Stereophile Article - Holt telling it like it is.

Gordon is not bitter. In fact, I would characterize him as playful and curious. I spent a lot of time with him and Steven Stone in the 90s. I would have spent a lot more time with him were it not for his smoking.

As for these comments, I agree completely. He came to prominence because of his insight and candor and he remains relevant for those same reasons. HiFi today is about egos and sound effects, politics and greed. During the 80s audio started drawing real money and it attracted an unsavory and corruptive element who dominate to this day.

The good news is that there are some very creative and inspired young-uns rising beneath the radar. See if you can find and appreciate them.

Amem, Jaybo. The carrot is too far away now to entice us as it once did. In the early 80s I had modified Hafler DH 200 amps which set me back some $400 plus each. Naturally I dreamed of the several thousand dollar Levinson or Threshhold or Rowland amps and could imagine somehow owning them. Today's youngster is using an Ipod and keeping a vast store of music on his (or her)computer, never even thinking about multi-thousand dollar component audio systems. The cost of assembling something better than their computer and Ipod is well beyond imagining, especially since they are living in a bedroom in their parents' house.
We have ever more manufacturers vying for a piece of an ever diminishing pie. It's sort of a metaphor for our world of depleting assets and burgeoning population. Everything has a breaking point.

Einstein was a slob. Many a genius is so fixated on his pursuits that he neglects the details that govern the more anal amongst us. I saw his place on many ocassions and it was as Ralph describes it. He had Soundlab A-3s sitting out in the hall and a SOTA table with Well-Tempered arm out of use against the wall. At the time he was utterly ga-ga over an array of Tannoy speakers in a surround setup. He had hundreds of those large video discs (can't remember what they were called). He used Boulder amplification at that time.
All in all it looked like he was fairly preoccupied with his work. He's a total geek. And he was a gracious host. Certainly you could say he is old-fashioned. And you might well consider him a genius. I really liked the guy.

One of the reasons people are concerned about reviews is the impact they have on resale.

Gordon Holt is saying that the audio hobby became the audio industry in the 1980s. The emphasis was moved from audio performance to sales performance. The components became products. The days when we cared more about sound than appearances are forgotten by most of us.
Our entire society has become commodified. Movie reviews, if there are any, are buried in the entertainment section but the movie grosses are front page.
So, as the audio industry matures, it becomes more mainstream. And, as it becomes more mainstream, it caters ever more to the median demographic. You guys have complained about music offerings declining in quality because of too little demand for quality recordings. This trend will continue to worsen. And you will eventually notice that it is happening to your hardware also.
The American corporation behaves like Pacman, gobbling up everything in its path. The only reason we haven't been gobbled yet is our meager dollar value. But just watch .......... Apple is coming. Computer audio is the future.