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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?

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Can your Audio System be too Transparent?

Steve Guttenberg 19.08.20

https://youtu.be/6-V5Z6vHEbA

cd318

Showing 3 responses by ivan_nosnibor

ivan_nosnibor's avatar
ivan_nosnibor
1,047 posts
 
@jjss49 I think I might buy all that. However nicely presented or laid out at corporate level it looks, by the time you get down to street level it's generally more of ceaseless knife fight, everybody looking for their advantage. But, that's capitalism.

...and I know I would hate to have to wait in line for my daily allotment of 'art' from the state. ;)
ivan_nosnibor's avatar
ivan_nosnibor
1,047 posts
 
Coming to expect (pursue) "high resolution" first above other considerations, only to discover that it reveals other flaws in the system has nothing to do with the high end and, in and of itself, can only represent intermediate levels of system building experience or accomplishment. Sooner or later, the rest of the high-end traits will have to be attained if high resolution is not to have its obvious drawbacks.

Was it the way "high resolution", as an industry buzzword, was originally marketed to people just getting started that caused the problem, or were the uninitiated, unconsciously desperate to save money, all-too-willing to delude themselves into thinking it to be the holy-grail shortcut from the start??

Hardly matters, does it.

Exploitation city either way...
ivan_nosnibor's avatar
ivan_nosnibor
1,047 posts
 
If you find that your system, as you increase its quality, makes that kind of music sound worse to you, then the idea that increased resolution of the system is responsible for that is seemingly the only logical conclusion. I get it. I don't doubt for a minute what you say you're hearing.

But, what I'm saying is that if you keep going on your journey toward a better and better system, then what you will find is that this sort of problem will in fact begin to go away - not get worse. If it always got worse, then there would be no such thing as the high end...Everyone would be complaining about it All the time. And they're not - capiche??

Not trying to dog you, just saying that this is not a permanent problem. Don't let your current findings restrict your willingness to experiment.
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