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 1 response by john1

Guttenberg is playing to a particular audience & indulging his cynicism for its own sake. Essentially, knowingly becoming the fox in Aesop’s famous fable, jumping up many times to try & grab & eat the delicious grapes hanging out of reach & failing - then telling himself with some fervour, "They were probably sour anyway."
The human capacity for rationalization is never-ending & focusing on the worst out of a misplaced sense of convenience is certainly cynicism. Steve hasn’t embraced the light here but the darkness. What you focus on expands & he hasn’t chosen the light here.
He describes an aspect of being an audiophile & then trumped it up needlessly. One can go the other way just as easily. Wiser audiophiles do by tuning their systems well & veering away from the analytical for its own sake. Also generally, analog does better than digital here. Tubes better than transistors.