Amstrad - The Mug’s Eyeful

I'd definitely recommend Alan Sugar's autobiography, called 'What you see is what you get'. it does offer a really interesting insight into his approach to business plus fascinating detail especially on his computer products. I was just too young to remember their audio stuff, but the computer products were a development of the 'all in one' concept and it really worked. Even at the time there were several really cheap and nasty audio brands (eg Crown, Alba etc) and I think most people knew that the quality wasn't going to be the same but as others have said it depends what you wanted. I do think the build quality of later products was better, the Amstrad Spectrum computers were solidly built. I have several, and unlike the Sinclair ones the keyboards still work fine. Their IBM PCs were also solid, cheap and really democratised entry into computing

Is that Alan Sugar book worth a read or is it like his products?

Apart from having an Amstrad manufactured. Sinclair +2 computer - i Also briefly had an Amstrad Studio 100 - a four track studio built into a ‘hi fi’ unit with a record deck, twin tape decks and radio, including DJ mixing. Shame it was awful at recording and playback as it had about 80 switches and dials and knobs on the front of it that made it look well impressive.

Great video! A real eye-opener to see what's inside. The fake tweeter was a bit of a shock, but nothing compared to the amount of free space in the main unit. Absolute bandits. Always makes me laugh on The Apprentice when Sugar talks about Amstrad meaning quality products. I have my own Amstrad story - does anyone remember the unit with the detachable walkman-style tape deck? My parents had that and I think I (as a small child) persuaded them to get it because the idea was just so cool. But it was a terrible piece of kit - they took it back and swapped it for an Akai that was actual mini separates, sounded lovely and lasted about 15 years of heavy use. It had touch buttons on the tape deck and I loved it.

Aha Mr Sugar is a legend for cost cutting, he even used to come on to the digital satellite forums back in the early days of BSkyB, call us all nerds thinking it was a mark of affection, and ask what we thought of Amstrad's set-top sat boxes they made for sky. These, naturally, out of the Thompson and Pace rival Sky boxes, were notoriously unreliable that anyone ordering Sky TV was advised to wait till it was known they were sending out the Pace models to avoid the Amstrad... Not sure he liked hearing that but he did ask.

At 14 my grandparents passed on their Amstrad "stacker" (by stacker, fake front to look like separates but the rear was just plyboard) after they bought something new. An absolute piece of crap, two tape decks - one of which would eject with enough force to fire the cassette at the unwary listener, a volume control that needed a pencil jammed in eventually to get stereo and a turntable that played records at whatever speed took its fancy that day. Still, my mates, equally as unaware of just how shitty Alan Sugar's "tech" was back then, thought I was cool having a 'hifi' in the bedroom. So there's that. :D

When you opened up that speaker I fell about laughing. I’m surprised there wasn’t a dead animal in there tbh.

I was looking in what I call the "Old Gits" catalogue which comes free with newspapers today. I think you will find this machine still exists, only now will also as an added extra copy your tapes to CD, but has all the features you mention. For the Princely sum of 399.00!

You also have the other Amstrad with 4 track cassettere recorder, audio mixer, radio and record player, all in one piece. Even that was not the best, mine self-disintegrated

I've never even heard of Amstrad outside of the computer line they had. It seems like Amstrad was the Sinclair ZX-81 of the British Hi-Fi market.

Not that it matters now, but I don't think that's actually a magnetic cartridge. It looks like a Tetrad ceramic cartridge, which BSR used on a lot of their turntables in the '70s and early '80s. And just like on my 1986 Sanyo stereo system, the tape selector switch only has positions for Normal and Metal -- no CrO2. Its manual indeed says it can play chrome tapes, but can't record on them. And nobody buying this kind of stereo system could afford metal tapes, so that effectively limited you to only recording on normal bias cassettes.

I recall when my brother bought the Amstrad TS55 tower and the sound quality was a real step up from the 60's radiogram that it replaced! Of course this gave him a taste for upgrading and the NAD 3050a amp, Dual turntable, Sansui twin deck, Akai tuner and Boston Acoustics speakers cemented how lo-fi the Amstrad was, not even entry level really.

Mat, I think you deserve a case of fine whisky due to dealing with all the petty vitriol. And perhaps I should drink a bit myself for the next several days. 🥃🥃

If companies had to offer a reasonable warranty on these things, they wouldn't be so eager to sell garbage.

If you open it up, just one crappy board inside

I've actually owned the Philips system shown in that ad halfway through the vid. Safe to say that Philips defo took a page from Amstrad's book with that one! It's godawful.

You could have done an 8BitGuy recreation of when he tested a cheap boombox and ran it over with his truck/streamroller!

You should end the video by throwing it into the bin or setting it on fire. I think it would be cathartic for you.

Hey, that "Belt Drive" slogan is in Motter Tektura! Famously used by, among others, Lisa Frank, and Apple! A very 80s font.

I can't wait until this video goes live. - 70% of comments will be in furious agreement - 10% will accuse Mat of being an elitist - 10% will be about Amstrad's computers The remainder will be bots or people leaving comments apropos of nothing.

This was before the days of Richer Sounds. In 1984 I saw the similar but far superior Akai F3L in Dixons for £400 which was over a months wages for me back then. A year later I saw Richer Sounds, who at that point only had two shops and specialised in end of range and catalogue returns, advertising them for £200. A 200 mile round trip to Birmingham got me one which was just as good as I hoped.

Wow, just judging by the number of comments here and on the unlisted YT video, sounds like a lot of people got bamboozled! Looks like this will be a very successful video, tho! I was very lucky to have had a father who was into hi-fi since the 50's, so in 1982 or so he took me to Silo's to get my first stereo and would have none of this multi-component crap. With my birthday money I got a Sansui tuner/amp and Harvard speakers, great sound at a reasonable price, both of which I still use today :)

The first hi-fi I purchased after starting work in 1983 was an Amstrad stack system. So many flashing lights. I was very excited to get it. It only lasted 9 days but it wasn’t Amstrad build quality that done for it. My brother didn’t realize the stylus automatically activated when a record was played. He pulled it out of its housing and broke it. Naturally he failed to mention this to me. I immediately packed it up and took it back to Dixons, demanding a full refund, which I got. About £300, not an inconsiderable sum. Only years later did my brother admit to what happened.

Very enjoyable and reminded me of my first "hifi" - the Amstrad MS-45 system which can be seen here and apparently came out in 1986 for £99: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lavalampmuseum/3591019798 I must have got it 3-4 years later as a hand-me-down from my sister who was old enough to tell that this thing was hot garbage so asked for an upgrade for Christmas - I got it aged 10 or so. At the time I didn't know much better - my only comparison was my cheapo Sanyo walkman - and I actually loved it for a good couple of years and bought my first ever vinyl albums when using it, in my case at least it certainly didn't derail my love of music and technology. It was also a useful lesson in taking things apart when it broke after a couple of years and I saw for myself how empty and cheap it was inside! Moved on to a Sony system (was kind of "fake" separates, the components were physically separate but they depended on the amp to work properly) which was a step up for sure - never looked back, currently have an Onkyo amp with a NAD CD player and Sony minidisc deck connected to it going through Gale 3020 bookshelf speakers :-)

Some of my first audio equipment included an Amstrad amplifier and Wharfdale speakers from a local jumble sale. I remember taking the amp to a local repair shop and the chap joking that he already had an electric shock from it and he hadn't even touched it. Needless to say, he didn't repair it and I didn't have it long. I went on to purchase a budget Yamaha A-07 amplifier which served me well for many years, as did the 1970's Wharfdale Denton 2 loudspeakers. Once I had replaced the blown tweeter that is. Back then (in the mid 1980s) Castle acoustics could service blown drive units and did a great job with supplying the correct refurb Wharfdale units. In great contrast to their awful audio equipment, I have some respect for Amstrad's efforts with budget computers. My Father's Amstrad PCW 9512+ served him well into the early 2000's. I also recently bought an 35 year old Amstrad "Sinclair" Spectrum+3 to relive the childhood and it works just fine.

Would we buy a re-release now? As Mat said, the turntable is better than a budget one now, and the cassette mechanism is better than anything available now. The (admittedly better) Sound Burger re-release is popular at 210% of the 80's cost, so would we buy an Amstrad re-release now at, say, £400, knowing that it's pretty crap, but better than anything low-end now?

One of the catalogues shows a Sanyo 222 system for £199. And that's what we had when I was a kid... And it's not drastically different in price compared to the Amstrad, but it was light years ahead in performance. The Sanyo was a genuine separates system! and I used the amp well into the mid-2000s. 20w RMS and it sounded great. Thank god we bought that one!! The crime of Amstrad was just how far below acceptable quality they were, and they just didn't care. If the speakers are max 8w, the amp really was a pocket radio.. could have been 5w per channel.

I remember my father getting sucked into buying a tower system. I was 11 then. The brand was "Silver". Funny how they had one on display but it wasn't plugged in.... My Dansette Conquest sounded better and that was mono.

I was so excited when the thumbnail for this video popped up. My Dad had this exact model when I was a kid (I occasionally look for one on eBay but it's always the twin deck model that pops up). He too experienced issues with the turntable from the start and those lights on the speakers never flashed! The tape deck was awful too and often chewed up cassettes. My Dad liked to record his records on to tape for use in the car and and they always played with a 'wobbly bit'. I can even recal a few songs that did it and still wait for the wobbly bit to come when I hear them played on the radio! The only saving grace was that he bought it from my Nana's catalogue and when the invoice came they had made a mistake and only charged him £19.99! Luckily I never inherited this sytem as it was still going when I got my first (a Murphy, much the same as the Amstrad but not as good looking). However, that gave faithful service for many years and never caused an issue (I actually still have it sat on a shelf next to me as I type this for nostalic reasons, and it still works). Much like many of the Amstrad systems my Dad's found its way into the garage for use as a Radio, then ended up in a skip as it took up to much space. My Dad never replaced it, and his records went up into the attic. He bought small Boombox type systems after that which is a little sad really (and exactly what you hinted at these systems being responsible for). He was really 'into' his music back then and I grew up surrounded by it. But as the early 90s came around his love affair with music had dwindled; listening to it only in the car really (and the radio whilst working in the garden). It's not a complete loss though as I was inspired to constantly strive for better sound and owned various systems during my younger years. Swapping speakers, cables, adding in extra tweeters etc, all fed my love of music and technology. The same love that exisits today. Thanks for making the video Matt. It triggered some great memories.

LOVED it! Thanks for sharing with both your heart and your brilliant technical mind, very relatable. I had a similar experience here in Sweden in 1994 as i got my first "hifi" in my teens. Almost killed of my passion with a really bad brand/copy of something "real. Don't remember the name of it but it was something generic sounding 🙂 Love you videos, please keep it up!

In the 90’s in the US, SoundDesign was the equivalent. I was into it enough to know junk, my first HiFi was Kenwood. I was young and found good value there. Mat had a video on this and he is spot on.

Really enjoyed this one, particularly ripping the thing apart so aggressively. And you are right, it's up to us to educate rather than laugh at those falling for the same traps these days.

From around the mid-point, I would trim down your talking points where you are reiterating how bad the system is and not really putting across any new information. I noticed there was a few moments like that in the second half. And I think the final message could also be tightened up a bit. Otherwise a fascinating look at a field I was not part of in the 80's... I just listened to whatever my brother bought since we shared a room and he was far more interested in music and I had no money to speak of. Thanks as always.

I didn't think I'd enjoy a video about past tech regrets as much as I am. My regrets are mostly things I didn't get. I never got a nice Walkman, for instance. This is a fun video and I'm happy I joined the Patreon.

I had a very low opinion of Alan Sugar before I saw this video, and now it's even lower. The Gerald Ratner of electronics. I'm assuming Sir Alan didn't get his knighthood for his "Hi-Fi" equipment.

I remember these junk systems. Was waiting for a your fired apprentice joke.

Wow, I thought my Sears LXI brand (I think that was the brand) from circa 1985/86 was cheap. In fact, I quite liked that little unit -- it did not have a build-in phonograph but it had a phono input and 2 or possibly 4 RCA auxiliary inputs which I did eventually use to add a separate CD player. It also had a digital display tuner (either LED or VFD) and dual cassettes with Dolby B. The only serious issue I had was any tapes recorded on that unit were at quite low volume when played on any other player, but all cassettes played on the unit sounded fine.

Even Del Boy wouldn't touch AMSTRAD

Before the fake tower system, of course, we had the "music centre" in the late 70s - record player, tuner and cassette in the horizontal form factor (possible subject for future video?). My first system was the Fidelity MC2 - inherited in 1981 from my sister-in-law when they upgraded to the Pioneer tower separates system.

It is interesting to see that all-in-one systems are of European (i.e. British) origin. Not a bad idea in itself. It makes perfect sense to consolidate components such as power supply units that are redundant in the case of separates. However, the priority here was to push manufacturing costs as low as possible, at the expense of quality. The strategy of plastering below-average devices with (RGB) LEDs to make them look high-quality and interesting has persisted to this day.

I'm suddenly curious how many people Amstrad employed - and I definitely hope their (the factory workers) payroll didn't mirror the cheap corporate bottom line.

Actually, I was quite impressed; yes cheap rubbish compared to a true separates system, but discrete radio & amplifier pcbs, tape-deck electronics on-board, socketed interconnect cables (wow!!) and wiring all neatly cable-tied in place - later units had one large pcb (usually flat on the base), wires that were too short criss-crossing everywhere, everything soldered with not a plug/socket in sight. What I think you should is dump the record deck and build the front pane into a kind of "picture-frame stereo" prhaps 4 inches deep - just enough to acommodate the pcbs, with speaker, phono and (assuming you can find an insert point) auxiliary input.. Upcycling a piece of embarrassing British history..

This video is unintentionally hilarious. I'd heard about Amstrad's legendary "hi-fi" build quality but I've never seen it. We never got Amstrad's music systems in Australia (at least not under the Amstrad brand name), but we did get their computers. Their IBM-compatibles ended up with the same reputation over here that their audio stuff ended up with in the UK (though the CPCs and PCWs were surprisingly well made tbh).

I knew it would be bad, but that is absolutely crazy. The speakers!!!!! Just such a bare faced awful product....

What a great video! I never heard of this unit (or even really this company, just some mentions over the years regarding their computers). Made sure to leave a comment too since Youtube likes that stuff.

Oh, Boy! Did this bring back memories. It absolutely mirrors my experiences. Buying a “rig” that had a record player, two tape decks, CD, etc., combined with all the flashy lights and questionable attempts at an equalizer, you learn quickly that buying one good component is far better than trying to get them all under one “roof.” Fast forward 20 years, and I begged my parents not to buy a similar phono-tape-radio, etc., device, because I told them that, the more stuff you get in one, the cheaper everything is. But, they enjoyed it, and that’s all that really mattered. Wonderful video, Mat! Thank you so much for this.

We didn’t even have the money for an Amstrad. I’m glad we missed out on the whole craze. Goodness me! What an awful man. He really thought the public were mugs. I never liked his later Trump-style programme for mostly unknown reasons - I thought it was “only” because of his awful bullying manner. By the time I’d grown up and bought my own HiFi, I’m glad to say Amstrad was no longer around (though still making the majority of Sky satellite and Virgin cable boxes, apparently). I also agree that we never had a stellar manufacturing reputation. We did - and do - made good things, but there were far too many manufacturers trying to put one over on the customer. I’m surprised that Sugar was the originator of the “treat your customers like mugs” system. I apologise to the whole world for the sins of my country. hope things go better for you, Sir. 🫡✌️🙏

I enjoyed watching this video, I’ve also enjoyed reading all the comments on the patreon post which I would never do on YouTube. Also, as a fan of small cars looking forward to hear about your new wheels! I drive a Twingo which is a bit bigger but they don’t sell those over here because demand for small cars is so low in this country.

I couldn't help, but notice that the Mono/Stereo button says "MonSter" :P Finally some truth in advertising

Cool video. Made me go thru an old german "Quelle" catalogue to compare what was sold in Germany at the time. Very similar, Amstrad stuff was often relabeled Schneider over here and Quelle had their own cheapo brand called Universum. Getting a decent boombox would have been the smart move for most young people of the time, but young and dumb are two phrases that pair very well ;) What was shocking to me: How little info was there in these catalogues. You basically bought these thing one main features and looks. Less than 15 Words description for a 2500 DM Hifi.

Now that I am watching the video, I am seeing a lot of stuff that would make me buy it too. The record player that goes inside and isn't at the top is a killer feature. Me at 14 or so, with my first job, I wanted a shit stereo just like this. Detachable speakers, lots of buttons and lights, and I wanted a dual cassette deck. There was an RCA Mini system available for a hundred bucks (!) in a store nearby. Me and my dad went to the store to go look at it. Luckily, the salesman convinced my dad to convince me to buy an Aiwa boombox style CD/Cassette combo, based primarily on the digital tuner, speaker quality, and higher quality tape deck. Now if my dad hadn't been into tech at some level as well, we would have been unlucky and I would have had a shit system that looked cool as hell. So my dad, decades before your video, pre emptively took your advice. He floated me the extra $69 for the Aiwa. Thanks dad. Of course the Aiwa may have been shit too. I was a kid! Who knows? But it sounded good to me.

Accrington Stanley - "Who are they?". Pure off the cuff genius

There's a video of Alan being interviewed back in 1985 about his Wordprocessor computer and I think his attitude during that interview is rather telling. He made some absolute rubbish. Imagine building a car and making it look like it had 5 doors but really only one actually opens...and its the rear passenger door.

Gotta love online sellers who don't know what packing material is. No, the post doesn't treat your packages with kid gloves.

The horror! Brings back memories.

Hey, I don't think the DJI mic testing is _necessarily_ the kind of thing your subscribers might like, but I might be interested to see what you think. When I was running grocery stores (months ago, I've since taken time off to care for my mom) our video guy shot with a Canon cinema cam, I think an old C300, which took, I shit you not, two 128gb Compact flash cards. Very weird setup, limited to 1080p, but absolutely amazing video. Anyway, he had just bought those DJI wireless microphone things and was showing them to me as I'm the only one of the regional manager guys who is in to cameras. He had two mics and a receiver which could record them to separate channels or down mix them, and we got audio from across the flipping store man, covered in wireless access points. Must have been 200 yards. Sounded great. They are relatively cheap too. I AM interested in a flexible and super easy mic setup so I can record decent video on my Olympus E-M1.3. I have a rode shotgun mic and it's okay and definitely easy, but it's not that good.

Since I consider you a "Young Whippersnapper," I really appreciate this video. In the mid 1980s I was in management with Sears, Roebuck & Co. as a Catalog Store Manager. I personally saw the evolution of the rack systems, going from individual component systems that were bundled with a matching storage rack furniture to the all-in-one system that was... rubbish. I didn't realize that its origin could be traced back to an actual individual. I knew nothing about Alan Sugar until you featured him. I didn't know he was the British Donald Trump in the UK's Apprentice. I can attest that it did much to destroy the Hi-Fi market. Thanks for the insight. I'm glad at least it made Sir Alan wealthy.

A load of "toot" as Alan Sugar would say.

bottom line it's a turd with Sugar coating. pun intended

My very first "Hi-Fi" amplifier was a Amstrad 8000 Mk 3 in the late 70s that my Dad got me for Christmas. I had a really nice Technics belt drive turntable and Sony speakers but the Amstrad was the real let down in my system. Possibly the worst amplifier ever made pretending to be Hi-Fi.

Very good, Mat, with a positive slant at the end. The first time I heard really high fidelity was on a mate's parent's new Murphy radiogram. I sat entranced. After that, I wanted to hear anything I bought working before I handed over my money. Glad to say I never fell for this but ended up buying separates, sometimes second-hand but pretty good stuff. Tell your Mum and Dad-in-law that your YouTube watchers send their best wishes. :-)

A fitting end for this video would have been you chucking the whole thing in the bin like Ron Swanson. 😀

Rumble and Scratch. Sounds like either a comedy team or one of the fake production company names that Ben of Oddity Archive puts in his end credit sequences.

Watching this reminds me of this fantastic Smith & Jones sketch from the same era. https://youtu.be/UvU6m5EVJcc

Is there any modern, smartphone equivalent to this Amstrad practice of making cheap and nasty electronics devices? Is anyone making smartphones these days that are nothing more than tarted-up cheap plastic such that if you were to open one up as Mat has shown here with the Amstrad stereo, you'd find that inside it was mostly empty space?😁 I'm sure there are exceptions, but it's interesting how the audio market has gone from what was basically a binary choice of either expensive gear or cheap junk to some sort of middle ground where most people have a smartphone in which the audio quality is neither great, nor awful and it's cost is neither out of reach, nor super cheap.

I had this … can you believe my dad replaced his beautiful technics with this pile of devils wotsits

Was this even stereo? The single "left" and "right" output lines imply it is just mono with 2 speakers.

I forgot my dad had a Waltham stereo (I think) which had Dolby and he showed it off with the Dolby demo tape 😁

Enjoying this 😁, I had an Alba which was crap, a hi-go with the door and now a mini system with a md player/recorder 😎

This looked immediately familiar, as I had the same unit made in Australia by Thorn, under the AWA brand. Had a different looking turntable. I remember the painfully slow opening draw! That said, it never broke despite my impatient pulling on it to speed it up. It was given to me in the late 90s as a family friend was getting rid of it. As a kid about 10 and it being free, I was happy enough. I would say the rumble filter I did occasionally use, but I seem to recall was rather aggressive. The scratch filter was a waste of time though.

You're a good man. I love this ultimate destruction video demonstration, 'Kill The Crap.' Am I invited to bonfire night? Anything else slated for the BBQ? I'll BMOB. Seriously, my adopted mom had a similar s***ty 'stereo system' here in the US, and long after I moved out and she had trashed it, she said, "Why didn't I save that for you because you're into this stuff?" and I was like, no, that's all right..😛.

I really enjoyed this episode- I would not cut out a thing. I liked the way this show flowed. I'm 58, and was really fortunate my father had a proper system (Sansui Quad/Technics Turntable/Pioneer Tape Deck/JBL Speakers), while my friends (and my sister) had crappy all-in-one mini towers. I ended saving $1000 for component Sony mini system for my room and $700 for a Kenwood KRC-999ii for my car (74 911 Porsche)- both I regret selling. BTW, my first car was a 74 MG Midget which I loved driving in the rain just to see 3 wiper blades in action. But now I'm really getting off subject! Thank you for this very educational video.

You can find the full patent application here: https://patents.google.com/patent/GB2125606A/en and the PDF of the application is here: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/9b/23/a9/b0ab4455c9445c/GB2125606A.pdf

It's a real pity that in the 80s and such there wasn't a tv program that might have shown hi-fi component teardowns like this. Seeing the chipboard alone would have turned me off.

"Accrington Stanley" who are they? Brilliant, you've got to keep that in :-)

I repaired loads of these but they were no where near as bad as the Amstrad TVs, fire hazards on legs. Amstrad were not the only one's to dress up cheap innards with more pricy looking outsides. I took in a prized B&O video recorder which when the shiny outer case parts were removed, revealed a cheapo Hitachi mechanism inside. BTW, Made in England should have read ASSEMBLED. The electronics in these Amstrads were made in Taiwan and shipped to England for assembly.

I never encountered Amstrad gear in Canada until I bought the only portable computer I could afford as a grad student, the bizarre PPC512. Sugar's drive to reduce component costs and duplication would have been laudable had he known when to stop. Paying for a separate power supply in each of a stack of components that will aways be linked together is a waste, but cheaping out on every component so that the mechanism brakes almost immediately is just greed. Oh, and of course the flimsy plastic tab that held the *terrible* PPC512 display on my Amstrad broke almost as soon as I got it. Very on-brand.

Ouch, that teardown. I knew it'd be shonky but the mains in going straight to the main board and ending in what looks like a PSU that's completely unscreened from the audio bits is quite the thing.And then to insult to injury, do I see that the record player is connected to it by a single Molex plug that puts both 240V AC and phono output levels in the same bundle of unscreened wires? It's remarkable to see a design which has been put together with absolutely no concern for sound quality at all.

One thing I do appreciate about living in the 21st century is that creaky plastic is more or less a thing of the past and build quality is something consumers value. In the past a German wanting to buy a colour TV would save up, do their homework, and probably ended up buying the highest spec, best reviewed model they could find even if it cost substantially more than the cheapo versions. That Blaupunkt in the corner was an investment to them, and they'd expect it to keep working for a decade or more in return with the occasional visit from a white-coated repairman. As credit was very much not a thing for purchasing consumer goods people saw this as a common sense move, hedging against the risk of having to save up again for another new TV in a few years once the no-name cheap unit conked out. UK consumers were far more given to the "replace with shiny new technology!" selling point, especially once hire purchase or "Easy financing at 0% APR! (footnote: 0% for first month only, after that 23.8%)" became so accessible. In other words, the UK was the perfect market for shysters like Sugar to operate in.

Alan Sugar is quite the character. I first came across him in the ZX Spectrum mags when he bought that range of computers from Clive Sinclair. We bought a Spectrum +2 to replace our old 48k machine. It's main feature was an integrated tape recorder. As I recall, that failed in under 2 years. And as it was integrated, there was really no way to repair it. Sugar is also infamous for helping Sky win th TV rights to the English Premier League, At the time, he was chairman of Tottenham Hotspur FC and could see the bids broadcasters made for said live TV rights. He saw ITV had made the highest bid, so he rang up Sky and told them to "blow [ITV] out of the water" with a massive offer. Why? Well - who had the contract for manufacturing Sky satellite receivers? Why, Amstrad, of course. Shady times.

Back over here in Sweden we didn't get these "Armstrad" or really bad HiFi systems, yes we had combo systems from Korea or Japan, but the serious dealers made hand-picked systems for sale, like really good amps, locally produced speakers and like Lenco or Philips Turntables. Not much more expensive than the Armstrad crapola you just showed. Bought my first stereo this way back in 1976 and after that I upgraded each component as they were separates and got Marantz, Sony, Kenwood and later on High-End systems... I made several trips to London in the late 70's and all of the 80's and was surprised that there was very few HiFi stores there! Except those on Tottenham Court road. Over here we had LOTS of HiFi stores. Well, not now.... :)

It’s a long time since I’ve seen one of those that wasn’t in a recycling skip. Back in the day I was occasionally asked to try and fix the odd one, but after the first time I refused. Utter junk, like his computers. Funny how he’s now presented as a great businessman.

Monty Python presents: ARMSTRAD LO-FI! Great video, horrible "HiFi" :)

Great video as ever. There’s always a place for reopening old wounds or debunking misplaced nostalgia ;) I remember these well but we had a different Amstrad system, a replacement for a faulty but possibly less horrible Alba music centre. It had an awful cassette mechanism with nasty wowing and leakage (if that’s the term) between sides. If the speakers were too close to the turntable there would be horrendous feedback through the stylus. If you looked down through the gaps in the turntable you could see that the ‘tower’ was mostly empty and I remember a salesman in Curry’s mentioning that he knew someone who’d removed the front of such a system and built it into a wall. I’m not sure that all owners were completely conned by these. Many buyers would have had lowish expectations but couldn’t afford or justify the cost of something better. Although the book extract in the video is pretty damning, I wonder how many at the time would have thought to blame Amstrad as the instigator of a race for the bottom; I knew it as one of a number of cheapo brands. Curry’s had an own brand called Triumph. Fidelity and Alba also spring to mind, while Matsui (Curry’s) and Saisho (Dixon’s) came later. Here’s another approach to (later) crap hifi that you may enjoy: https://youtu.be/Nv6fAemtnPc

Very enjoyable. Amstrad really was utter garbage but people bought it as it was cheap. The same reason why they bought Saisho/ Matsui/ ProLine too. It's a perennial problem with the masses: they don't understand the old adage "You get what you pay for" or they think that anything that costs more than tuppence ha'penny is "snake oil" and a rip-off. I see things on YouTube where people try to steer others away from garbage and they are attacked as being an "audiophool" and the classic strawmanesque "....not everyone has $100k to spend on a HiFi" as if anyone would suggest you did need to spend such an amount of money. At the end of the day, sadly there will always be people that want/ expect something for little to nothing, so there will always be a market for this tragic crap destined to be landfill in short order. As you said, back in the day you didn't have access to the information/ wisdom as now. Today there really is no excuse but people are just stupid and clueless.

My sister got one of these - or one very much like the Amstrad - when we were teens and I for one learned a lot from that experience. Surely that Michael Jackson LP was not so bad as it sounded on those boxy speakers! Even on the TV it was better. And so I spent my hard earned money on a Luxman amp and cassette deck. And one of the first Philips CD players. The only thing my setup didn’t have was a glass door. I had an Amstrad computer myself and I enjoyed it for a couple of years. That thing wasn’t half bad for its price tag. Thanks, Mat. You bring back those sweet memories. Very nice video. A bit repetitious at the very end, but so true. Cheers.

Exactly!

I would have a hard time to decide what to cut out of this video. Maybe cut down your rant in the middle. But there was not one bit where I thought "ok, these 10-20 seconds would be worth skipping". Well done!

A few years later there were similar HiFi Systems which actually were a lot less bad than this one. In Germany we had "Schneider", they did the same with one big box pretending to be several, but they delivered decent sounding heavy speakers. The record player actually worked good and the tapes had real Dolby NR and also worked OK. Even knowing that this was a budget product we were happy with it.

Sugar is still at it today, passing on his “business genius“ to the clowns on The Apprentice. What a shyster.

I worked in the computer department of a department store as a teen. Thank God we were all paid hourly (no commission sales, no bonuses). I was free to tell shoppers that the two Amstrads that blighted our shelves were far less valuable to humanity than the amount of breathable air that they displaced.

AMSTRAD Hifi's are kind of like mullets. Business at the front, painful embarrassing memories at the back.

My parents had an Amstrad VCR (a 4600 apparently) that lasted for a good ten years. I don't quite remember it arriving, but I do remember watching Postman Pat and Pob on it in 1986 or so, and I'm pretty sure it left in 1997. It was only years later I found out how crap Amstrad apparently was. It was confusing to program, the remote was tiny and awful and the picture wasn't the best, but it worked, and kept us entertained for over a decade. I suspect that many Amstrad products ended up "just about working" for "just enough time". As you mentioned about the tape mech in your unit, it's probably better than anything available today anyway. (Apologies for the verbal diahorrea the last couple of days - going through some personal stuff at the moment and watching lots of videos to help my brain)

My first stereo system was one of these crap Amstrad things. Luckily I soon got a Technics hand-me-down from my older brother, but the year or so with the Amstrad nearly put me off music. Great to see you on Big Car, you mentioned that channel recently so I had subscribed, great videos. And I reckon you're getting an Abarth 595 or maybe a Hyundai i10 N-Line.

I remember myself and a friend back in the early 80s looking through the Kays Catalogue and seeing all the Amstrad Hi-Fi's for so much per week and dreaming of owning such a thing but couldn't afford it, probably a good job as it would just have been a disappointment! Those catalogues taught me a good lesson that there was no such thing as free credit! The stuff in those catalogues was always much higher than you would find the same thing in a shop for. Good luck with the medical trial and getting on it Mat.

The DJI mics very quickly made the Rode ones look old, crap and pointless. The fact they record internally as well has led to some really interesting use cases and their use outside video, which I also think is quite intriguing given Rode’s history.

Glad you're back, even with fewer videos. Just curious, is your plan to go Public with this on YT on 1st Feb? I think you said Jan is a bad month for ads. Does the revenue go up on 1st Feb, or later? Might as well maximise income, being so close.

He really did make a lot of crap lol

Usually the mug’s eyesore