Every hi-fi fan has an origin story. Unlike comics, most may not start with a planet exploding or a radioactive spider bite, but in our experience, they’re still always interesting.

Whether it’s a specific product, album or concert, we all remember the first time we heard “good sound” and started our never-ending quest for audio nirvana, and it's a fun story to share, especially amongst fellow enthusiasts.

That’s why, Nosey Nellies that we are, last month we asked you, our awesome readers, to share some of yours, eager to find out if there are any common themes.

After a month, your responses have come flooding back, and while a few brands pop up on more than one occasion, for the most part it was a free-for-all where every story was unique.

Glorious audio chaos

The only real theme we got from reading your replies is that there is no one common starting point.

For starters, despite us asking “which product” got you started, a number of you still went one step back, replying with the piece of music or album that made you want better hardware. Including onsite commenter Ivan Harrison, who bluntly stated, “Dark Side Of The Moon.”

Editor’s Note: To be fair, it’s a great Pink Floyd album. Not as good as In The Court Of The Crimson King, by King Crimson, or Close To The Edge, by Yes, though, at least in my (and most of your) humble opinion.

Even among the people who replied with the product that started it all, there was a disparity, and more than a few unique tales, about custom hardware, Cold War smuggling and more. Take, for example, Jan Sejvl's story:

“A German tourist brought for me through the Iron Curtain to Czechoslovakia my first real hi-fi gear in the 80s. Gigantic Toshiba receiver with Dual CS 1246 turntable. Loudspeakers, I made at home with [the] help of my friend. The first tones of Queen’s Radio Ga Ga through this system was the very start of a never-ending search for something better. I have to admit I have never [had] such [a] feeling of happiness as I did at that moment in the past.”

And DIY seems to have been a theme for many of our older readers, with more than a few mentioning soldering their own amps out of old motherboards.

A few even mentioned reel-to-reel – which is enjoying a resurgence in the high-end market right now. This included reader Froze Rekmeyata, who told us:

“This would probably take me back to a 3-inch reel-to-reel made by GE; I was 11 years old when I got it. That machine made me start to appreciate music. Then when I was 14, I got a 1970 Montgomery Ward's Airline AM/FM Cassette home stereo for Christmas; that was a huge improvement in sound... for me.”

Hand-me-downs were another common theme in your responses, which included a particularly nice one from reader Roony Muck, who said:

“During high school, my friend's parents divorced, and during the aftermath clean-out, his mom gave me a ’70s-era classic Marantz stereo receiver. That, paired with my dad's hand-me-down Celestion Ditton 15s, at the age of 15, was my bar for listening to my music on vinyl and CD. The combination of a warm and expansive amp and tight, accurate and clear Dittons was striking to me at an early age. In my late 20s, I had to travel across the country and gave my Marantz and Dittons to another 15-year-old... Seemed the right thing to do.”

Our hot take

A love of music and the desire to have the hardware necessary to do it justice can start at any moment. That’s clear from your replies and the diverse origin stories you’ll find among the What Hi-Fi? team – which range from “oh wow” moments hearing classic prog for the first time, to the first speakers that blew our minds sonically. The only thing we’re certain of is that, as we detailed in a previous Ask the Reader column, once you start, it’s very hard to stop!

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Another week, another sea of hi-fi and home cinema announcements. If, like many of us, you have struggled to stay on top of all of them, don’t worry, as our team of experts has come up with a fresh entry to our weekly Rewind news digest!

Once again, we detail all the top stories and developments every AV fan should be aware of in a handy summary, making it quick and easy to stay on top of all the latest news.

We finished reviewing Sonos’s new hardware

The Sonos Beam Ultra Dolby Atmos soundbar and Ace Ultra wireless headphones are two of September’s hottest releases, coming from the audio firm behind multiple What Hi-Fi? Award winners. Last week, our reviewers published their full reviews of both products.

The Beam Ultra proved to be the more impressive of the two, with its new driver arrangement delivering a better sense of height and much improved, tighter low end than its step-down sibling, the Beam 2. So much so that we gave it a five-star rating and reported: “Sonos has struck Dolby Atmos gold yet again.”

The Ace Ultra proved to be a solid step in the right direction for Sonos’s wireless headphone offering, delivering a more powerful, rich and weighty sound than the three-star original Sonos Ace. But a slight lack of finesse stopped them from troubling the best of the best in their category, hence their four-star rating and our verdict:

“While they’re still not quite on the level of the class leaders, Sonos’s sophomore wireless headphones are a marked improvement in sound quality, along with their comfortable design and healthy features set.”

Read our full Sonos Beam Ultra review

Read our full Sonos Ace Ultra review

Fiio launched a new CD player

Last week, FiiO launched its new DP11 CD digital transport. In true FiiO style, the product is crammed to the brink with hardware, offering a kitchen-sink solution to people who want an affordable CD player that can double as a ripper, DAC and pre-amplifier.

Built around a Cirrus Logic CS43198 DAC chip, the unit shares a common circuit design with Fiio’s S15 streamer, and is being pitched as an affordable, flexible solution for CD collectors who are short on space. The unit is set to launch in the US and EU, costing $189 / €185. We still await UK pricing.

Read the full story: FiiO’s new CD player wants to do it all – with a DAC, pre-amplifier and more

Qualcomm unveiled its next-gen wireless headphone chip

Qualcomm (the company that builds the wireless chips used in numerous big-name wireless headphones, from the likes of Bose, Cambridge Audio, Sennheiser, Bowers & Wilkins and more) last week unveiled its next-gen Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 platform.

Smaller, more power-efficient, and packed with AI features, the firm made a lot of noise about the chipsets’ technical upgrades. But for us here at What Hi-Fi? it was the firm’s audio claims that caught our attention. Qualcomm claims the reduced size will give headphone makers more freedom when it comes to driver size and, thanks to their advanced AI processing, better ANC and improved sound.

We’ll have to wait for headphones with the new chips to start appearing before we can confirm any of these claims, but if even a few of them ring true, we could be in for an audio treat.

Read the full story: Wireless headphones are about to get even more advanced with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon Sound tech

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What Hi-Fi? is turning 50 and to celebrate we have just released a special Anniversary issue.

Yes, I have a vested interest in its success, but despite that, I have to tip my hat to our magazine editor, Jonathan Evans, and production editor, Chris Burke, who together with the rest of the team – and some very special contributors – have done a particularly magnificent job with this one.

The bumper issue is packed with features looking back over 50 years of hi-fi history – but also looking forward at what the coming decades might bring to the worlds of hi-fi and home cinema.

And as I flicked through the pages reminiscing about the five-star products of yore, my trip down memory lane took a turn – probably because Paul McCartney’s stellar track Days We Left Behind came on – and I began pondering my personal hi-fi journey and how it was so fundamentally interlinked to the magazine.

What Hi-Fi? is a little older than me, and thanks to my audio aficionado father, I grew up in a household that always had a copy on the coffee table. There were only so many times you could re-read The Beano; so I often read Dad's magazine instead, making it a core part of my hi-fi journey.

I’ve detailed how discovering my dad’s treasure trove of classic rock and prog vinyl started my love of music. But it was a subsequent memory that came to mind, turning the pages of our 50th Anniversary issue.

Specifically, in 1998, when I picked up a copy of What Hi-Fi? at home and saw the Denon D-M3 for the first time.

Why this player over the sea of other awesome separates and more premium CD spinners that had adorned What Hi-Fi?’s pages since the Sony CDP-101 player and Philips CD100 launched in the early '80s?

There were a couple of reasons.

First, while I had a cheap turntable in my room, I had yet to persuade my parents to buy me a CD player. And back then, before the vinyl revival, that was a problem for a kid just entering his angsty teenage years.

The local record shop, at this point, had pretty much stopped stocking new records. So I was desperate to get a CD player so that, like my older brother, I could listen to my music whenever I wanted, without having to persuade my parents to vacate the lounge.

Like every '90s kid, I wanted to prove how grown up I was by blasting Smells Like Teen Spirit and Even Flow out of my tiny bedroom, at full volume.

Second, because as a kid raised in a hi-fi household, I wanted the player I got to be “good” – but knew I had absolutely zero chance of getting a separates rack into my room. Even if I did follow my parents’ instructions to clean it and put away my Power Rangers action figures, there just wasn’t enough space.

So when What Hi-Fi?, the audio holy text I’d been raised to trust since I was in nappies, said the Denon was “a great all-rounder, and as comfortable playing hardcore rap as it is a string quartet”, I was sold (and wilfully ignored the fact it cost £300 that I didn't have).

Tiny, but powerful and full of charm, I knew it was going to be the top item on my letter to Santa that year the moment I saw it.

I even remember walking up to my dad with the issue, pointing at the review and saying “I want this for Christmas” with the typical self-confidence (and lack of self-awareness) of a child.

What then ensued was an extended negotiation to decide what I would offer in return for such an impressive prize – assurances on my school grades, chores I would take on, personal contributions towards the gift and the like.

And while my school report meant I didn’t get the Denon, or any other player, that year, or the year after (curse you Sega for your oh-so-awesome Mega Drive), eventually, after I got my act together, I was rewarded with a Panasonic SA-PM37MD micro system.

But even then, I still couldn't help but think back to the Denon, which was the motivation for many a study session and an offer to help clear the gutters or mow the lawn.

I may not have got to listen to it back then but it helped focus my love of music and the need to hear it in as good quality as possible – and it's fundamentally linked to a happy memory, the way hi-fi should be.

Do you have a hi-fi or home cinema memory to share? Let us know in the comments below!

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