Word: hifi
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...JAMES JOYCE SOCIETY MEETING (Folkways; $11.90). Set in the midst of a windy "Meeting of the Joyce Society" is a perfect Eden of recitation: James Joyce reads the closing pages of Anna Livia Plurabelle from Finnegans Wake. Though the recording was made long before the days of hifi. Joyce's voice is so subtle, takes cadence and grades pitch with such finesse, that only a good record player can keep within an Irish mile...
Some 1,000,000 Americans have done just that-and thus established a new and burgeoning industry. Each week about 3,000 more homes go hifi. A mere fad until recently, hi-fi has become a $250 million business (equipment sales have increased as much as 500% in some areas since 1952). There is a standard pattern: about two years after an area is saturated with TV, hi-fi moves...
What does hi-fi mean in the home? Manufacturers are mass-producing record players which they label hifi, to the indignation of dedicated audio fans, who insist on buying components separately (the fanciest equipment stores feature elaborate switching panels, so that customers can compare components on the spot). It is next to impossible, the dedicated argue, to buy a real high-fidelity rig in one box-the limited speaker enclosure will probably cause a booming bass or fuzzy drum rolls, and up to half of the price goes for cabinetry instead of equipment. The best buys among the package units...
...Artists have acquired new standards of perfection through hifi. Conductors and singers carefully study playbacks of their concerts, and composers use more subtle instrumental blends. Says one composer: "I think the whole Berlioz revival owes a lot to high fidelity. His orchestration always sounded muddy on old sets." Listeners are also developing their tastes: a fluff may be forgiven in a concert hall, but hearing it again and again on a record may lead the buyer to complain. Cracks Recordmaker Peter Bartok (son of the late great Béla): "The listener is a damn nuisance." Nuisance or not, today...
...Wilford G. Crane, a mere "10-watt amplifier bank clerk," once brilliantly undermined a wealthy "hifi bourgeois" with a gift of a single 78-r.p.m. disk. " 'It's Dajos Bela and Salon Orchestra, been looking for it for years. The way he plays these Hungarian Dances is beyond comparison. Finally found it on my last trip to Chicago. Some allowances you may have to make, but for 1933, don't you think the sound is spacious and resonant, eh?' Of course, Crane had actually found the disk in the attic . . . and had then rubbed dust...