The saying is ‘don’t look back, look forward’ but in this current day and age, there’s a lot of peering over the shoulder.
With 2026 just days away, we’re in that end-of-the-year period where people are looking back on the year while also casting a glance at what’s coming up. It’s like some weird whiplash, though far less severe on the neck muscles.
And in general, there is a large sense of nostalgia about modern culture at the moment. I think you could look at it from two perspectives.
Either past trends have revved back into fashion somehow; or rather than looking for something new, brands would prefer to ‘renew’ something that already exists.
There’s a lot of that going on in the hi-fi world. Going retro ties into the history of a brand, a chance to reassert and explain its identity. Sometimes it’s popular – sometimes, people don’t even know it’s a retro.
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The point of this preamble is that I went to Eindhoven earlier in the year to see Philips’ new audio products for 2025 and the new year in its Moving Sound range. As someone born in the late 80s, but is more of a 90s kid, the 80s is such a weird decade. Can you really bring back the 80s and make it work for 2026?
Resurrecting the past
Some may feel the past should stay there; after all, unless you have a time-travelling DeLorean, there’s little that can be done to change it.
Things are better now than they were in the past. Yet, people keep looking back. Sometimes it’s with clear eyes, other times with rose-tinted glasses, while some have put delusion goggles on. But the feeling of nostalgia is always there – despite all the advancements, people like to remember when times were simpler.
That seems true for hi-fi and audio.
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Everything today is streamlined and conservative in terms of taste – it is grey (or silver), black or white. Where’s the colour? Where’s the sense of fun? Where’s the desire to own products?
With Philips’ Century products, it’s the veneer of the past added on top of modern advancements and functionality. They’re not making turntables with gigantic horns or ones you have to wind up, but the convenience, versatility, and accessibility that modern products offer is wrapped up in a look of yesteryear that’s more unique than today.
But nostalgia can be a crutch. Less a resurrection than exhuming something dead and buried of its own accord.
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A mesh of the old and the new
What prompted this op-ed was the Moving Sound roster of products that are due to arrive in 2026 from Philips. Like the Sony Walkman, they’re of 80s vintage and part of the reason why the Moving Sound range is back is well, apparently the 80s is back in fashion.
But the 80s was the 80s. What relevance does it have for someone born in 2010?
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Well, the 80s seemed to have such a wild aesthetic. Dayglo colours, bouffant haircuts, parachute pants; it’s a succession of weird choices that makes the modern day look so restrained by comparison. It’s so out there, it’s almost futuristic.
And the sense of fun that can be missing from today’s products is what the Moving Sound aims to restore.
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Whether deliberate or accidental, trends seem to have veered back to when individual traits were strong and people expressed them in highly visible ways – it would seem that younger people want products that, at a glance, tell a story of who they are without having to say it.
The Moving Sound range I saw was a work in progress. If changes are made, and I hope they are, it’d be that the speakers and headphones look less like Fisher Price toys (they’re too smooth and plastic in appearance), and have some of ‘rougher’ aesthetic of the 80s. Even though Philips is embracing the 80s with the Moving Sound, I still actually prefer the look of the 80s model.
I’d like it more if they brought the 80s model back in its entirety – the shape, the look, the knobs and design details (like the look of the speakers) – rather than create a glossy ‘modern’ version. Some of the older Moving Sound products looked cool – the new models I didn’t find as compelling.
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Fear of the future?
I don’t think leaning into the past is a result of fearing what the future might be or a failure of imagining what the future could be.
However, while the Moving Sound products might be fondly remembered by some, there’s a very obvious reason why they’re being resuscitated.
But I can see what Philips is attempting to do. This isn’t like Roberts Radio where the retro aesthetic is the look. It’s a way of tying into Philips’ history – which is massive – and establishing Philips’ heritage to people who are unaware of who and what they are.
At the same time, I do think that the Moving Sound range aimed to innovate back in its day. Would or even could you say the same about the Moving Sound 2026 range?
