Hifi Pig

This month Stu lets vent on an apathetic music buying public.

More »

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.

More »

When Naim announced at the recent CES exhibition that they would be launching a preamp and power amp combo that would leave purchasers with a $200 000 hole in their bank account it was inevitable that there a certain degree of backlash from some quarters would come…and come it did. More »

Well, Linette in her Bird’s Eye View seems to be rallying against the onslaught of digital files and streaming whereas I’m once again embracing the new format. I had a great time with the little QED uPlay streamer I reviewed and this has prompted me to get hold of a Squeezebox Touch again (this will be my fifth) to see if I can finally get to grips with digital streaming.

More »

I’ve just finished reading Neil Young’s “Waging Heavy Peace” book which, despite being a rambling stream of consciousness affair, is an enthralling read and a must for anyone interested in the artist or rock music in general. As well as the expected anecdotes and stories of the “rock and roll lifestyle” it comes across very clearly that Mr Young is a man on a mission to bring hi resolution music to the masses. More »

If you are paying large sums of money for a piece of high-end hifi then it is perfectly reasonable to assume that some thought has gone into the way that the kit performs on an aesthetic level as well as, of course, into its audio performance. More »

In the first three months of 2011 just over 20 million CDs were sold in the UK, but this figure dropped to 15.3 million in 2012 – a drop of 25%. Sales of vinyl in the UK experienced growth in 2011 of almost 40% over 2010 figures but still only account for 19.5% of non-download sales. In 2011, according to IFPI, worldwide sales of downloaded singles and albums rose by 17% with some countries (US and S.Korea) deriving over half of their sales of music from downloaded sources. IFPI estimates that 32% of record companies’ revenues are derived from digital channels. More »