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Hi Fi world

It was a good read, and most of the in-depth reviews were honest and forensic - e.g. the one on the new Project X8 a couple of months ago, so much better than a bland What Hifi or Choice review.
What let it down was several pages of 'World Standards', recommendations of equipment in different categories which was never updated and yearss out pf date.
You can blame Brexit for a lot, but I think this was just a combination of the world moving on, and Keywood reaching retirement.
 
Sadly HFW is/was the only UK magazine actually measuring equipment and detecting manufacturers making equipment with extreme unbalanced designs. I just got the August issue, out today in Malaysia and both the KEF and Mission speakers measure well.
Stereophile is USA focused and too interested in the unaffordable end of the market
 
I remember those few issues that gave away free discs. Pretty sure I have 1 or 2 of them. Certainly if it isn't lost the Mary black sampler.

Noel had a rant about the difficulty & cost to produce those CD's after buyers (of the mag) not appreciating the (unknown to them) content put onto the discs so stopped doing them.
 
I have the CDs but I gave the Mary Black sampler away because back then I ended up buying all her CDs!
Another funny thing was the photo on Noel’s column page, the same for 25 years!
 
I expect Noel will be retiring. Good magazine and a shame to see it go but who reads magazines now? Hifi magazines are serving an ever diminishing niche.

Cheers BB
 
David Price was editor at one point, wasn't he? I used to enjoy reading the Haden Boardman articles. Wonder what happened to him?
 
Loved that Mary Black sampler, great to hear others did as well. Shame about Hi fi World, bought a fair few copies over the years but like others not
so much lately. Its at least partly my fault then !
 
I wondered why it was missing from the shelves when I looked. I subscribed to it for a good while and they have had some very good reviewers especially David Price, Paul Rigby, Our little Adam and the legends LJK Setwright and Tony Bolton.

I used to value the opinions and have bought quite a few bits of kit on their recommendations.

It has been dull of late so I can't say I am surprised but I still have a lot of time for Noel Keywood and wish him and all of the staff the best.
 
I stopped buying Hi-Fi magazines years ago as they typically had about two pages you wanted to read. The rest was adverts, things you already knew, things you didn't want to know and reviews which were little more than adverts in disguise. Nothing got slatted, few things got less than five stars, useful technical information was absent. They were a waste of money and much better advise and information was available on line for nothing.

They were useful, got worse and their day is over. Nothing to miss.
 
I strongly suspect that things came to an untimely end as I have an annual subscription and phoned a few numbers on their website with no response and eventually the subscription service to be told the news.
 
I too have the excellent Mary Black sampler. It’s a shame HFW has gone but it’s a sign of the times, just not sustainable in print. I wrote a few DIY Supplement articles for Noel & Nick Lucas…but that’s quite some years ago now!
 
I did quite enjoy HFW, but they did have a knack of picking equipment for review that was made by one-man bands who would be out of business in a few years.

They used to publish correspondents' email addresses on the letters page, and I did have a useful chat with someone about getting the best out of Ruark Talisman II speakers.
 


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