Stereophile Article - Holt telling it like it is.

I disagree with Mr. Holt concerning today's equipment or even fine solid state gear from 25 to 35 years ago. My system has what in 2005-6 was moderately high priced gear (EAR 890/864/324/Acute now 25% higher priced) which sounds somewhat superior to much older equipment. My modified Dynaco 70 in my living room represents the best of older gear, about 85% as good as the 890. My speakers used are a bargain, the Legacy Focus (and Sig IIIs in the living room), usually found at $2,500 or less on Audiogon. HDs are relatively affordable when compared to top end speakers. Holt is wrong concerning front end gear with my VPI VI/modified SME IV/Benz Ruby 3 on a seismic sink (could by DIYed inexpensively) and the Acute CD player-they among the best for the price which isn't cheap.

The one item which almost didn't exist in audio equipment was interconnects and speaker wire. Designs continue to evolve from the 70s (Fulton), although prices bear little sense with value (I use Grover IC and speaker cable exclusively-relatively inexpensive 2007 SC 1 designs are at the low end of cost). The difference the speaker and ICs make on all of my systems, including my TV systems using Yamaha CR 620 & 1020 receivers is utterly amazing. So Mr. Holt doesn't see the fantastic improvements.

Every era has its dross and overpriced so called "improved" audio gear. The classics are great as are much of the present day gear.

My problem is with the recordings. My friends include Robert Pincus (Cisco) Kevin Grey (Acous Tech) & Steve Hoffman (formerly DCC). The recording technique of the past was superior. The new technology would allow for great recordings but in the case of mass marketed rock and pop, it's the producers that won't allow great sound. Compression is the name of the game as is the lack of good music. I now enjoy my wife's 70's and 80's rock with my good equipment but then about 1995, producers and music went downhill. More like pablum. The taste is missing. (Although I do get to hear great new classical music from lesser known currently alive composers and perform with an orchestra that dedicates itself to new music-mostly melodic, not 12 tone or weird stuff).

Mr. Holt, the problem has more to do with the lack of great music composition, even if it were simplistic (lot's of pop crap from the 20th C. is memorable because of the music line-a melody, harmonies, etc. with non-sense lyrics). Today's music is just boring. My friends say the same thing and my daughter's (teen-age) friends are always astounded when they hear earlier rock (forget the opera) and jazz on my various audio systems.

It's the music. The audio gear is mostly, just fine and has gotten better.

No, I don't like MP3s generally-compression is the reason. I do like CDs now, because I get so much music out of them when they use the master tape and don't erred in transferring (often, just misaligned tape heads or not using the correct tape e.q. ruins a transfer).

That's my five cents (cause I covered a lot, not two cents). Enjoy your music.

P.S. I greatly admire Mr. Holt and have met him at audioshows in the 80s. He was ahead of his time when he recognized the potential/value of digital recording, among so many other aspects of audio. He's one of a kind.

Are some of us the last to find out that audio as a hobby is dying? If so there is going to be alot of snobby audiophiles that will be sucked into that void as well. That will leave music lovers like myself to continue business as usual, enjoying the music!

I recently drove an old Chevy pickup, maybe a 1960 something ... and the radio/speaker struck me as something I remembered seeing/hearing some years ago when I was a teenager ... someone who simply couldn't wait to jump into my own car to go here/there listening to music ... times made even more memorable by my fuzzy memory ... and the sound was like listening through tin cans linked by twine ... incredulous that anyone, myself included, could have enjoyed what we were hearing at the time. We did, but with time we discovered that not all audio equipment is created equal. The music might live on, but the technology ... no comparison.

it is a myth to think that any current production gear produces "lushness". it doesn't exist. there is very little "beautiful" most of today's stereo systems and components are highly resolving, ruthless in revealing the flaws of recordings.

when i go to ces shows or listen to stereo systems in a variety of venues very few are euphonically colored.

however, very few sound real. real is what you get when you hear musicians perform on their unamplified instruments.
stereo systems are imperfect reproductions of imperfect recordings--a copy of a copy and the copy of the copy is an inexact copy of the copy.