We all love the media covering the latest developments, new products and discussion about new technologies in various fields of our beloved hobby – music. Despite most magazines started content on digital platforms as well they still keep on publishing in paper forms like in Germany with Image Hifi, Fidelity, Lp, STEREO and Stereoplay. In the US you have The Absolute Sound, Stereophile and in the UK hifi + etc.

We see trends of concentration, so is Hi Fi + belonging to TAS, and in Germany Image Hifi  since this month to STEREO where it came from some 30 years ago (from HiFi Exclusive). In Japan, Singapore and Hongkong we have Stereo Sound, Analog or Stereonet Singapore, Hifi News Sg. and Audiotechnique, Hifi Review.  A lot of business is done there with perfect orchestrated product demonstration for audiophiles.

As most writers work on a free lance bases, at least in Western Europe and the US, they are dependant on the allocation of products by internal advisors. That works quite well despite we see so called gurus in certain fields – vinyl, digital, amps and speakers. We know that High End Audio is a special interest field  promoting good products and companies, also in pure digital formats like HIFIstatement or LowBeats in Germany. It might be a matter of time that we will see the big magazines slowly dying on paper. I do regret this development but most audio consumers are not willing to pay much money on High End audio reports anymore.

They also want to expect critical comments on certain products. Usually it should be the job of the dealers but here we are facing another problem. Products are sold more and more by relation and margin to  brands rather than by good advice on a perfect music chain. I know there are exceptions and many dealers are serving their customers pretty well. In some cases dealership  is also transferred to certain brands marketing and selling their products directly.

In the last time I noticed that the will to start discussion on trends is a little declining, also critical comments are getting more and more rare. When you start to be critical and not following as a well behaved follower of a writer you will be of course labelled as „a know it all guy“ despite you have gained more expertise on testing and playing products as some of the writers. Nevertheless we are still learning.

We should not expect from an industry driven and financed by marketing (advertisements)  is putting itself under pressure by critical people signalling some deficits of their products. But we should get a well based description and recommendation of High End audio products, „matching in chains“ or „what to do against noise of vinyl players“ just as an example. I always got good advice when I asked the chief editor of Image Hifi. He knows the business as well as the boss of HIFIstatement. Let us hope that we will see a positive development in this business and expecting to deal with some good writers of the magazines  in the future, on paper or digital. We all stay together and love the reports about High End Audio.