HiFi and the cars of yesterday
11/28/2012
The term "high fidelity" (or "hi-fi" for short) was coined in the 1960s. The idea behind it was to set standards for sound technology in the home (and later in cars). DIN standard 45500, for example, stipulated that the frequency response of devices had to be linear between 250 and 6,300 Hz. At that time, the average citizen drove a VW Beetle and the successful entrepreneur perhaps a Porsche 911 or a Maserati 3500 GT. Milestones in sound technology were the Dual 1009 record player and, for example, the Grundig SV50 transistor integrated amplifier, neither of which were intended for Beetle drivers.
In the seventies, the term became widely accepted, affordable devices were available and the marketing people of the device manufacturers took up the topic in their advertising messages. The pictures in this blog are from exactly that time. In terms of vehicles, the average person had worked their way up to the VW K70 or Opel Ascona, while the successful might have opted for the Lamborghini Urraco or the R107 Mercedes-Benz 350 SL. In the meantime, hi-fi had become popular and at home in many living rooms.
In the 1980s, hi-fi devices and cars became better and better; in addition to hi-fi, the term high-end was now also used to describe the upper end of sound quality, so to speak. Super amplifiers and loudspeakers quickly reached the price range of a full-blown car and even a tuning industry developed that made series components even better, almost in the same way as with cars. New brands came and went, another parallel to the automotive industry. And of course, hi-fi was now also available in the installation slot in the center console of the VW Golf GTIor the Ferrari 512 Testarossa, but the loudspeaker technology was hardly capable of providing a truly high-fidelity experience in view of the driving noise. Developments in this area still took some time.
And today? Hardly anyone remembers the term hi-fi anymore, and if they do, it is with a nostalgic smile on their face. Maybe that's why vinyl records are currently celebrating a comeback ...
And if you like looking at old hi-fi devices, you can find some nice examples in the Zwischengas archive of the ADAC Motorwelt magazine.
