2. speakers
  3. 159485-102681

High Performance Audio - The End?

Steve Guttenberg recently posted on his audiophiliac channel what might be an iconoclastic video.

Steve attempts to crystallise the somewhat nebulous feeling that climbing the ladder to the high-end might be a counter productive endeavour. 

This will be seen in many high- end quarters as heretical talk, possibly even blasphemous.
Steve might even risk bring excommunicated. However, there can be no denying that the vast quantity of popular music that we listen to is not particularly well recorded.

Steve's point, and it's one I've seen mentioned many times previously at shows and demos, is that better more revealing systems will often only serve to make most recordings sound worse. 

There is no doubt that this does happen, but the exact point will depend upon the listeners preference. Let's say for example that it might happen a lot earlier for fans of punk, rap, techno and pop.

Does this call into question almost everything we are trying to ultimately attain?

Could this be audio's equivalent of Martin Luther's 1517 posting of The Ninety-Five theses at Wittenberg?

-----

Can your Audio System be too Transparent?

Steve Guttenberg 19.08.20

https://youtu.be/6-V5Z6vHEbA

cd318

Showing 1 response by barryaudiophile

barryaudiophile
57 posts
 
Perchance the point of it all is lost on many.  

This is a hobby centered around an art form.  A form of personal entertainment and inspiration, not just the musical product of the hobby, but the mechanics and theories too.  It engages the mind on many levels - the intellectual, the emotional, sensual, spiritual and physical planes.  It is a soulful experience intended to produce FUN, not vanquish, not competition, not judgement.  Takes anything too seriously and it becomes an odious obsession distorting both mind and soul.

After all, the reproduction of music is the inducement an intentional hallucination, an illusion for there is no band inside the box in front of you, only some parts the wiggle appropriately.

Please remember that the word music (mousike (Greek); "art of the Muses") come from the nine daughters of Zeus and Memory, the sources of human inspiration.  Music is an art form that uses physics as a tool to spread its healing and rejuvenating powers.

Good luck fellow travelers, don't let the bed bugs bite as they say.
More to discover