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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?

-----

Can your Audio System be too Transparent?

Steve Guttenberg 19.08.20

https://youtu.be/6-V5Z6vHEbA

cd318
cd318 OP
2,636 posts
 
@mapman,

"The example of pop music on Magnepans is a classic example of wrong speaker for a particular kind of recording."


I've had no luck with electrostatics after unsuccessfully first owning a restored pair of Quad ESL57s and then getting to hear the Quad 989s playing back a Morrissey CD and making a right hash of it.

'You are the Quarry' just sounded plain wrong. I cannot believe Jerry Finn (producer) or Morrissey himself intended it to sound the way it did on the Quads.

Yet I know the Quads are good loudspeakers, virtually everyone says so, but could it be they're just too revealing for most pop?

As you say, maybe they're also a 'classic example of wrong speaker for a particular kind of recording.'
asvjerry's avatar
asvjerry
5,098 posts
 
'Perfect reproduction' will purportedly occur when the signal can be routed directly into your cortex of your brain.,,,

...and I suspect will just engender a whole new level of arguements over what methods and means to do so and what one experiences....

Any given subject and the way it's experienced will always be a source of 'discussion'.....human nature will be what it is for the forseeable future...

....imho....*S* 
asvjerry's avatar
asvjerry
5,098 posts
 
...why one would bypass any reasonably decent pair of ears is a whole curiousity in itself....
douglas_schroeder
3,281 posts
 
The Quads were novel cutting edge,  in their day. Old Quads now are horribly compromised,  utterly incapable of handling today's music, as are most HiFi speakers.  When you hear the "hash" of it, you know the system is not that good, and/or was poorly set up. Superior systems play all music superbly.  
jafreeman's avatar
jafreeman
693 posts
 
He's also into increasing his Youtube subscriber base, and the majority of his listeners are probably in the $5k-$20K range, so his topics may be tailored to gather the most listeners on the bell curve.  He wants you to relate to his site--I like him.  
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