The HiFi Hobbyist Podcast

Samsung and its role as a major player in the Hi-Fi market

The HiFi Hobbyist Podcast

Show Notes

In recent years, Samsung has emerged as a major player in the global hi-fi marketplace. This podcast seeks to understand how and why this has happened and what the implications are for Hi-Fi hobbyists. The Hi-Fi Hobbyist has a personal interest here, Mark Levinson, the manufacturer of my amplifier, is one of the brands acquired by Samsung. In this first episode, we shall consider the history of Samsung from a local company in Korea to major electronics conglomerate. After this we will consider in more detail their acquisition of Hi-Fi brands. In next weeks’ episode, we will consider what this means for both Samsung and for Hi-Fi Hobbyists now and in the future The music that accompanies this podcast is from the 24 Caprices for Solo Violin written by Niccolò Paganini between 1802 and 1817. The recordings were recorded, produced and published by Gregor Quendel, and distributed by classics.de. They are included here under a Creative Commons - Attribution-Non-commercial 4.0 International licence We hope that you enjoy the podcast. If you do, please come back for next week’s episode, or go back and listen to previous podcast episodes. To avoid missing any episodes, please follow us wherever you listen to your podcasts.

More from The HiFi Hobbyist Podcast

Oct 23, 2026

Welcome to The final episode in our mini-series about the production of vinyl records and other physical media music formats. It has been inspired by attending a talk by Miles Showell, a renowned audio engineer who reminded me that my Hi-Fi only sounds as good as the material as I play on it. In this mini-series in the first episode, we considered how vinyl records are produced from the recording session to the production of the final record that we can play on our turntables. The following episode focused on specific aspects of production notably mastering of the recording in preparation for final production. The third episode focused on the work of two of the great audio engineers associated with the mastering process, Steven Wilson and Miles Showell. In this final episode, in order to conclude the series, we will generate a discussion comparing the work of these two artisans. In recognition of Miles’ work on Finlandia, the music accompanying this episode is a recording of this suite that he didn’t work on, downloaded from the Internet Archive by the London Proms Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Charles Mackerras originally released on London Records – STS 15159, together with Two Melodies, Op. 63, No. 2 from the same recording. We hope that you enjoy the discussion, and if this is your first visit to the Hi-Fi Hobbyist podcast, that you will explore previous episodes. To ensure that you don't miss any episodes in the future, please follow our podcast wherever you listen to them.

Oct 16, 2026

Welcome to the third episode in this mini-series about the production of vinyl records and other physical media music formats. It has been inspired by attending a talk by Miles Showell, a renowned audio engineer which reminded me that my Hi-Fi only sounds as good as the material as I play on it. In this episode, we will compare Miles’s work to that of another great audio engineer, Steve Wilson. If you haven’t listened to last week’s episode, I do recommend that you go back and listen to that first, as we will revisit some of the topics discussed last week, this time with practical examples. In next week’s episode, we will generate a discussion comparing the work of these two artisans. The music accompanying this episode features extracts from the Planets Suite by Gustav Holst. Our audio extracts are provided by Musopen.org and played by the USAF Band and the Skidmore College Orchestra. These recordings are in the public domain.

Oct 9, 2026

Welcome to the second episode in this mini-series about the production of vinyl records and other physical media music formats. It has been inspired by attending a talk by Miles Showell, a renowned audio engineer which reminded me that my Hi-Fi only Sounds as good as the material as I play on it. In this episode, we will focus on specific aspects of production notably mastering of the recording in preparation for final production. If you haven’t listened to last week’s episode, I do recommend that you go back and listen, but you can listen to this one first, if you like! In next week’s episode, we will focus on the work of two of the great audio engineers associated with the mastering process, Steve Wilson and Miles Showell. After this, to conclude the series, we will generate a discussion comparing the work of these two artisans. The music accompanying this episode has been generated by the Hi-Fi Hobbyist with the help of Mureka AI software. We revisit some of the brass band music, which has proved most popular on our partner Pixabay site, under the tag mediahobbyist We hope that you enjoy this mini-series and if this is your first visit to the Hi-Fi Hobbyist podcast that you will explore previous episodes. To ensure that you don't miss any episodes in the future please follow our podcast wherever you listen to them.

Oct 2, 2026

Welcome to this mini-series about the production of vinyl records and other physical media music formats. It has been inspired by attending a talk by Miles Showell, a renowned audio engineer who reminded me that my Hi-Fi only sounds as good as the material as I play on it. In this mini-series in the first episode, we will consider how vinyl records are produced from the recording session to the production of the final record that we can play on our turntables. The following episode will then focus on specific aspects of production notably mastering of the recording in preparation for final production. The third episode we will focus on the work of two of the great audio engineers associated with the mastering process, Steve Wilson and Miles Showell. To conclude the series, we will generate a discussion comparing the work of these two artisans. The music accompanying this first episode has been generated by the Hi-Fi Hobbyist with the help of Mureka AI software. It features a couple of musical sweets in a baroque style played by a trio of violin, flute, and harpsichord. We hope that you enjoy these episodes and if this is your first visit to the Hi-Fi Hobbyist podcast that you will explore previous episodes. To ensure that you don't miss any episodes in the future please follow our podcast wherever you listen to them. In the first part of this episode, we will consider the role of the master tape in the recording process.

Sep 25, 2026

In recent years, Samsung has emerged as a major player in the global hi-fi marketplace. This episode is the third in a series of podcasts that seek to understand how and why this has happened and what the implications are for Hi-Fi hobbyists. The Hi-Fi Hobbyist has a personal interest here, Mark Levinson, the manufacturer of my amplifier, is one of the brands acquired by Samsung. In the first episode of the series, we considered the history of Samsung from a local company in Korea to major electronics conglomerate and their acquisition of Hi-Fi brands. After this, we considered what this means for both Samsung and for Hi-Fi Hobbyists now and in the future. This third episode is a generated discussion about the implications for their Hi-Fi brands, and their Hi-Fi hobbyist customers. The music that accompanies this podcast is more from the 24 Caprices for Solo Violin written by Niccolò Paganini between 1802 and 1817. The recordings were recorded, produced and published by Gregor Quendel, and distributed by classics.de. They are included here under a Creative Commons - Attribution-Non-commercial 4.0 International licence We hope that you enjoy the podcast. If you do, and this is your first episode, please go back and listen to previous podcast episodes. To avoid missing any episodes in the future, please follow us wherever you listen to your podcasts.

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