Continuing her excellent series focusing on vintage and classic hifi, Janine Elliot takes a look at the Meridian M2 active loudspeakers. 
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New Hifi Pig contributor James Fleming does a bit of Soul Searching and is likely to ruffle a few feathers along the way. More »
In this month’s Bird’s Eye View, Linette Smith discusses handbags and earrings…and a bit of Hifi too.
This month Stu lets vent on an apathetic music buying public.
If you don’t know your NABs from your RIAAs or your Microgroove from your Orthacoustic, don’t panic as Janine Elliot is here to explain the history and the science behind vinyl equalisation. More »
Hifi Pig talks to Hifi Pig reader Stuart Armstrong who has an interesting and very accomplished DIY turntable project. More »
With the recent Olympic and Paralympic games still fresh in my mind I got to thinking how incredible as a nation the United Kingdom is. The fact we came second in the medal tables for both games, coming just behind the USA in the Olympics and China in the Paralympics was amazing. The Chinese in particular couldn’t believe how a nation of our size could do so well given their population is about 1.4 billion and ours is roughly 60 million. More »
Talk of powered speakers and the chances are you will think instantly of Bang and Olufsen or Meridian, or perhaps PMC and ATC. I was pleased to get hold of the Meridian’s M2 in the 1990’s, though had seen them in KJ LeisureCentre in Watford in the late 70’s and craved for them then. But the idea of powered speakers in the hifi industry goes further back than that. Up until the mid-70’s record players with built in amplifiers and speakers were all the craze, though I never really got into Bush, Murphy, HMV, ITT, Ferguson and all the other mono record players that were up for sale in Tesco, Timothy Whites, Co-op, etc. The sad thing is that they seem to be making a comeback with HMV and others selling Crosley retro record players.
We’ve been having a lovely time covering the Crescendo Festival in St Palais sur Mer in the Poitou region of France – and a great festival it is too. It’s free, there’s bands from all over the world play and it’s really well organised and attended. Now, as a family we’ve always been campers…never in caravans or mobile homes, just tents and all the gubbins that goes with that…and so naturally when we attended this years Crescendo Festival we bought a tent (ours is a long time dead) and set off South for a bit of an adventure…sort of Hifi Pig gets back to nature.
Linette Smith looks at fame and the reasons people become, or want to become, famous.
Audiophile Hifi and Music Evening at The Ridger Bar and Grill, Wirral on Sunday 21st August 2016. More »
When talking about iconic tuners two or three words often come to mind; ‘Leak’ and ‘Trough-Line’. Only a few other tuners, the Quad FM3 and Marantz Model 2110 with built in oscilloscope get me excited. More »
Hifi Pig reader Michael Howell was born in England but now resides the good old USA. In this Readers’ Lives article he tells us how he personally goes about evaluating a system. More »
The truth behind the name and origins of Hifi Pig. More »
Things are afoot in the world of reel 2 reels. Not only are there now at least 4 major companies producing reel to reel copies of famous master tapes, but very importantly after a long gap the Swiss tape recorder manufacturer Revox are bringing back the medium with a player based on the A700. More »
Now before all you cat lovers and anti-vivisectionists try to lynch me, let me explain. Loudspeaker design has fascinated me for almost as long as I have been on this planet (60 years if you really want to know!!) and from my earliest days in retail I spent a lot of time not only listening to many designs but repairing them too. More »
With Stuart writing extensively about taste recently, and, having touched on the subject of hifi looks and beauty myself in previous articles, I got to thinking about how a hifi’s looks have a bearing on how it sounds, or how we perceive it sounds. For me, hifi systems fall into three main categories looks wise. More »
In this month’s Birds Eye View Linette discusses audiophiles and their cats. Yep…cats! We fully expect this to break the internet! More »
Hifi is an odd bod. We get great ideas, and then go backwards in sound quality before going forwards again. I mean, look at the resurgence of the LP, or the backwards philosophy of MP3. Most will say the CD was a bit of a white elephant. Of course we all remember the cassette tape, and some will be pleased that one hasn’t come back, although a new “ReVox” reel2reel based on the Studer B-676 is on its way back soon as ¼ inch tape begins a mini revival. Hurray. More »
More piff and waffle from Stuart after a bit of a bar room psychology lesson courtesy of Auntie Beeb.
Linette searches for audio Nirvana but pops another audiophile rock in the pipe instead.
More ramblings and incoherent musings from Stuart; this time he questions why we aren’t all listening to pro monitors and pro amplifiers and finishes off with a mixed case of reds for good measure. More »
The vast majority of electronic devices require a power supply, whether it is a linear power supply or the now popular switch mode power supply (SMPS). Whatever the type, we take them for granted and we rely heavily on them to power or charge all our electronics doodads. More »
The Universal Language
A couple of things struck me when we started Hifi Pig and I got involved with going to Hifi Shows and talking to other like-minded people on the interwebs. Those things were that, firstly, there didn’t seem to be a lot of women around and secondly that everyone involved was ‘of a certain age’. That was five years ago and things are changing. Every show we go to I see more women and we are starting to see a younger audience in attendance. Which is how it should be. When it comes down to it, Hifi is about music and music is “a universal language, spoken and understood by all” (OK, that quote relates to House Music…but you get my drift).
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