Brilliant step-up loudspeakers, car stereo and VCRs: we revisit the What Hi-Fi? archives from 45 years ago

Our back issues and bound copies of What Hi-Fi? magazine live on the shelves of our hi-fi listening rooms. Not only are they a handy reference tool, but they also serve as useful acoustic room treatment that gives the rooms a more balanced sonic character.

It always amazes me, when I venture in to the room – more often than not disturbing Kashfia, our long-suffering and extremely patient hi-fi and audio editor, in the process – to delve into our archives, how both very different and yet reassuringly familiar the magazines I leaf through are to me. The more things change, the more they stay the same, etc and so on and so forth.

The January 1981 issue of What Hi-Fi? serves nicely (well, of course it does) as a case in point. I mean, that’s a loooong time ago. (Although I, sadly, remember it only too well.)

Generally, when I go back a few decades looking at issues past, I like to put things into musical context and check out the big hits of whichever year I happen to be referring to.

1981 is a decent one, to be fair – certainly for the purposes of a nostalgic look back. Yes, pop pickers, the first thing that I could recall from that time was that Joe Dolce’s legendary Shaddap You Face fended off Ultravox’s all-time classic Vienna from the number one slot in the UK charts, thus denying one of the great singles of the entirety of the 1980s its rightful place on any number of lists.

It would, at least, be good pub-quiz knowledge, were it not asked so often that everyone already knows all about it.

Backing Sweet Joe up that year, though, were some tracks that can hold their heads up just as high. It was the year of Adam & the Ants, so Antmusic, Stand & Deliver and Prince Charming were all in the best-selling singles of the year, along with Ghost Town from the Specials, Human League’s Don’t You Want Me, Let’s Groove by Earth Wind & Fire, and not forgetting that track for the ages, the Tweets’ Birdie Song. Terrific stuff.

Sounds familiar

As for What Hi-Fi?, our January 1981 issue led with a real staple of our trade: helping readers get the very best bang for their buck with a new pair of speakers.

“Move to real hi-fi with the latest £100 speaker” is precisely what we at What Hi-Fi? are all about. Were we to have that headline today, it would be for £500 speakers – so right in the middle of some brilliant upgrade speakers from the likes of Acoustic Energy, Bowers & Wilkins, Monitor Audio and more.

And, when we go to the test inside the magazine, we see some familiar names: Acoustic Research, Monitor Audio, Mission, Wharfedale and Tangent. And it was the Missions that took the verdict in the end, with our reviewer raving about the £115 boxes: “Overall then the Missions represent real value for money and are worth auditioning by anyone in the market for speakers at under £250, let alone £100!” Praise indeed.

On the bottom of the cover runs the line, “Plus computerised guide to over 2000 units”. Little did we know in 1981, of course, just how far the “computerised” part of that would take us over the next four decades. What Hi-Fi? has been accessed for the most part by computer for the better part of a quarter of a century.

Entertainment for the home – and the road

It was also immediately impressive to me just how broad the remit was for the brand 45 years ago.

Car stereo gets a cover hit and a five-page group test within the magazine, with a three-way battle testing models from Pioneer, Philips and Sharp. Radio cassette players all, they give a sharp (sorry) reminder of what was classed as pretty much state of the art back in the day.

Let’s just say that one of the “dislikes” in the verdict box for the Sharp RG-6600E was “No rewind on cassette”. There’s a fast forward function, at least.

Contrast that, though, with telling your voice assistant to skip a track these days, and it’s safe to say that the youth today doesn’t know they’ve been born. And that’s without taking chewed and stretched tape into account. Ah, happy days.

Top of the format wars

There is also a page in the news section at the front of the magazine that has not only a car-stereo story, but also one on “Lighter, portable VCRs”.

And that mention is followed later on in the mag by a test of the Sanyo VTC-9300, with the sub-head “Sanyo are the first company to offer a current video at under £400”.

What’s this I read, though? Ah. The Sanyo is “a Beta format model”. Happy days once again, eh? Who doesn’t love a format war?

It regularly jumps out at me, though, in my happy time in the brand’s archive, that What Hi-Fi? has always had a broad coverage of all things home entertainment (and even beyond the home, of course, with car stereo tests).

The main principle remains the same now as it did in 1981, and even before that, when the magazine began half a century ago: to bring the reader honest straightforward, independent reviews that allow them to make an informed decision about the best products to buy for their budget. And long may that continue.

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