A few months into my new job as Managing Editor of What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision, the ink barely dry on the ‘S&V’ rebrand, an Apple press release arrived about a new portable music player, roughly the size of a pack of cards, that could hold a thousand songs.
I had joined What Hi-Fi? in 2001 from the computing and technology press, already fluent in digital and the impact the internet was having. I’d even met Steve Jobs. But in the rarefied world of hi-fi, all the iPod warranted in our November 2001 issue was 70 words in the News in Brief section, headlined “Apple’s MP3 Jukebox”.
But hey, What Hi-Fi? had been going 25 years by then – it had already seen a lot of newfangled things come and go.
A quarter of a century on from that passing mention, the iPod that changed everything is itself a museum piece – while the physical formats that downloads then streaming were supposed to kill are having the last laugh. The vinyl revival continues apace, CD sales are enjoying a resurgence, and even cassettes are back in style.
And still, What Hi-Fi? covers it all – informing a growing global readership on how to enjoy more from your music, TV and movies – however and wherever you choose to consume them.
In my ten-year tenure at What Hi-Fi?, I was Managing Editor, Editor, Editor in Chief and Brand Director. I oversaw the launch of international editions, moved our test rooms to Teddington, hosted a decade of What Hi-Fi? Awards, and sat through more format wars than I care to remember – SACD vs DVD-Audio, Blu-ray vs HD-DVD, DTS vs Dolby vs THX and more. I watched plasma televisions rise, peak with Pioneer’s extraordinary Kuro and then quietly surrender to LCD (until OLED entered stage left).
I’d seen the hi-fi industry begin to consolidate, some great names disappear, and a few genuinely visionary engineers transform the way the world enjoyed music and movies.
We were never afraid to tell people what NOT to buy, either, especially during those febrile format wars. In the short-lived era of DVD recorders, with competing ‘standards’ to choose from, we urged consumer caution – our national media campaign of ‘Don’t buy a turkey for Christmas’ cost us a lot of advertising pages from irked manufacturers (my name was mud in the C-Suite).
But first, back 25 years to a day when all these things seemed utterly insignificant. On 11th September 2001, I was at a far-flung printing plant with our Production Editor, press-passing the latest issue of What Hi-Fi?. We weren’t entirely happy with the colour balance of the magazine since the redesign, so we were onsite to work with the printers to get things spot on.
Back then, a press pass involved much sitting around in a break room – TV news on in the background – waiting for the presses to be loaded up with the next section of the magazine. You’d then go into the print room – roaring presses churning out thousands of pages a minute – to review and agree output with the technicians.
Just before heading in to pass the first magazine section, the TV cut to pictures from New York, where it seemed a plane had accidentally hit the World Trade Center. By the time we took our next break, the second plane had struck the Twin Towers, and we realised the news was much, much darker.
The rest of that afternoon was surreal. Around us, other magazine makers and print staff were moving between stunned silence and urgent phone calls – frantically checking whether anything in their forthcoming issues needed to be pulled, whether any feature or advertisement was suddenly, horribly wrong for the moment. The ordinary machinery of publishing, grinding on, because it had to.
Somehow, we completed the press pass, before spending the night in a regional hotel, drinking endless cups of tea, glued to the TV watching history unfold through our tears. Magazine making had never felt more futile.
Let’s lighten the mood with tales of when things went wrong for more innocent reasons. Such as the Moscow launch of What Hi-Fi? Russia, where one magazine executive slid off his stool mid-presentation after too much local vodka. Or the time the repro house forgot to add any of the adverts into the Buyer’s Guide section (plenty of white space to write notes in that issue).
Or the infamous cover-flap incident.
We had a big subwoofer test that month, and the cover promised – in the largest, boldest type we could fit – BIGGER BETTER BASS. What nobody thought to check was how it sat under a promotional cover flap that was running on that issue. Which is how a magazine about high-performance audio came to sit on the nation’s newsstands with BETTER ASS screaming at passing shoppers in giant capitals…
My ten years at What Hi-Fi? raced by, in a rhythm of CES launches, Bristol Hi-Fi Shows, manufacturer press trips, ‘Summer of Sport’ TV-test specials, IFAs, What Hi-Fi? Awards, bumper peak-season issues, and the growing demands for online content.
All this and many, many hours sat on a test-room sofa, evaluating products with the best team – energetically debating up to (and beyond) publication about the merits of particular products and technologies, discovering new music, perfect test tracks and more. (The ‘new’ music I introduced was most likely something recorded before I was born. Sorry not sorry.)
It was a magazine of many Andrews – four of them in the editorial team at one time – including the inimitable Andy Clough, editor extraordinaire, whose dry wit, attention to detail and peerless industry contacts powered What Hi-Fi? into the 21st Century. ‘Cloughie’ was taken far too young, as was legendary Buyer’s Guide editor, Caroline Osborn, who notched up four decades of What Hi-Fi? service. The team was hugely enriched by her diligence, kindness, and cake tins of awesome chocolate brownies.
Because brands and technologies rise and fall, but it’s people – yes, even in the age of A.I. – that make the difference. Happy 50th Birthday, What Hi-Fi?!
MORE:
A look back to 1976 and the first issue of What Hi-Fi? magazine
Apple at 50: how Cupertino changed the audio world time and again – and not always for the better
