July 2012
Within This Issue...
Editorial By Noel Keywood

 

  Some of the most extraordinary products in this issue are to be found in our High End Show report, from Munich, Germany. Just a short flight from the UK, Munich seemed far away in the products it had on show, as well as its clement weather! The High End Show is a big event well attended by manufacturers from around the world, so some of what we saw and were wowed by came from the Far East. But much it came from Germany, Switzerland, Denmark and Italy. With price tags of €100,000 on display I did wonder whether the ECB might consider using hi-fi as a reserve currency to hold Europe together. But as rarified and unobtainable as such products might be to most people, at least they keep us bemused and in awe. See our report on p70.

They built a ship and it sank immediately. No one would ever build a ship called Titanic again, we’ve been told: who would dare board it? An Australian businessman has placed an order with the Chinese CSC JinLing Shipyard for Titanic II, so that question will be answered soon. Sort of reminds me of Single-Ended amplifiers: they barely work and would sink if not on dry land, I swear it! But still people want to use them. Or I presume they do, as shipbuilders – no, hi-fi manufacturers that fancy themselves as shipbuilders – keep producing these vast items - see p12. As a good friend once said to me: “Hi-fi? It’s the entertainment business”. How true.

What was yesterday is being re-examined for use today in areas other than shipping. Half-speed mastering is one fine example of a neat idea that, sometime in our past, solved a multitude of vinyl sound quality problems. Paul Rigby finds it is being re-used today – see p98.

High fidelity today encompasses and actively uses a century of electrical technology, from the latest digital to the oldest valves, as this issue shows. I hope you enjoy it.

--- Noel Keywood, editor.

 

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