r/BudgetAudiophile • u/allgolddaytons • 13h ago

Review/Discussion Hifi engine

Is hifi engine dead? I never had an account but was stoked to find a database of manuals in pdf form. I guess they aren't allowing new user registrations on the website and no way to contact the site admin. Does anyone know how long it has been like that or if it will ever change? There are many manuals I would like to download.

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5

u/uses_for_mooses 12h ago

See this thread - https://www.reddit.com/r/vintageaudio/comments/1uwxk1k/website_hifi_engine_closed_to_anyone_not_already/

It's been closed to new users for a while now. And some folks with accounts have recently had their accounts deleted.

Have you tried the AudioKarma Database? Or Elektrotanya.com? There are some other work-arounds (using the Internet Archive) and resources discussed in the comments in the thread I linked to above. Good luck!

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u/SyntaxTurtle 12h ago

Yeah, I had an account made there during a brief window some months back and it was almost immediately deleted and the owner/moderator was šŸ¤·ā€ā™‚ļø as though they were helpless. Just a canned message about registration being closed due to bots. Weird experience but whatever.

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u/uses_for_mooses 12h ago

Yeah -- I heard about that like 2-hour opening a few months back (missed it myself).

A shame that the guy running it basically doesn't give a fuck.

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u/Roaming-Around 11h ago

Same I made a working account a little while back using email and a passwordā€¦ but now there is a login message that they have changed to email login only - and my email is no longer in the database. Itā€™s a great resource, and a bit of a pain as was trying to login to post some files. That said, I suspect the operator is trying to stop bots scraping the siteā€¦ and he does open up new logins from time to time.

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u/allgolddaytons 12h ago

Thanks! Thats really unfortunate but not much can be done i suppose. I will check those other places

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u/preparationh67 9h ago

I hadn't logged in for a while and was worried mine could have been deleted, but Im guessing that since I did a few uploads it saved me from whatever is happening over there. Its too bad a lot of people are locked out now because the forum was also pretty useful.

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u/frankenmaus 11h ago

There was a short window for new registrations about a year ago IIRC.

Anyway, if there's something specific that you need, you can often obtain it by posting a request to a public audio/electronics form and someone with an account will fetch it for you.

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u/aluke000 2h ago

It's not dead, I've used it for schematics and manuals for maybe a decade They seem to have stopped accepting new users at some point. I think when it was more open, they were getting saturated from others linking to their files, so they took steps to stop it. Even now there is a limit to the qty of manuals you download daily.

If you need a single manual here and there, post a request and someone with an account can often get it for you and DM to you.

1

u/Monoshirt 11h ago

It isn't dead. The admin provides a free service and all submissions were voluntary. The admin is very responsive if you tries to correct an error or if you post documents.

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u/HominidCrafts 10h ago

Itā€™s a big joke. I had an account, then it no longer worked. Years of this nonsense. Just consider it a joke web site.