Stereophile Article - Holt telling it like it is.

I guess there are still a lot of people who still follow the old chant"Holt, in whose ears we trust".
Hey, he is over thirty you know!
Do you still trust his old ears and his old style beliefs? Especially you young Gen X'ers?
In the old days he would diss all the Harry Pearson raves and Tas would have a field day counter-punching.
Who was right?
I think both magazines have morphed into one and have taken over the void left when Stereo Review folded it's tent.
Hirsch, Holt, Pearson, Atkinson, so many audio reviewers to criticize and so little time.
Hey folks, get a grip, it's just info-tainment.

I am inclined to agree with the opinion that most modern recordings suck.Why do you suppose so many have gone the vintage route? Surely the opposite of what Holt is stating.
The vintage gear sugar coats the bad overly compressed and thin digital recordings we have today.The best of the new stuff only reveals all the warts.
The companies who may be guilty of trying to make silk out of a pigs ear of modern recording can not really be faulted. They are trying to make this dredge palatable.
I would rather listen to good old recordings on new gear than bad new recordings on old gear.
Two wrongs don't make a right.

The more I read the responses the more wide I see the gap in this hobby between two camps.
In one camp we have the "enthusiasts", who read the mags, check out the gear and tweaks and buy if it meets their own expectations, money is not always the deciding factor.
Then there are the "musiclovers" who scoff at the prices of todays gear, don't believe in tweaks and feel vintage gear is all you need to spend your money on.
At one time there wasn't so much polarization, even I could afford a top of the line CJ system ,Premier Two and MV75A-1 amp with an Oracle table and Acoustat 3, Janus sub system.Not so today.I can't even afford some of the entry level CJ stuff, so I can see where the vintage people's heads are at.They can achieve apiece of the dream. But that was the dream of 1985.There are a lot more good sounding components at entry level price points than there was in 1985.Back then if you wanted good sound you had to pay for it, and the only difference between then and now is that more people could afford the top shelf gear.
Sour grapes and not having the means to buy the "best"is at the core of the anti- Hi End movement.
Holt I fear has lost his hearing if he feels the trend today is to a lush sound.What he is not hearing is the distortions of those flawed systems of the past.