So much good Hi Fi has come out of Britain. Much of the Hi Fi that we know and love has actually been produced by that crop of young UK post WWII baby boomers that diverted from their predestined careers in science and industry and decided to venture into this business of music reproduction.

So often when I am discussing a potential acquisition of Hi Fi with someone instore and I am suggesting they might look at something better than their stated level of interest they come back with this as a rejoinder. I can nearly always show them the difference in ten seconds or less

The Sonos CR100 will soon be no more.

Today it look like an anachronism, but it was a game changer of a product. Although borrowing heavily from the then contemporary iPod, it revolutionised the way we could engage with our still nascent digital music collections. In conjunction with the rest of the Sonos system, at that time either a box that plugged into your stereo or an amplified module you connected speakers to, it helped forge a path for multi-room music. At that point in time multi-room music generally involved a multi-disc CD player and a zone amplifier. Originally confined to your music, Sonos embraced streaming solutions, then wireless speakers and is now a name synonymous with the entire category.

And so this was Christmas … Whenever I hear that iconic John Lennon track I am immediately transported into a cold bedsit in a Manchester suburb in 1972 where my sister and I were placed for Christmas a comfortable distance away from our new step family.

I come from that bygone Hi Fi retailing scene in the UK where people would walk into our tiny upstairs single room store in Cambridge and be played one of six pairs of speakers hooked up to a comparator through an NAD 3020 amplifier.