I have always been a music lover, and remember being frustrated by the sound quality available at home as a kid. I wanted Queen to sound huge, but they sounded tiny on my little bedroom system. Friends had big Pioneer stacking systems, and they always sounded much better, but even then it wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t until my late teens, during the early rave scene, hearing Orbital’s green album on a pair of B&W speakers, through a Musical Fidelity A1 Integrated and a Nakamichi CD player that I finally heard what I’d been looking for. This was it, it sounded real, and big, and all of the detail was clear. I was hooked.
Much like many young people with very little spare cash, I headed to Richer Sounds and spent my savings on a Cambridge Audio amp and CD player, and some Gale speakers. I was soon drawn up the London Road (in Brighton) to what was Jeffries Hi-Fi, now Audio T, and invested in some Rega speakers and a Rega Mira amplifier.
I was an avid reader of Hi-Fi Choice magazine, and used to wonder what Living Voice Air Partners even looked like, and how they could be so expensive. I wanted to hear more exotic kit.
Around that time, I started posting on the Hi-Fi Choice forum. The software was a bit clunky and a lot of us felt it wasn’t really loved by the staff at HFC. So, as I worked in software I decided to have a look at options to start my own one.
I found some forum software for £50, and set up some hosting for a similar amount and that was how Hifi Wigwam started. The unusual name came from an afternoon in a teepee at Glastonbury. I had sat in the teepee with a friend for a few hours, chatting with random strangers as they came and went. The Forum had a similar vibe. People come and go, you chat.. But Hifi Teepee didn’t sound right, so I settled on HiFi Wigwam.
What followed was rapid growth, at its peak ‘the Wam’ as it became known, was getting over 350,00 unique visitors a month. We had a bigger readership than What Hi-Fi magazine. Our irreverent style turned out to be very popular. Before long, I was selling advertising to keep up with the ever growing hosting fees, and writing reviews to keep the place fresh and interesting. Trips to the Munich High End became an annual pilgrimage, and I got used to hearing more and more exotic kit.
My favourite Munich moments: Hearing the huge 1950s Western Electric cinema array powered by around 10 watts of hand crafted tube amp, absolutely blew us all away. Efficient speakers are still my thing. And at the other end of the scale, hearing a million dollars of Magico speakers powered by a ton of Ypsilon high end – Dead Can Dance has never sounded so good. Actually that redefined for me what ‘good hi-fi’ could be.
We also had our own show, many of you may have been to the Scalford Hall shows. This peaked when, with the help of a couple of dealers and some crazy DIY guys, we pulled together our own million pound system in the main room. Bach’s toccata and fugue blew the doors off!
In the end my day job was suffering, and it was that that paid the bills so I sold the Wigwam on and the show. I’ve been out of the game for a long while now, but it’s great to be back!
System
Turntable: Acoustic Solid with Audio Note Arm 2 and Goldring Legacy MC
Preamps: Pure Sound T10 step up and P10 phono stages
Integrated amp: Accuphase E-308 Class A
Speakers: Triangle Delta Signature
Favourite bands
Charlie Mingus, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Ezra collective, Fela Kuti, Idles, Joy Division, Kraftwerk, Led zeppelin, Little Simz, Mahler, Nirvana, Orbital, Pink Floyd, Pixies, Prodigy, Queens of the Stone age, Radiohead, Snarky Puppy, Steely Dan, Talking Heads, The Specials