Does anyone know where this J. Gordon Holt comes from?

Gordon and Harry both emphasized that the supreme goal of a high quality audio system is high fidelity to real sounds in a real space.  Nowadays, the lesser goal of merely what sounds good is pursued.  The latter goal merely relegates such an audio system to a toy, not necessarily devoted to reality.

The other day I was in a subway car in NYC.  Guys came in with unamplified guitar and accordion.  Even in a crowded car, the snap of the strummed guitar strings was instantly apparent.  Almost no audio system of today recreates this live excitement. That's because of lousy recordings drenched in muddy processed effects, warm dynamic speakers and tubed or euphonic SS electronics.

You don't need fancy concert halls to experience this live quality of sound.  People should get exposure to close encounters with the real thing, not audio shows and dealers who promote high priced goods that still don't deliver the excitement of real music.

Holt's main system had a pair of active ATC 50 towers, the anniversary edition I believe.  I'm pretty sure they were sold here on Audiogon after he died.

@clearthinker 👍

About a year ago I pulled out a classical album and put on to play. I was really disappointed in the somnics of the venue… not natural at all. The back of the record cover extolled the incredible lengths that were taken to capture the venue and ambience of the concert. Then showed all the partitions that were put around small groups of instruments… each with their own microphone. The narrative went on and on how great the concert hall was. I was completely flummoxed. There was no sound of the concert hall what so ever… it was a dead… terrible recording. I couldn’t believe the description vs reality… No correspondence, what so ever.

This is not the norm… but hilarious if you know better.

@viper6: Have you read Stereophile editor Jim Austin's As We See It column in the current (May) issue? It's a good one. In the column Jim makes quite a few points, some of which you may disagree with, or perhaps not. Here are a couple of them:

".....an album shouldn't sound like live music unless it was recorded to sound like that." I have many times here made the case that Harry Pearson's ethos of the job of a hi-fi system being to make reproduced music sound as close to the sound of live unamplified acoustic music as possible---the "absolute sound"---is, simply put, a gross over-simplification. Sure, that goal is of course appropriate when any given recording was made in such a fashion as to make that even possible. But 99.99% of Pop studio recordings will NEVER sound---couldn't POSSIBLY sound---like live unamplified acoustic music. Austin goes on to say "Every album should sound like itself." The way most music is recorded, that is the only realistic, sensible way to view the situation.

Another: "Great-sounding recordings form a tiny fraction of all recorded music, and they rarely intersect with the very best music." That was one of "Holt's Laws", seen in print way back in the 1960's. Gordon said "The better the music, often the worse the sound. And visa versa." Nothing has changed in the intervening years.

Jim Austin is---in my opinion---doing quite a good job of filling John Atkinson's shoes.  

I liked JGH when he wrote for Stereophile.  His objective and mine were the same.  When I had my shop, we always brought in our instruments to compare to the recordings we were listening to on our systems.

It was how we determined, back then, that the MOST ACCURATE reproduction gear playing HIGHLY PROCESSED recordings, belonged to ARC and Magnepan.  When Mayorga came out with his Direct-to-Disc recordings, we realized we were still correct.  Now, everything had to be set up properly, and yes, this was before the "interesting" cable thing descended upon us, but no matter what speaker we played, and I had about 45 different kinds in the shop, the only ones that sounded most like the recordings were the Maggies driven by ARC gear.

I don't remember if JGH liked that gear or not--he probably did--but in MY shop, playing musical instruments--trumpet, sax, guitar (both kinds) electric piano, and snare drum--this was the most accurate system.  SOME customers did not have the room for that type of system, and of course, some disagreed, which is why we carried so many brands and models--we were running a business, not a charity--but we DID play live instruments to compare.  Obviously, this is NOT the same as a live performance, and I know for a fact that my former band sounded like garbage when the various players decided to "turn it up," but many bands are like this.  I haven't heard a live show that was any good for years, with the possible exception of Joan Jet outdoors a few years ago.  Most rock concerts today are walls of noise that I refuse to attend.  Evidently, with all the advances in sound gear, if the person running the board is deaf, you get garbage for $1500.00 a ticket.

Cheers!