On 9th April 1988, 17-year-old Alan Shearer became the youngest footballer ever to score a hat-trick in the English top flight, knocking three past Arsenal during his first full start for Southampton. It was the beginning of a record goalscoring career and, first and foremost, a dream debut. Not every debut can be heralded as such an enormous success in the moment, but the beauty of hindsight certainly can cement them into the history books – as it has done with the products you’ll see below.
We previously picked out iconic hi-fi debuts in the loudspeaker, amplifier and turntable fields, and enjoyed the task so much that we challenged ourselves to curate a definitive 'Best Of' list across categories – the aforementioned three, plus CD players and DACs, to be more precise. And while we tried to curate a succinct list, after much deliberation we couldn’t get it down below 32 without compromising a good night’s sleep. (Trust us, we – especially the author of this piece – tried.)
