Word: hifi
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...before dinner. Page and his wife (a former ballet dancer, author of a promising 1953 novel, The Bracelet) have two sons, 13 and 16. At college (Cornell '21), Page used to play "the long-necked banjo" to help pay his tuition. Now he has gone hifi, playing Mahler and Sibelius, while he gets in two or three more hours of medical reading or writing after dinner. Bedtime...
...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...