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What became of all those old reviewers?

nobeone said:
https://www.loudersound.com/features/my-record-collection-ian-rankin

"Then I graduated, moved to London and got a job on Hi-Fi Review. It folded not long after I left – I’m not sure if the two are connected." :D
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It's an interesting and amusing piece about Rankin growing up, getting into music, working for Hi-Fi Review and how this feeds into his books and characters. He's still into Hawkwind, Caravan and rates Alex Harvey and Boards of Canada among the Scots.

"We championed vinyl, but that was a problem as advertisers were focusing on CD players. Whenever we did an audio test, vinyl won. We got a lot of advertising from Linn who made that turntable [points to a deck on the other side of the room] and Naim. That’s where I got my Hi-Fi separates from, between 1986 and 1990, and they all still work beautifully."

Jack
 
Paul Messenger?

Still remember his review of Klipschorns. Introduced me to high efficiency horns.

Jim.
 
jackbarron said:
It's an interesting and amusing piece about Rankin growing up, getting into music, working for Hi-Fi Review and how this feeds into his books and characters. He's still into Hawkwind, Caravan and rates Alex Harvey and Boards of Canada among the Scots.

"We championed vinyl, but that was a problem as advertisers were focusing on CD players. Whenever we did an audio test, vinyl won. We got a lot of advertising from Linn who made that turntable [points to a deck on the other side of the room] and Naim. That’s where I got my Hi-Fi separates from, between 1986 and 1990, and they all still work beautifully."

Jack
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Was a friend and collaborator with the late, great, Jackie Leven. Even sort of named a Rebus book after a Leven song Standing in Another Man's Grave - Standing in Another Mans Rain.
 
Bob McC said:
Geoff Husband now runs Breton Bikes holidays in Brittany.
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He's been doing that for a while - we first met Geoff (and Kate) on a family holiday around 1999 / 2000 - a cycle camping trip with the kids in trailers . This was shortly after Kate Humble did a piece on them for a BBC holiday programme which led to a lot of extra bookings but they were already well established.

I didn't know about the HI-Fi reviewing until later - he did some pretty detailed turntable comparisons including the Roksan Xerxes X / Artemis - he writes well - for example https://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/xerxes_e.html https://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/turntabletest01_e.html . The Breton Bikes web pages also have some good reviews of touring bikes and kit.

We've had numerous holidays with Breton Bikes since, and my 'wife 2' and I met on one of his trips.

Kate and Geoff also now run the campsite in Gouarec, central Brittany, which is in the banks of the Canal Nantes-Brest and very pleasant, with a retro vibe. Last year he organised a car show for 'interesting' cars, based at the campsite. Kate and others spent happy hours knitting a full outfit to dress their 2CV.

Thoroughly lovely people.
 
hifi_dave said:
On several occasions I have had a pair of speakers direct from a reviewer with only one of the pair unpacked, despite the reviews talking about 'stereo image'. I've also had amps and a turntable direct from reviews, still sealed in their carton. Too busy I guess.
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Armstrong once has their 600 range tuner reviewed and the reviewer complained about the 'dull' sound lacking in treble. The printed frequency response showed this as a roll off at HF. When we got the set back and checked it we found that one channel had the wrong cap in it for the de-emphasis. Error on our part. However the interesting point was that the reviewer didn't mention that the channels were quite different and this skewed the imaging quite obviously.

So we realised he hadn't bothered to listen to it. Just measured using one channel and then reported 'hearing' what he' measured.

If he'd checked, he'd have tumbled what was wrong. Although he'd have needed to check with the company to realise had the USA de-emphasis cap in one channel by mistake. (The board was made for the USA and someone forget to change both caps for the UK.) Our mistake, but showed up his behaviour.
 
ian123running said:
He's been doing that for a while - we first met Geoff (and Kate) on a family holiday around 1999 / 2000 - a cycle camping trip with the kids in trailers . This was shortly after Kate Humble did a piece on them for a BBC holiday programme which led to a lot of extra bookings but they were already well established.

I didn't know about the HI-Fi reviewing until later - he did some pretty detailed turntable comparisons including the Roksan Xerxes X / Artemis - he writes well - for example https://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/xerxes_e.html https://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/turntabletest01_e.html . The Breton Bikes web pages also have some good reviews of touring bikes and kit.

We've had numerous holidays with Breton Bikes since, and my 'wife 2' and I met on one of his trips.

Kate and Geoff also now run the campsite in Gouarec, central Brittany, which is in the banks of the Canal Nantes-Brest and very pleasant, with a retro vibe. Last year he organised a car show for 'interesting' cars, based at the campsite. Kate and others spent happy hours knitting a full outfit to dress their 2CV.

Thoroughly lovely people.
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I have a shack near Gouarec and went to that car show last year.
In fact as I left Geoff was ahead of us in his sport car and he, and us, went to lac de Guerledan. Him for lunch and us for a walk.
My favourite local restaurant is in Gouarec, the quirky Milin Ruz.
 
Bob McC said:
I have a shack near Gouarec and went to that car show last year.
In fact as I left Geoff was ahead of us in his sport car and he, and us, went to lac de Guerledan. Him for lunch and us for a walk.
My favourite local restaurant is in Gouarec, the quirky Milin Ruz.
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Yes, it's good. We'll be there on Tuesday.
 
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