WHF European mag versions

[rendu]

Hello, I would like to make some comments regarding the spanish version of the magazine. I have to say that there are 3 things that I usually find in the magazine and which are not really aligned with the country where you are selling the magazine. I believe that in order for a magazine to be relly profesional and internationaly it requires at least a minimum level of adaptation to the country where it aims. Hope you will take the following criticisms as a gift:

1) We do not use Sky - We do not have Sky, or Fresat or any of the UK tv options that you have there. There are too many comments and references in every issue of the magazine regarding these options.

2) Power-hub and other accessories - We do not have the possibility to use some of the products that you review in the Spanish magazine. In some cases they do not even distribute those products in Spain. Ex. Taccima power-hubs. Most of these are customized for UK plugs only and they are not distributed to hi-fi shops in Spain.

3) Budget concept - The budget/high-end concept is very different here. A speaker of 600 Eur is considered already high-end and it is out of reach for most medium economy families. None of my friends or office collegues have any system for hi-fi or home cinema which cost in total more than 600 Eur (I repeat - IN TOTAL). It sounds very strange (even a bit offensive) to read in the magazine that a pair of speakers of 1000 Eur are considered budget or "a steal", "a gift", etc.... 600 Eur here is a LOT of money already for a speaker. People will actually look at you weird if you tell them that you have spent 600 Eur in a pair of speakers.

Again, I only hope to contribute to the contineous improvement of the mag and that this is taken only as opportunities for improvement. Best regards, Pablo.

 

[Andrew Everard]

I will ensure your comments are passed on to the Spanish licence-holder.

 

[The_Lhc]

3) Budget concept - The budget/high-end concept is very different here. A speaker of 600 Eur is considered already high-end and it is out of reach for most medium economy families. None of my friends or office collegues have any system for hi-fi or home cinema which cost in total more than 600 Eur (I repeat - IN TOTAL). It sounds very strange (even a bit offensive) to read in the magazine that a pair of speakers of 1000 Eur are considered budget or "a steal", "a gift", etc.... 600 Eur here is a LOT of money already for a speaker. People will actually look at you weird if you tell them that you have spent 600 Eur in a pair of speakers.

The only trouble with this is, if you disregard any and every system/speaker/whatever over 600E then you don't leave a particularly big field of components to review. Yes you can get decent-ish speakers for £100-150 but once you've done that group test one month, what do you do the next month? If you don't include more expensive components then the magazine really will only have enough material to fill 3 or 4 editions a year.

If "normal" or mid-range speakers are out of the reach of ordinary Spaniards then that's an issue you need to take up with the manufacturers, not the magazine (out of interest how do Spanish hi-fi manufacturers compare on price, I believe there are some that we don't get here in the UK?) but you have to bear in mind that there is going to be a minimum price for components and labour, so you can't realistically expect any manufacturer to sell a speaker that retails for 1000E in the rest of Europe to be presented for sale for 200E in Spain.

 

[Anonymous]

I am a regular reader of the French what-hifi digital version (through relay.com). I must say that it looks like a lot of the articles are bare translation of the UK articles, but the most disappointing is that it is impossible to contact the French team. There were a few inaccuracies in the article called "Le futur de la hifi" (a translation of the future of your music?) which I wanted to address, but my email bounced back (I verified the address it was the correct one). I don't know if the same inaccuracies were to be found in the original article but just in case:

French-Whathifi: iTunes cannot play High res files

me: wrong, iTunes can perfectly play High Res files, but they might not be accepted by the ipods and ipads depending on their sample rate (no more than 24bit/48KHz...but what the point anyway as ipods will down sample to 16/44KHz)

French-Whathifi: High Res files at B&W, Linn, HDTracks...from 96KHz to 192Khz

me: wrong, the files start from 24/44.1KHz (and the label 2L proposes DXD test files going up to 352.8KHz, but ok it won't be of interest for mainstream readers.)

French-Whathifi: to get the best quality one has to use MediaMonkey or Winamp not iTunes.

me: what!!! iTunes can read high res files (bis) and there are lots of free softwares to convert FLAC to ALAC (Max, XLD)

French-Whathifi High res providers list: Bowers and Wilkins, Linn and Naim...ok, and...HDTracks!!!

me: HDTracks is supposed to only be accessible to USA residents (I know some cheat thanks to PayPal). And what about Qobuz which is the main French site for cd quality and high quality downloads?! and bandcamp, the classicalshop...2L...?

This article which says: "let us guide you to get the best of digital music", is badly informed and says nothing of all the steps that one needs to take to listen to bit perfect rendition of music files on Windows (see: http://www.usbdacs.com/Windows/Windows.html; and benchmark-wiki), or Mac (Audio-Midi Set-up)

I hope the UK original was better. If you have anyway to contact the French team can you please ask them to provide a real email address? Many thanks.

French original email:

Bonjour,

j'aimerai vous signaler deux âneries et un oubli majeur qui apparaissent dans votre article sur la musique dématérialisée et les différentes qualités de fichier (numéro de mai 2011, page 47).
Selon vous iTunes n'est pas capable de lire les fichiers HD (24bit), c'est complètement faux. iTunes gère parfaitement les fichiers 24bit encodés en ALAC ou AIFF (je ne m'avancerai pas pour le WAV, mais je pense qu'il n'y aurai pas de soucis). La seule chose que ne fait pas iTunes c'est changer la fréquence d'échantillonnage à la volée: si vous lisez un fichier 24b/96KHz alors que les réglages midi sont sur 24bit/44.1KHz ou 16bit/44.1KHz iTunes se calera sur la qualité spécifiée dans les réglages midi. Il est en général recommandé de mettre la qualité la plus élevée correspondant aux fichiers présents dans les réglages midi (il y a plein de fils de discussions là dessus sur "computer audiophile", je vous laisse le soin de chercher) pour éviter toute perte de qualité. Par contre, je vous l'accorde, les ipod, ipad et consort ne lisent pas les fichiers de plus de 16 bit...en fait si ils peuvent les lire mais ils les 'downsample' automatiquement.
Ensuite vous dites que les fichiers 24 bit que l'on peut obtenir chez B&W, Linn, etc...oscillent entre 96KHz et 192KHz, là encore c'est une approximation: les enregistrements disponibles oscillent entre 44.1KHz et 192KHz (88.2KHz et 96KHz semblent être les plus nombreux, mais si vous aviez pensé à aller voir du côté de 2L, le label propose en 'test bench" des fichiers DXD qui vont jusqu'à 352.8 KHz! (bon d'accord ça risque pas d'intéresser le coeur de cible de What Hifi, c'est juste pour info).
Enfin vous oubliez de citer le principal fournisseur de fichiers HD en France: Qobuz, pour un magazine publié en France c'est un sacré oubli et ce d'autant plus que vous citez HDTracks qui, je vous le rappelle, n'est pas accessible pour le public résident en dehors des USA et donc a fortiori pour le public Français. Certains trichent en passant par PayPal, ça marche peut-être mais c'est une rupture des termes de vente.
Ah oui...je crois comprendre...les erreurs viennent peut-être de l'article de What hifi Uk (avril 2011)...dans ce cas je vous fait confiance pour traduire l'essentiel de mes remarques et des les faire parvenir à la rédaction anglaise.

Cordialement,

Pierre

 

[Andrew Everard]

I will again ensure your comments are passed on to the French What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision team.