A look into one of our favorite audiophile-minded spaces to emerge in Los Angeles. As listening bars continues to rise in popularity across the United States and around […]
New BBC Footage Uncovers the Sacred Rituals of 1950s Hi-Fi Culture
A 1959 short captures the obsessive early days of high-fidelity systems. Men chase sonic perfection through wires, cabinets, and carefully measured madness.
“You must have one of these better-class units which has ultra-linear output stages. The distortion factor on it is very, very low indeed. Somewhere in the region of 0.11% at 10 watt output,” explains one of the high-fidelity faithful in Hi-Fi-Fo-Fum, a 1959 BBC short that drills into the psyche of the early audiophile.
Recently uploaded by the BBC Archive, the film profiles men who turned their living rooms into tangled shrines of walnut, wire and snootiness in pursuit of the perfect sound. Directed by a young John Schlesinger — years before Midnight Cowboy made him a household name — the film captures a very specific madness: men chasing sonic purity through sheer force of gear and delusion.
It trots out the full taxonomy. The hobbyist accountant tallying shillings per decibel. The gear snob quoting crossover specs like scripture. “Of course, that is no good to you at all. You must have one of these better-class units,” says one salesman. A chin-stroking critic parsing string tone and mic placement swears his setup lets him hear “the sigh of the conductor as the piccolo misses its entry.”
One guy calls record shops “glossy cathedrals,” their clerks “church wardens.” Another, high on stereo’s promise, brags that “an express train roars through your living room” or better yet, “you can witness a thrilling game of ping pong.”
The angle is reductive, yes, but precise. Hi-Fi-Fo-Fum knows these guys. It knows they don’t love music. They love control. They love gear. They love man-splaining. They love the illusion that transcendence can be assembled with enough solder. “Is it a religion or a disease?” Robinson asks. Yes.
