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
We will never have Charlie Parker (born 100 years ago this month) recorded in stereo. But listening to him in mono on my modest (compared to today's big-buck systems) vintage gear is certainly satisfying!
"...overpriced Wilson, AT and D'Agostino..."
Just because one cannot afford something does not mean it is overpriced.

Sound by Singer experience might have been different at different times, I guess depending on who the salesperson there was at the moment. I stepped in a number of times and was allowed to browse and listen with no intention to buy. When I came to buy something, the man told me to look at it through the window on the door of the listening room.
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@roberjerman   I too have been to Sound by Singer several times in that same time-frame. First time saw the man himself, Andy Singer, and he let me wander a tiny bit, then asked what I was going to buy.  I replied that I don't see any system playing, store was dead quiet.  That was the end of that visit.  Went back another time and there happened to be several "real" customers in there and music playing in different rooms. Walked into a room and the customer greeted me! So I sat down and listened, it was the best system I had heard up until then. I'm assuming the sales person didn't want to act like a turd and tell me to get lost in front of the customer.  Subsequent visits ended same as the first.  Can't blame Steve for the attitude, it all flows down from the top, and that was their shtick.