Audio Erotica: Hi-Fi brochures 1950s-1980s

Audio Erotica is a perfectly pitched visual anthem to home audio entertainment. Using sales brochures from the 1950-1980s, a symphony of graphic nostalgia tracks the technological progress of our listening pleasure.

Remember roller-skating wearing your first Walkman? Or relaxing to easy-listening in your pure white Philips lounge? Or playing chess on your JVC tabletop radio? All these scenarios can be found in the geeky and rarefied world of the vintage hi-fi brochure, where graphic design and acoustic apparatus make magical music together.

From austere post-war Britain to poppy pre-millennium Japan, Audio Erotica presents a nostalgic nirvana of the strangest and most significant period hi-fi brochures. Alphabetically listed, from Aiwa to Zenith, with Braun, JVC Nivico, Nakamichi, Sony and everything in between, this book will resonate with any music fan.

Setting the tempo are the pipe-smoking, high-end separates (amplifiers, speakers, turntables) of the 1950s, followed by the swinging Dansette record players of the 1960s, the prog-brushed-metal music centres of the 1970s, and the sleek capitalist cabinet stack systems of the 1980s – not forgetting the aerobic stereo sound portability facilitated by the boom-box, and that final high-fidelity, hardware hurrah: the compact disc. All accompanied by questionable fashion decisions and acres of shag-pile carpet.

The evocative brochures in Audio Erotica track the technological development of audio equipment before the digital download, while simultaneously revealing the way hi-fi was marketed to the listening public. With knobs on.

Contributor: Damon Murray (Edited by), Stephen Sorrell (Edited by), FUEL (Edited by)

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