Stereophile Article - Holt telling it like it is.

Holt's comment about missing midrange is right. After 17 yrs I had to replace an amplifier and what I discovered was bizarre. Interconnects filtering out overtones and increasing pitches. Amplifiers filtering out sound trying to sound more musical. While eliminating midrange and tonal qualities helps get rid of harmonic distortion from poorly mastered cd's and transitorized equipment, most of what makes music sound good is the overtones from the musical instruments, most of which is in the midrange. I've listened to systems worth in the $10,000 that have 80% of the sound missing. Soundstage is a nice effect, but not worth sacraficing high fidelity. If you want your recordings to sound musical, buy quality recordings by competent artists.

Is there an inverse relationship between equipment that can produce good soundstaging (the visual) and producing accurate and balanced sounds - ar the two at odds when designing an amplifier? a necessary tradeoff?

Don't really understand all the hype on " Hardware ". We could spend Ginormous amounts of $$$$$ and if the recording was badley made it is going to sound even worse. Let's spend a little more time and effort on making "GOOD"
recordings to play on these Megabuck systems everybody is trying to sell us and claiming how great they are.
Remember basics "Garbage In Garbage Out"

While I admire JGH for his past contributions to the field, his dark and pessimistic view today is not only a sweeping generalization but wholly incorrect. The majority of highly respected gear today is more neutral and transparent than in previous decades. Atmasphere is right, there are plenty of manufacturers that aim for neutrality and resolution above all else. Are there exceptions? Sure, but there always have been. Progress marches forward, sometimes rather circuitously, but forward nonetheless. 3 steps forward and 1 step back.

Even amplifiers from companies like Conrad Johnson, always known for their "golden" sound have become dramatically more neutral over the years. Listen to an ARC REF amp today and compare it to the ARC offerings from the 80s or 90s and it will make you giggle. B&W 801's, once a standard setting speaker sound quite antiquated (as do most speakers of that time) compared with todays best and even mid-level speakers.

We take in used gear all the time and it's always fascinating to compare a legendary amp or speaker from the 80's or 90s to the better gear today. In nearly every case the older equipment sounds much more colored, less extended at both frequency extremes, less controlled, more opaque....in short less real and less like live music.

I used to see one major division in what constituted "Hi Fi".

Some folks wanted their system to transport them to the recording venue. It should sound like you were sitting in the "best" seat at the famous concert hall. Hall ambiance and random coughs on the recording were welcome.

Other folks wanted their system to transport the musicians into their home. It should sound like the musicians are in THEIR room, playing just for them. Studio recordings are preferred.

Nothing wrong with either philosophy. I consider them both legitimate. But they are very different points of view--and--I think that different equipment (especially speakers) would be preferred as "more accurate" by the two groups.

Now there are so many different philosophies that I can't keep track of them all. I understand Holt's "bitterness" if in fact he is bitter. First Guess: He's just trying to shake people up.

I resent the reviews of ultra-expensive equipment; yet thirty years ago I couldn't understand why a publisher would waste paper printing a road test of a Ford or Chevy or Toyota--it was easy enough to go to the dealer and DRIVE IT YOURSELF. So bring on the Astons, Lotus, Porsche, Ferrari, etc.

Not using double-blind testing of SOME form has hurt the hobby tremendously. Nut-Job tweako crap would never have gotten going. People actually BUY expensive new power cords for their equipment and think they hear a difference! And they sell wood blocks to put on your equipment, and silly ceramic "cable holders" that are just industrial insulators with fancy paint and the decimal point on the price tag two places over from where it should be.

In regards to the new equipment sounding "better" than the old: How much of that is due to the "old" equipment having degraded over the years? Put new capacitors and such into it; tune up the bias and such; would the old stuff still sound worse than the new stuff? (i.e., is it the circuitry or inherent parts quality that makes the difference--or just the fact that the old stuff "has been around the block" too many times?