What Hi-Fi? is turning 50 and to celebrate we have just released a special Anniversary issue.
Yes, I have a vested interest in its success, but despite that, I have to tip my hat to our magazine editor, Jonathan Evans, and production editor, Chris Burke, who together with the rest of the team – and some very special contributors – have done a particularly magnificent job with this one.
The bumper issue is packed with features looking back over 50 years of hi-fi history – but also looking forward at what the coming decades might bring to the worlds of hi-fi and home cinema.
And as I flicked through the pages reminiscing about the five-star products of yore, my trip down memory lane took a turn – probably because Paul McCartney’s stellar track Days We Left Behind came on – and I began pondering my personal hi-fi journey and how it was so fundamentally interlinked to the magazine.
What Hi-Fi? is a little older than me, and thanks to my audio aficionado father, I grew up in a household that always had a copy on the coffee table. There were only so many times you could re-read The Beano; so I often read Dad's magazine instead, making it a core part of my hi-fi journey.
I’ve detailed how discovering my dad’s treasure trove of classic rock and prog vinyl started my love of music. But it was a subsequent memory that came to mind, turning the pages of our 50th Anniversary issue.
Specifically, in 1998, when I picked up a copy of What Hi-Fi? at home and saw the Denon D-M3 for the first time.
Why this player over the sea of other awesome separates and more premium CD spinners that had adorned What Hi-Fi?’s pages since the Sony CDP-101 player and Philips CD100 launched in the early '80s?
There were a couple of reasons.
First, while I had a cheap turntable in my room, I had yet to persuade my parents to buy me a CD player. And back then, before the vinyl revival, that was a problem for a kid just entering his angsty teenage years.
The local record shop, at this point, had pretty much stopped stocking new records. So I was desperate to get a CD player so that, like my older brother, I could listen to my music whenever I wanted, without having to persuade my parents to vacate the lounge.
Like every '90s kid, I wanted to prove how grown up I was by blasting Smells Like Teen Spirit and Even Flow out of my tiny bedroom, at full volume.
Second, because as a kid raised in a hi-fi household, I wanted the player I got to be “good” – but knew I had absolutely zero chance of getting a separates rack into my room. Even if I did follow my parents’ instructions to clean it and put away my Power Rangers action figures, there just wasn’t enough space.
So when What Hi-Fi?, the audio holy text I’d been raised to trust since I was in nappies, said the Denon was “a great all-rounder, and as comfortable playing hardcore rap as it is a string quartet”, I was sold (and wilfully ignored the fact it cost £300 that I didn't have).
Tiny, but powerful and full of charm, I knew it was going to be the top item on my letter to Santa that year the moment I saw it.
I even remember walking up to my dad with the issue, pointing at the review and saying “I want this for Christmas” with the typical self-confidence (and lack of self-awareness) of a child.
What then ensued was an extended negotiation to decide what I would offer in return for such an impressive prize – assurances on my school grades, chores I would take on, personal contributions towards the gift and the like.
And while my school report meant I didn’t get the Denon, or any other player, that year, or the year after (curse you Sega for your oh-so-awesome Mega Drive), eventually, after I got my act together, I was rewarded with a Panasonic SA-PM37MD micro system.
But even then, I still couldn't help but think back to the Denon, which was the motivation for many a study session and an offer to help clear the gutters or mow the lawn.
I may not have got to listen to it back then but it helped focus my love of music and the need to hear it in as good quality as possible – and it's fundamentally linked to a happy memory, the way hi-fi should be.
Do you have a hi-fi or home cinema memory to share? Let us know in the comments below!
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