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
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...
There is no "real" in sound stereo reproduction...

But myself i am glad when i reach the feeling that this is "real" : accuracy of tonal timbre first and imaging in 3-d second, and a soundstage detached from the speakers in third.... Nothing of that is "real", but my feeling  that this is right is real....

:)

« Why dont you listen stero? i hate microscope» -Groucho Marx
My modest little system sounds really good to me and my friends. I listen to a wide range of music ranging from Kraftwerk to Led Zeppelin to Ella to house music. Current electronic music (like Yello, Brendon Moeller) sound so crisp and clear while soft rock from the 70s is rather flat. Whereas, it all sounds the same on a lower quality system (not necessarily a cheaper system). I'm learning to accept this as the quality of my system as improved over the years. 
Frankly, if you're listening to today's pop music on anything more than a 40 year old Sansui receiver and Radio Shack Nova speakers, then you've wasted your money on a quality music system.