited to cable, table, freak and tweak choices. This is largely because if you spent £10,000 on an amplifier, you don't hot-rod it in case your resale value goes from £6,000 to £600.

Curiously, although they don't tend to admit it, a lot of high-end is profoundly influenced by the obsessive Japanese collector market, which demands absolute adherence to the original product. A pair of old Tannoy horns on the s/h market there can lose much of their collector value if you use the wrong period components in the crossover, for example.

An Audio Research SP11 or Mark Levinson ML-2 - two of the second-hand products that are still considered viable 'classics' in high-end - are only valuable if pristine and not modded.

There is mileage in a 'have things really got better' feature, comparing the best of one era with the best of today's stuff, but that's what decades and milestones are for.

Finally, I strongly disagree that the DIY sector is bigger than ever. It's been a tiny subset of the audio industry since the 1950s, when anyone who wanted corner horns had to know how to build them. Each successive technological step forward makes the DIY market take a step backward. The guy driving a 1960s car needed to know basic mechanics because they'd be left on the roadside a couple of times a year; a modern driver needs to know where to put the petrol, air and windscreen fluid and that's about it. A computer geek of 1979 would have needed to know some assembly language and possibly how to run a hexadecimal keypad; today, almost anyone can perform relatively complex tasks without having any basic understanding of how a computer works. The same applies to hi-fi. There will likely always be those who want to build their own equipment, just as there are kit car builders and people running FreeBSD boxes, but sadly it becomes more of a marginal issue as less people know which end of a soldering iron is the hot one.

 

Alan, I'm finding it hard to disagree with your above post. Particularly your comments about the resale value. I can understand why people tinker or build kit themselves but have never understood why anyone would buy expensive kit to modify to suit their own tastes. Why not buy a more suitable product in the first place?

 

Might be worth taking a look at what Old Colony Sound Lab is up to. Audio Amateur and Speaker Builder covered this for many years - then got combined into AudioXPress. They had good authors - not sure what their current situation is.

 

Thanks Dick I will.

Being one of the (apparently amazingly few) people who can recognise one end of a soldering iron from the other (and make something to put the commercial world to shame for a fraction of the cost in most instances...sonically...if not visually)

.... clearly I'm not going to get that from the consumer focused mags.

 

Hi Chris,

a number of people who like hifi can't solder or don't want to. Plenty of people do not want to be rejigging the internals of their equipment.

One thing you have to take into account with commercial products is that they have to make money and sell product. A number of items in Hifi only sell small amounts and hence big prices.

Bespoke equipment can a load better, but it can be trail and error. If you are doing it yourself, it can be fun. But not everyione wants to do this.

Last time I met you Chris, you had a jaguar car. Do you do your own servicing on? Have you modded it or "pimped it up". Or is it as you first got it? To enjoy your car, you don't need to tweak it.

There are plenty of mags that talk about a car's performance, style and looks. These are the big sellers. There are mags which just cover doing up you pride and joy or teaching to do your own repairs. You take you choice.

Alot of people I have met in hifi, don't want to tweak their own equipment and just want to buy something off the shelf.

SCIDB

 

Hi Dean

I'm sure a lot of that is true.

I dont think the car analogy stands up though. I can make (for example) a pair of speakers or valve amplifier - that is more reliable than (many but not all) commercial offerings of the same value - this is because I can use 'parts' which they could not afford to use, due to distributor and retailer mark-ups. I am not limited to making a product for £200 to sell for £1,000.

This does not apply to cars. Profit mark-up on cars are a small percentage, and reliability/quality control comes from huge production on a mass production scale.

In hifi - we typically pay huge mark-ups from small boutique manufacturers... who do nothing that the educated consumer cannot.

Big difference.


I of course accept that many people would rather walk into a shop and buy "nice and shiny boxy" ... this is just not me any more...



*edit*
would like to add this does not apply to CD players ( I can make a great DAC though), turntable/arms and carts... which are all beyond me right now.

*another edit*

Of course, there ARE hifi manufacturers who produce on large scale, with access to sophisticated tools beyond the common constructor (such as anechoic chambers at - JBL Northridge for example) .... but.....

...when did we last see JBL in hifi+ ?


...genuine question that one...

 

I share your sentiment about built vs. home constructed products, although I think your dismissal of boutique brands is not really fair. Once you factor in design time, prototyping and compliance testing, dealer and distributor profit margins and everything else, there's not a huge amount left in the kitty.

Just making it compliant with all the safety and environmental laws in Europe, the Americas and Asia will cost you tens of thousands, before you sell a single product.

Like any passion-turned-profession, if you want to make a million in audio, start with two million.

-

JBL's more a pro-side/CI/home cinema company these days, especially in the UK. Harman's Infinity and Revel lines use the same tool kit to produce products. Just as the likes of PSB, Energy and Paradigm call upon the equipment available at the Canadian NRC.

And there's always the Altmann turntable, built out of ply and bits of old Harley-Davidson. He made an arm, too.

 

Hi Alan thanks for the reply.

I have no experience of Europe and the Americas, although know many small producers in the UK, who have simply 'self certified' for CE, costing next to nothing.

Are you sure there is a necessity to spend tens of thousands, and do you know on which services in particular require this type of investment? I am not aware of them.

JBL - there are some wonderful products coming from Northridge - but unfortunately many go straight to Japan.. who don't seem to share the UK wish for slim baffles and ''Lawrence Llewelyn Bowen'' chic living spaces. You're probably aware of them I'm sure. I know that Paul Messenger recently reviewed the JBL K2 for example.

 

Self-cert has a critical mass. If you pretty much build to order, you can get in under the radar. Once you get to a company the size of, say, Creek you stand no chance of getting away with self-cert. And CE alone will not let you into Germany, the US or Canada or Japan. Each has its own set of rules and tests.

 

Hi Chris,

The point I was making about the cars was that you don't need to mess about with your car to enjoy it. Most people don't because they don't want to or don't have the skills or tools to do it. Also people don't have the time.

Yes you can make a pair of speakers or an amp that is better than what's on the market but you are not taking into account the extra costs of making a product that can sell. As Alan has mentioned, there are alot of processes involved to build a new product from the ground up. When you are modding an item for yourself, you don't have to take into account alot of these issues.

When a car dealership sells a new, the mark up can be small but they make money on all the extras such as extra gagdets, warrenties, credit etc. Also by selling a lot of cars. I would have thought cars cost a lot less to make

Reliability & quality control does not come from mass production. It comes from companies making things properly and montioring their products properly. British Leyland made millions of cars but a lot were not as well built and as reliable as they could have been.

Companies can have poor and unreliable produce whether they are big or small.

A lot of things in life have huge mark ups. Not just hifi. A lot of things are priced at what the market will stand. If you ever watch Drangons Den on BBC 2, you will see the millionare investors ears prick up when they hear big mark ups and potential nice profits.

This happens because we live in a consumer society. If you see something you, can afford, want to buy, you do buy it.

If you have the skills, the tools & the equipment plus the time, you can do a lot of things. Downside is that not everyone has all these items.

In hifi, a lot depends on whether it's a simple tweak or if you are building it up new from scratch. Also you have bare in mind whether the item is for yourself or something you need to sell to make a living.

I can understand people doning it themselves but not everyone wants to do that. To do it yourself can be easy or it can take a lot of time and effort and still not be right.

SCIDB

 

I must admit i cant help tweaking most of the HIFI gear i have
owned T/T have been the love of my life for the last fifty years
and i am still trying to get a belt that wont slip. Sounds a bit
weird i know but i have had a lot of fun and thats what it should be all about beleive me HIFI is a great hobby
Noel W.

 

I am missing the quality photography quite a lot, but I enjoyed Roy's 3 page advertorial on tweakery. I hope that becomes a regular feature. The new size and cheap paper are fine for me.

 

It is only the first attempt using the new format so I suppose it needs to time to settle and develop the new identity.

 

I dont see that the mag is really much different to the Russ Andrews catalogue. Its clearly written for the benefit of a small clique of distributors whose products it represents in its pages. Its treatment of the cable issue is worth nothing but derision and should be considered a piece of propaganda worthy of Pravda. Any one that believes a word written in that magazine instantly loses any credibility whatsoever so far as hifi is concerned.

 

I can accept that you don't agree with the findings of the magazine - you can't please everyone.

However, to associate something that I work on with the work of Goebbels is hugely distasteful to me. As someone who lost a grandparent fighting the Nazis, had another fight the blackshirts at Cable Street and who has personally been involved in anti-racism, anti-fascist movements since my teenage, you really couldn't be more insulting.

I can take a joke like anyone, but there are limits. And you've just reached mine.

 

Well as you have only just taken over the editorship then of course these comments are in no way directed at you, but rather at the magazine up to that point, so there is no reason for you to take it personally. Particularly as you are not the author of the nordost articles that I refer to. I hope you can turn the magazine around and make it credible. Good luck with that - kicking out the nordost nonsense is an important first step. I stand by my assertion however that the magazine before your stewardship has been very open to criticism.

Out of consideration for your loss and struggle against facism I have altered the prose of the comparison to give it a more communist flavour.