Hello and welcome to the first Hi Fi Racks Blog!
We thought we would start our blog off by writing a little bit about why we do what we do. We’re now 12 years into our journey, and it really has been a true privilege to be part of an industry that has so many fantastic people in it, from the brilliant customers who have helped to support, develop and grow our business, to the retailers and dealers who have advocated our brand so heavily.
The reason we began this journey was the same reason that many people start their own business - to solve a problem! We could not find a rack that met our requirements: sized to fit in a particular place in our home, aesthetically pleasing and most importantly of the best audiophile quality possible with no compromises. After initial research and development, we realised that solid hardwood was an ideal material to manufacture the rack from.
Hardwood has very low resonance (we’ll report on the benefits of wood at a later date), and when your equipment is placed on wood it allows it to perform at its best, which we like to call “giving your music a stage”. Like a classic saying, nothing added nothing taken away, just the optimum performance from the hi-fi equipment!
So, after our initial prototype and several long months of perfecting its design, we manufactured and finished all the hardwood racks by hand. This allowed us to make the racks to our exact requirements and to achieve the best possible finished product - a criteria which is still true today. Most of our range can be made to any height, width, depth, to meet your exact requirements. We also don’t charge a premium for it. Each rack is priced to the millimetre, meaning we don’t charge any more for it being a bespoke one-off piece of furniture, just the square area of wood used.
Customisation runs through the DNA of our company, from those early days to today. We make every rack in rotation and still by hand with the addition of some specialised machinery to get that perfect finish. We still manufacture this way as we know one customer’s requirement is different to everyone else’s, and by building the racks this way we can meet the customer’s exact needs, every single time.
Obviously, the above was only our opinion in and we didn’t know what the market would be like. Very quickly, we were approached by people asking us if we could make racks to this size or out of that wood, and if we could deliver to this country or that (there really aren’t many countries that we haven’t shipped a product to), and of course this was what we did.
Then one day, a well-known hifi retail outlet approached us and explained that they had a customer requiring a rack, and listed out his specific requirements. And very soon, more shops came on board.
Next, the press heard about what we were doing and wanted to review the products - at first a bit sceptical as we were only a very small business and did not advertise with them. But we were confident in our products, so sent them out promptly for review. One evening we were relaxing with a takeaway (we are sure other business owners can relate!) and the phone buzzed. A text from a customer. We could not believe what we were reading… We were on the cover of Hi Fi Choice! With a five-star review, nonetheless.
The following morning we rushed down to the newsagents and purchased a copy like children buying their favourite magazine! All the other magazines followed suit, and at the end of the year we had won product of the year from Hi Fi Choice, What Hi Fi? and more.
From this point on, the company grew day-by-day and year-by-year like we could never have imagined. 12 years later, the company still continues to grow as we continue to develop the company and the product range for the ever-changing worldwide market. We will obviously keep you all updated about our future products and plans.
Thank you for taking the time to read our very first blog, and we hope you love the look, feel and functionality of our new website.
Best regards,
Bradley & Julie and the whole Hi Fi Racks team
