Stereophile Article - Holt telling it like it is.

P.S. I greatly admire Mr. Holt and have met him at audioshows in the 80s. He was ahead of his time when he recognized the potential/value of digital recording, among so many other aspects of audio. He's one of a kind.

Are some of us the last to find out that audio as a hobby is dying? If so there is going to be alot of snobby audiophiles that will be sucked into that void as well. That will leave music lovers like myself to continue business as usual, enjoying the music!

I recently drove an old Chevy pickup, maybe a 1960 something ... and the radio/speaker struck me as something I remembered seeing/hearing some years ago when I was a teenager ... someone who simply couldn't wait to jump into my own car to go here/there listening to music ... times made even more memorable by my fuzzy memory ... and the sound was like listening through tin cans linked by twine ... incredulous that anyone, myself included, could have enjoyed what we were hearing at the time. We did, but with time we discovered that not all audio equipment is created equal. The music might live on, but the technology ... no comparison.

it is a myth to think that any current production gear produces "lushness". it doesn't exist. there is very little "beautiful" most of today's stereo systems and components are highly resolving, ruthless in revealing the flaws of recordings.

when i go to ces shows or listen to stereo systems in a variety of venues very few are euphonically colored.

however, very few sound real. real is what you get when you hear musicians perform on their unamplified instruments.
stereo systems are imperfect reproductions of imperfect recordings--a copy of a copy and the copy of the copy is an inexact copy of the copy.

mr fleschler:

on what basis are you criticizing the quality of musical compositions ?

there are no absolute standards. as in audio, the only standards are those imposed arbitrarily by so-called experts.

what is wrong with ; "if i like it is good music, otherwise it is not" ? the experience of good music determines its quality, not some objective criteria of good or bad composition which is no more valid than some other criteria of good or bad composition.