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Welcome to the September 2026 issue!
Remember The Incredibles, the animated movie about a family with superpowers? At one point Mr. Incredible is overwhelmed by a fanboy whose hero-worship he has rejected in the past. Spurned, the boy invents weapons that mimic his hero’s superpowers so that: “when everyone’s super, no one will be”.

I used to use this example to explain the effect the internet was about to have on critics, the sheer ubiquity of ‘citizen journalism’ rendering the traditional ‘expert’ redundant. I was wrong. What I hadn’t foreseen was big business muscling in and inventing the ‘influencer’ – the fake ‘citizen’ paid to enthusiastically promote products.

There’s an expose of how this process has begun to pollute the music industry on p76. It’s increasingly tough to know whose opinion you can trust these days and that’s where we come in. Now more than ever, one needs to believe in creditable sources and they don’t come much more reliable than HFC.

This is our 544th issue so, assuming an average review count of 10 per issue, our reviewers have rated nearly 5,500 pieces of kit since our first publication in 1975. Surely that’s reliable expertise if ever there was any, untainted by outside influence or financial inducement to boot.

Glad to be of service!