Possible new section on website ?

[lcd4ever]

Firstly, let me say I am most impressed with this new improved version of your web-site.....love the forums and the news/reviews sections are great.

I have a suggestion for you; that would certainly make my life easier don't know if anyone else out there agrees with me.....

So Claire if you are out there.....what about an archive section.....?

Let me expand I have bought quite a few pieces of 2nd hand kit from a certain auction site, basically over there I can pick up items I have dreamed about owning since I caught this bug as a poor student 20 years ago. Over the past couple of years I have bought such items as a Linn Axis turntable a Nakamichi cassette deck(for 20 quid!!!!!!) and Audiolab 8000A amp and Arcam Alpha, and Alpha 7se cd players also a Denon 2800 II DVD player....now I knew these items by reputation from reading your mag over the years but sadly my older(80s 90s) WHFi mags have long since been binned through moving house etc. so it would be great if you had a reference section on the site where retro junkies like myself could go to check out reviews from yesteryear. Maybe categorize this by type...ie cd player, turntable, tape deck etc the subsections for each by year from the beginning of the mag featuring a few choice 5 star reviews within this category for that year. (If I worked for you.....I can dream....this is an assignment I would absolutely love....)

Also in the mag each month why not feature 1 piece of kit each month that was a landmark for its time, giving the original WHFi review the showing us what these greats from the past have lead on to in todays kit....even comparing them head to head with their modern counterparts(that would be great...I would love to see a great turntable or cd plus amp blow an ipod docking station back where it belongs imo)

I know the point of the mag/website is to feature new hifi but surely there is a place for the older stuff too....might educate some of your newer readers also.....

Your due consideration would be much appreciated

Thanks

Craig

 

[Andrew Everard]

It's something that's being considered, but budgetary and resource constraints mean we're working flat-out to keep the site going as it is.

That said, our colleagues at Gramophone magazine are just completing a project to digitise and put online the entire archive of that title, which goes all the way back to 1923, and it's a project being watched with interest throughout the company.

So who knows? Anything's possible, but it won't happen overnight.

 

[the record spot]

Does WHF keep a record of the reviews it's done over the years? With the popularity of buying used kit now, it would be very handy to have some trustworthy reference material like that. Hi Fi World did something similar, but their database was damaged by fire I think. There's just a summary section available now (not unlike the WHF Buying Guide).

 

[Andrew Everard]

Well, we have all the issues, but of course many of them predate the electronic page make-up age, so getting them all online would be a matter of manual cataloguing/entry, or scanning (which is what Gramophone is doing).

I think you're getting your archives mixed up - IIRC it was Choice which lost its online archive in a fire.

 

[the record spot]

Ah! Right, knew it was one of them. It's all these damn publications with "Hi Fi" in the title!