#OnThisDay 1959: Monitor made a short film called Hi-Fi-Fo-Fum, about a burgeoning phenomenon; the audiophile. I suspect this is not the film he made; in 1959 neither the BBC nor anyone else had the cameras, recording media or editing capability to make this amusing contemporary clip.
I am not sure whether it was the beggar's expensive clothes, the clip on neckties, the neatly trimmed eyebrows, the fact that none of the record catalogue numbers for Beethoven's Symphony #5 actually exist, the 1960s plastic bucket chairs, the chocolate coated Westons Wheatens, or the bank of Quad 22 preamps that weren't made until 1965, made me think it might just be a bit suss. That and the fact that fake historical pictures and videos are so popular lately, like this woman charging her electric car in 1912, not!
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Viewers from South Australia will laugh at the cameo appearance of Jim Tate as the second hifi sales assistant in the clip.
I disagree with the comment that this is not authentic 1959.
General style and every bit of equipment is from the era (or
before), the "bank of Quad 22" is clearly a stack of early Quad
QC II mono pre-amps - and why would one expect real LP
catalogue numbers in a humoristic clip ?
Please find a picture of Siemens Electrical Victoria (1905) attached ..
Yes, it is a contemporary picture (define contemporary .. )
General style and every bit of equipment is from the era (or
before), the "bank of Quad 22" is clearly a stack of early Quad
QC II mono pre-amps - and why would one expect real LP
catalogue numbers in a humoristic clip ?
Please find a picture of Siemens Electrical Victoria (1905) attached ..
Yes, it is a contemporary picture (define contemporary .. )
Attachments
Obviously the style and equipment is from the period depicted (well, apart from machine knitted sweaters, chocolate Wheaten biscuits and a few other things mentioned earlier), but thank you for the correction on the Quad units.
But the video depicted isn't the one John Schlesinger made for Monitor in 1958, just like your photograph depicts a 1905 vehicle but the photo wasn't taken in 1905.
If the video were genuine it would have the look and feel of the 1950s, like this one: How to get stereo sound on BBC Radio - BBC Archive
Note the absence of camera slider track dolly movements, multi-angle edits, post dubbed audio, and other contemporary film making tricks.
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I would hazard a guess sometime in the current post-truth era, possibly around 2017 when it first appeared online.
I think it is impossible to recreate a film like this "today".
On BBC I read "Originally broadcast 12 April 1959"
Perhaps my language skills do not allow me to completely
understand this.
Actually the car in post 6 is a replica from 2010.
On BBC I read "Originally broadcast 12 April 1959"
Perhaps my language skills do not allow me to completely
understand this.
Actually the car in post 6 is a replica from 2010.
Gents why argue about the authenticity of the vid, just enjoy it, nice to be looking back & indeed back in those days this audio diy thingy is really a big. Don't know about your end but my side diy is dying so there goes the spirit, fun of building, learning & discovering.
I enjoyed the video too. I was born in a small remote farming community and my father was in a group of of enthusiasts. He had to make the decision between mono and stereo and chose mono because of the young family, including me. I remember stores like that in the video, in fact I remember Mack's Radio was still like that in 1970s Adelaide, and there are even stores that look very similar in Japan today.
Yes that's what matters, I grew up surrounded by music. One of my brother had a record shop, playback was a Lenco turntable, Sansui tube intergrated amp & Philips speakers. To be able to recall this is already amazing to me cause I was like 8 or 9 yrs old then & 2 of my brothers diyed some tube amps too. Such good memories. Guess I was preprep to be an audiophile.
Oh & at home Dad had this JVC integrated console tuner/record player that we played Beatles & Elvis records all the time. LOL
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Uhm, that's not high fidelity, that's a b/w picture colorized after the fact. Every serious hifi enthusiast despises colorations!
