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
Is English your first language Mahgister? Not giving you a hard time, just curious. 
No my English syntax and vocabulary are a catastroph of Shakespearian proportions.... French is my natural tongue...

i read english all my life, never speaking in english really with no one, and reading only philosophy or sciences and these 2 fields dont have the reputation to be very litterate at all...

Except George Santayana for example, whose prose are marvellous....I read it without even thinking about his ideas for the pleasure to read english....

:)
You’re way ahead of me then, I only speak English and very bad Spanish. 

In that case it makes sense that your posts are long sometimes, you’re just making sure your meaning is accurately conveyed. 
I would give up resolution for a more pleasing warm non fatiguing sound any day. You are never going to achieve "real" as it does not exist. If you require real, then attend a performance. In fact, I feel that music reproduced in my home sounds better most of the time. I find concerts too in your face, at least rock concerts, with booming overblown bass. Plus the ambient noise of the people or the environment takes away from my enjoyment. Oh well, that's me...