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
mahgister

?????

It would help communication  if you weren’t writing in riddles. :)


Well, lets see. Mahgister acknowledged your point of different people having different preferences. He goes on to say this can be achieved with tweaks (embeddings) that are mechanical, electrical, and acoustic. His thesis is that these are key and not secondary problems. 

Then, to be clear, he reiterates that for any one component you are right, and people choose by preference. But then says never mind the gear, embeddings matter more, do them first.

When he says few know this transformative truth, he's talking about me, who knows it. You, it seems, do not. Well he did say there are few of us.


@prof   You need to have experienced true enlightenment first (bodhi or satori, in all seven factors) before you can hope to begin to understand the three embeddings.  And as we all know, the absolutely most important things come in groups of three.
All right....BUT....

Except embeddings are necessary dimensions linked to the  3 fields where the gear is interconnected : vibration /resonance, general noise floor, and acoustic.....

These necessary dimensions are not " tweaks".....

A bunch of tweaks is not and never will be  a method of listenings experiments to improve the controls over these 3 dimensions where any gear is immersed or embedded....


"tweaks" is a word for ready made brand costly device that are sold like secondary means to help the audio system....

It is not necessary to buy any tweaks.... It is necessary to listen and use ours ears....

:)
@twoleftears


Indeed, all we who are at the bottom of the mountain of enlightenment can do is look up with envy to those atop the mountain.   To us, their enlightenment sounds like riddles...:-)


mahgister,


Ok, through your obscure method of writing, I can infer you were talking about tweaks.  (Yes, all that resonance noise floor acoustic stuff are tweaks). 



That's fine of course.  If you re-read my post you'll see that it isn't a rant against tweaking or sharing experience.  Far from it.  I'm in audio forums because I do very much think we can share our experiences.   I may share the taste of someone else, so what I like may work for someone else.  And some "tweak" or (real) information about how to alter an audio system can certainly be useful information.  



I was referencing the broader stance one often sees, which is a sort of know-it-all, or self-derived "wisdom" that makes assumptions about other audiophiles, like "audiophiles are continually upgrading because of X and I've diagnosed why and what the cure is."  And "X speakers will not satisfy on Y music" etc.  



Do you see the difference I mean to make between imperious pronouncements of that sort, vs sharing our experience and knowledge with our system building? 



So an example might be:


I tried X tweak and it expanded the soundstage in my system.


Cool.  I might want to try that too.  Or not.



Vs



"I've used X tweaks and found benefits, so it's my position "audiophiles OUGHT to use those tweaks" or "audiophiles are really missing out if they haven't tweaked out their system in these methods" or "audiophiles are going to keep chasing their tails unless they do what I'm doing.  The equipment and tweaks I use solve audiophile problems."

Any instance of that kind of stuff is poo-ppo, IMO.  :-)