Hi Fi – why is it
so important?
For most people the mere fact that they can play their CDs, Mini Discs,
LPs or whatever else is enough. They enjoy the music and accept or
are unaware of the limitations of their systems. However it is clear,
even from as long ago as the first edition of Compton Mackenzie’s
excellent Gramophone Magazine in the 1920’s, that a proportion
of recorded music purchasers want more – they would like to
recreate the sound of a live performance.Thus the Hi Fi Industry
was born and for many years good progress was made in improving the
quality of sound reproduction. The objective was clear and constant;
to design and manufacture systems that would, as accurately as is
technically possible, replay what had been recorded. In Britain names
like Radford, Quad, Leak and Williamson became known for electronics
and Radford, Quad, Wharfedale and later Spendor, Rogers, Harbeth,
B&W and Kef for loudspeakers. (Our apologies to those we have
omitted.)Radford must take a special place in Audio because they
not only designed the best Amplifiers and supplied key Industry figures
with them but they also made some of the finest loudspeakers and
even did important design and development work for bigger companies
like Goodmans. And it didn’t it stop there, they also made
some of the best Audio test equipment and that was used by most of
the Industry as well.The BBC took things equally seriously, they
set up a research department at Kingswood Warren to improve the loudspeakers
they used to make recordings and broadcasts and, ultimately designed
their own and issued licenses to other manufacturers to make them.
Spendor, Rogers and Harbeth are companies founded by ex Kingswood
Warren engineers.The work the BBC did was very important because,
until that time, most recordings were made using loudspeakers whose
origins were in public address and cinema sound systems. They were
very loud but much more distorted than the ones used by people in
their homes. It meant we could hear faults in recordings that the
engineers who made them might not. The BBC’s (and the British
Hi Fi companies) influence spread around the world and survives to
this day.By the latter part of the nineteen seventies, Hi Fi was
the third major household purchase after a house and a car, it was
a big international business and in some ways that was a bad thing
because it fostered companies who were less clear about sound quality
objectives but much more clear about marketing ones. In the words
of one of these new companies “what did it matter what the
sound was like as long as you could tap your feet to the music”.
It was a valid argument if the system you were buying was cheap but
theirs was not – it was phenomenally expensive. Not surprisingly
the traditionalists were incensed and went on the attack, unfortunately,
although they were more correct, there were flaws in their arguments
too and they were not as persuasive as the “tap your feet” brigade.
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The
Press loves controversy so lots of magazines were sold and many journalists
became converts.The subjective listener won over his objective counterpart
and it was now much less clear what the objectives of a top end Hi
Fi system should be. Do we really want to recreate a live experience
or do we want to enjoy music? Since even the best systems that were
attempting to recreate natural sound were not perfect, would it not
be more sensible to look for something more musically enjoyable. Well
yes it would, but if you are spending a good deal of money, you have
a right to expect more than you get from a cheap commercial system.
The situation did not rest there, people started to find all sorts
of magical solutions or musical enjoyment enhancers. So bizarre were
some that they made in into the national dailies. You know the sort
of thing – your CD’s sounded better if they were kept in
the fridge! Your system sounded better after you had drunk a glass
of anti-static water and so on. It was mostly phooey and it made the
industry look very silly.Hi Fi had become elitist and a black art.
To the outside world an object of derision and to those involved a
sort of religion. It was a great pity for the serious music lover because
he wanted none of this; he just wanted his recordings to sound clearer,
less tiring to listen to and more like the real thing. Freed of the
distortion that exists in normal commercial Hi Fi, he could listen
for longer periods with less effort and get even more pleasure from
his collection. By contrast, Hi Fi enthusiasts only had a handful of
records, it was the equipment and the start up ceremony that mattered – oh
dear! As if this was not enough to finish off the industry, along came
VCRs’, PC’s, Satellite TV, wide screen, surround sound,
computer games, mountain bikes and so on.No longer is Hi Fi very high
on most people’s shopping list, a good midi system or multi channel
surround system will satisfy the requirement of the substantial majority.
As a result many specialist manufacturers no longer exist or their
names have been hoovered up by large, Far Eastern companies, or even
if they haven’t, much of what is sold is made in that part of
the world for a fraction of the UK’s manufacturing costs. Things,
in the main, are just not the same. However, for a select few, modern
dumbed down, TV is something from which they wish to escape. The relentless
attack of a movie soundtrack is not to everyone’s taste, other
than as an occasional diversion, what they need is beautifully clear
and natural sound only, accurate voice reproduction for speech and
drama and the wonderful warmth and naturalness of sound that can only
be reproduced by the very finest Hi Fi systems money can buy.There
are huge advantages to owning the finest possible system, not just
to the Hi Fi enthusiast but to everybody – the clearer and less
distorted sound is the more pleasant and less tiring it is to listen
to. Believe it or not, this means the hard of hearing will benefit
even more from really accurate sound reproduction than those whose
hearing is good. In short, true high fidelity sound reproduction is
what everybody wants and needs; it is just that most do not realize.
Happy Listening. |
