Car hifi
| Car hifi
|
|
|---|---|
| description | Special interest magazine |
| Area of Expertise | Car HiFi |
| language | German |
| publishing company | Weka Media Publishing GmbH (Germany) |
| First edition | 1991 |
| attitude | 2013 |
| Frequency of publication | six times a year |
| Sold edition | 4th quarter 2007: 21,034 copies |
| (IVW) | |
| Widespread edition | 4th quarter 2007: 22,114 copies |
| (IVW) | |
| Editor-in-chief | Dirk Waasen |
| Web link | www.autohifi-magazin.de |
| ISSN (print) | 1860-1618 |
Autohifi (publisher's spelling auto hifi ) was a special-interest magazine in the car hi-fi area of Weka Media Publishing GmbH . It appeared six times a year. Editor-in-chief was Dirk Waasen, who also heads the telecommunications title Connect . Waasen has tested amplifiers for car hifi for more than ten years. The managing editor was Oliver Stauch.
History and direction
Autohifi was founded in 1991 as an offshoot of the home hi-fi magazine Stereoplay and dealt with everything that has to do with hi-fi , multimedia , navigation and music in the car . The editorial team tested CD and DVD radios, car amplifiers, speakers, subwoofers, cables, etc. There are also articles about hi-fi and multimedia car installations. Reports were made about spectacular systems in dream cars (for example Ferrari F430), but also about affordable systems in normal cars (such as Renault Clio). How to pave was explained in know-how courses.
The first Autohifi edition appeared in April 1991, but the first issue was published at the end of 1990. This sample number was called “Power Sound” and relied on the combination of “Models and Devices”. But as a reader survey showed, neither the name “Power Sound” nor the visual design reached the targeted readership. The editorial team under founding editor-in-chief Karl Breh therefore opted for a more objective approach: The title was changed to “Autohifi” (subtitle: “The special from Stereoplay”) and the “woman” component was omitted.
Karl Breh described the reason for founding the magazine in the editorial of “Power Sound” as follows: “Because there are 30 million registered cars in Germany alone. ... In most of these jam candidates, car radios play. ... On what the car manufacturers make music offer is not reliable. "
The 1990s were successful for Autohifi. Initially published quarterly, the publisher increased the frequency to six issues per year in 1992. The demand for car hi-fi devices was great, not least because of the many music fans in what was then the new federal states. It was also easy to swap the factory radio for a better retrofit radio, because the car manufacturers had not yet integrated the radios into the dashboard as much as they do today. Today, the expansion of the factory radio is often almost impossible or difficult, because firstly it is highly integrated and secondly, it often controls other electronic functions of the car via bus systems .
In 2001 the publisher increased the frequency to nine issues a year - eight regular issues and one high-end special issue in large format. Since Autohifi had felt more committed to the sound and less to the volume from the start, the move towards high-end seemed to be a logical step. However, this change led to an irregular publication which some readers found difficult to remember. In 2007 they returned to the tried and tested six-frequency frequency.
In addition, the Autohifi catalog has been published once a year since 1994. This listed the vast majority of the car hi-fi devices available on the market, and named their specifications and prices. Until 2003 the catalog was an independent publication, since 2004 it has been a leaner version of the Autohifi edition 3 of each year free of charge.
In 1999 the editorial team recognized the growing importance of electronics in the car and therefore initiated the special “Auto Inside”, in which everything revolved around telematics, cell phones in cars, navigation, etc. “These electronics will fundamentally change cars and driving,” wrote the then editor-in-chief Alexander Strobel in the editorial of this issue. When the special issue appeared regularly from September 1999 onwards, however, it was no longer called “Auto Inside”, but “Auto Connect”. On the renaming Alexander Strobel: "The name proximity to the sister magazine connect, Europe's largest magazine for telecommunications, was sought in order to express the increasing importance of telecommunications electronics in the title." From 2002 the magazine was no longer published under the Directed by Autohifi , but four times a year as an offshoot of Connect and has been published every two months since the 01/2009 issue under the new name NAVIconnect .
The Autohifi was discontinued with the publication of issue 1/2013 .
Test reports
Autohifi tested car hi-fi components. These include CD radios , subwoofers (both chassis and housing subwoofer), speakers , amplifiers (mono to multi-channel), navigation systems and accessories such as cables and batteries . The measurements were carried out in the publisher's own “test factory”, a DIN-certified laboratory. In addition, there are A / B listening tests against reference devices and - for radios - receiving drives on selected routes. All tested devices are placed in a ranking, the so-called best list.
CD inserts
Every now and then the booklet appeared with a CD supplement containing music, test signals or software. Autohifi 2/2007 appeared with a CD on which test tones and a measuring program were stored. With the program and the tones, the car hi-fi fan should be able to optimally adjust his system and improve the sound.
reader
Autohifi reached 247,000 readers (AWA 2007), mainly young men who invest an above-average amount of money in their hobby and install most of the equipment themselves. The average value of their car systems is 2,500 euros (source: reader survey 2007).