The latest issue of What Hi-Fi? is in the shops now, and it celebrates, among other things, really rather enormous televisions – well, those with a screen size of 65 inches at any rate. So, for this Back Issues column, I decided to look back only a few short years, rather than the more usual quarter of a century or so, to see where we might have come in the past decade and less.
Screen contrast and a new actor
I can’t deny that another reason I have gone back seven and a half years, to the May 2017 edition, is that it was my first issue as the editor of What Hi-Fi? magazine – so it is, for me at any rate, an issue of import.
It is an issue, too, with a great contrast in subject matter, one that ably shows the great variety in products that we at What Hi-Fi? cover; in this case from large-screen TVs and 4K TV subscription services and streamers, to a group test of £300 turntables, and some Blu-ray players (scarily, we are almost at the point when we can say “remember them?”) for well under £100.
Jumping the Q
The first thought to hit me when looking at the cover was “Sky Q is more than seven years old?!” I know that – especially at my venerable age – time flies, but that struck me as faintly ludicrous. Still, here we are, getting on for a decade later, and Sky’s ground-breaking technology is brilliant still. There are now alternatives to getting your Sky TV via a satellite dish, with Sky Stream now a fine option that you access via your broadband connection – but Sky Q is still riding high as the best of the lot.
Bigger screens, shrinking prices
On turning the page to the lead first test, the next realisation was how the prices of big-screen TVs have plummeted over those relatively few years. Our review of the 55-inch Sony KD-55XE9305 shows a price of £2400 for what is, admittedly, a top-tier TV. But you can get an excellent 55in OLED TV now (the Sony was a ‘regular’ LCD set) for comfortably less than half that price – and the 65-inch sets we look at in the latest issue of the magazine come in at, and less than, £1900. Ten inches might not sound a lot, but the extra screen acreage between a 55 and 65in set is really rather huge, so that disparity in price is impressive indeed.
Some products remain consistent
In contrast to those audio/visual feasts, we had a rather impressive trio of circa-£300 turntables that we put head to head, partly in celebration of a Pink Floyd retrospective at London’s Victoria and Albert museum. Not that we really need an excuse to celebrate the continued success of vinyl as a medium. And continued it is, as a glimpse at our 2024 Awards pages will show you. There are no fewer than five superb turntable Best Buys, from under £200 to more than £2500 and everything in between. And long may vinyl be a staple part of our two-channel hi-fi systems.
Singing the Blus
One product that may be approaching the end of its lifecycle, though, is the Blu-ray player. It hasn’t, by any means, died out completely – we still believe that the very best means of playing a 4K HDR picture is through physical media rather than streaming – but the convenience (and still, let’s face it, excellent quality) of modern video streaming has meant that it is less and less popular. In 2017, though, Blu-ray was very much the medium of choice – and you could get really good performers for less than £100. In contrast to the turntable, though, and in a revealing nod to the differing paths of vinyl and the Blu-ray, the headcount in our Blu-ray Awards for 2024 numbers just one.
Seven and a half years, then… in many ways, the mere blink of an eye. But just think of everything the world has gone through since 2017, from Covid-19 to natural disasters and ever-increasing outbreaks of war, and you will appreciate that much can happen in a relatively short space of time.
We can only hope that the future brings us more in the way of technological improvements, vinyl, music and movies, than any of the more scary things that may have touched people’s lives around the world.
More:
What Hi-Fi? Awards 2024 – all the winners!
