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
Objectively, audio standards are declining as consumers continue to choose convenience over quality. Many people in this forum themselves care more about convenience. 


Subjectively, Imho there is no such thing as ultimate resolution because we all hear differently from each other, and we all hear differently depending on our mood, time of day, what we ate drank or smoked etc. ultimate resolution is what ultimately pleases us.


My system is a logical evolution/contInuum of a physiological and philosophical tendency or preference that I inclined towards when I was a teenager. Little has changed over 51 years of my high end audio experience. I established what I preferred early on, Ledy it alone, and since then I just sit back and enjoy the music. 
@unreceivedogma,

'Many people in this forum themselves care more about convenience.'


Good observation.

In my case I've gradually gone from a manual turntable to a CD player, then personally compiled CDs to avoid changing discs, then Minidisc for even greater editorial flexibility.

More recently, most of my listening is via streaming to my Bluetooth speaker in the garden or headphones whilst walking to and from work.

None of those steps particularly resulted in any improvement of sound quality, but they were all more convenient. I kind of gave in to them too, obstinately resisting CD to the mid 1990s and only recently giving in to buying a Bluetooth speaker, and shock horror - using playlists more frequently. 

This is all a far cry from my purist audiophile days of endlessly cleaning stuff and experimenting with cables, stands, and upgrades. I guess I must be getting slower and finding family life far more draining than I ever imagined it would be.

I don't think the restraint and the uncertainty of these last 6 months have helped much either, and now the current plague is at new levels here in the UK.

It's wise to be careful and have some contingency plan in place, but there's little point in letting yourself dwell too long on what might or might happen.

It might, it might not.

My main system is still easily the most enjoyable with simply a bigger and more effortless sound but I just don't buy new music the way I once used to since most of the artists I loved and followed are now dead.

Thank God for Dylan!  His last album has easily been the musical highlight of the year for me.

Just before the recent sudden hike in new cases we were discussing re-establishling our Thursday music nights (apparently there's a decent new albums out by The Flaming Lips and Bill Callaghan) but now things are uncertain again. 

My passion for music certainly hasn't dimmed but it's not new music, most of it was recorded before the year 2000.
Priorities changes with years and centuries....

Music does not change, and like the sky, revolve  around the earth....(And i know who Copernic was for those who had doubts).

:) 
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