Is Steve Guttenberg stupid?

[adamdea]

See Steve Guttenberg's article: Does lossless audio guarantee good sound?

He writes a lot of stuff that I completely agree with, but then ends with this: "So while lossless audio compression (FLAC or Apple Lossless for example) can be "expanded" to produce an exact digital duplicate of the original audio stream, that's not necessarily the same thing as sounding exactly like an uncompressed WAV file or a CD."

Aaargh!

Agreed

[maggior]

I almost agree, but not quite.

In the end these people listen with their brains. Whether it's a bug, a bad rip, a bad setup, or a bad expectation - it does not matter.

I agree with you - I think they aren't really thinking it through and are making a snap judgement. However, if they encountered poor sound from a CD due to a faulty CD player, I'm sure they wouldn't say that the CD format is inherently bad. Or the lp format is inherently bad because of a faulty turntable.

Aticles like this one just make me shake my head and groan.

[earwaxer9]

I read Steve's blog all the time. As well as many others related to "audiophile" matters. He doesnt seem to read others. He seems out of touch with the topics that we are discussing these days. Thats too bad. I think he has some valid perspectives. His blog ends up being a rehash of overly hashed topics.

[Phoenix]

See Steve Guttenberg's article: Does lossless audio guarantee good sound?

He writes a lot of stuff that I completely agree with, but then ends with this: "So while lossless audio compression (FLAC or Apple Lossless for example) can be "expanded" to produce an exact digital duplicate of the original audio stream, that's not necessarily the same thing as sounding exactly like an uncompressed WAV file or a CD."

Aaargh!

I agree. How can two identical files not sound exactly the same? Can
Guternberg explain the etiology of the difference he hears in these two files, and can he set up a repeatable demonstration which will conclusively proves that such differences exist? Lol on that one. This is typical of what the high end magazines are doing today. They take a piece of gear like squeezebox and damn it with faint praise. Yes, they'll tell you it sounds good "for the money" but no way it can compete with a multi killobuck transport, or so they would have you believe. But they dont demonstrate with measurements, or with convincing argument why they higher prices gear is going to sound better. They expect everyone to accept it as a matter of faith that higher priced gear creates better sound, even when it's only a transport presenting a bit perfect rendition of a digital file (both the high and low priced spread) to a DAC.

Makes no sense whatsoever. Kinda like the BS around audio cables.

[RonM]

Well, audiophile magazines are businesses after all. Most blogs, too. How successful would they be, as businesses, if they systematically undermined the interests of their advertisers -- who are, to a substantial degree, in the business of selling subjective experience.

It's not the place to find truly objective reporting. Which, of course, is not to say that the "reporters" aren't themselves ensnared by the snake oil. Objective reality will never trump "true belief" for those inclined to being true believers. Doesn't matter whether it's religion or audiophilia, not that there is a whole lot of difference.

R.

[bullethead]

See Steve Guttenberg's article: Does lossless audio guarantee good sound?

He writes a lot of stuff that I completely agree with, but then ends with this: "So while lossless audio compression (FLAC or Apple Lossless for example) can be "expanded" to produce an exact digital duplicate of the original audio stream, that's not necessarily the same thing as sounding exactly like an uncompressed WAV file or a CD."

I read Guttenburg's blog when I am browsing around. CNET isn't necessarily an "authority", neither is anyone else for that matter. I take everything I read with a grain of salt. There are some people who prefer WAV, whatever start selling more WAV then on web labels. To each his own. As long as it doesn't have DRM, is lossless and is universally playable on multiple devices and operating systems (like FLAC is as well) I have no problem with "opinions". If he was ranting about the benefits of being locked down by a file format and that authentication for something you bought is awesome I would be more concerned.

[michael123]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13645_3-20061877-47.html
http://www.stereophile.com/content/when-musics-over

Hmmm...

[andynormancx]

He starts off with this claim:

"Digital audio mortally wounded recorded music's creative mojo in 1982, and the record industry never fully recovered"

He then waffles on for several hundred words, giving no evidence to backup his claim (beyond using rose tinted spectacles to list some of the highlights of the pre-digital era) and then closes with:

"Is digital the cause of music's doldrums, or has it been the insatiable drive for technical perfection that has sapped music's spirit? No one can say for sure"

and

"I'm not claiming that digital has or will destroy music—just what's left of the record business."

Idiot, of the highest order.

[snottmonster]

I think this comment on the stereophile site summed it up perfectly:

But in order to see how feeble it [the article] is you only have to run the opening sentence "It's one of those good news/bad news stories: more people are listening to music than ever before...." next to the last "...I'm just not sure what it would take to get people listening again" and miss out the drivel between.

By a SB forum member too?

[Phil Leigh]

He starts off with this claim:

"Digital audio mortally wounded recorded music's creative mojo in 1982, and the record industry never fully recovered"

...

This is of course total twaddle. How did the breaking of the record companies and recording studios hegemony over who got to professionally record and publish music and who didn't ruin music? - quite the opposite in fact!

Digital Audio (and later, the Internet) made it possible for all manner of folks to achieve something they would never have been able to do/allowed to do when recording cost $100-$1,000 an hour and publishing/distribution was a closed shop in practice.

Sure, a lot of rubbish got/gets made, but that was also true when record companies ruled the roost...

This isn't really a "hi-fi" discussion, but almost anyone can afford to do some pretty impressive quality recording these days - the equipment is cheap. Of course the old rules still apply; you DO need to know what you are doing and know how to record things properly. My point is that digital audio removed the cost barrier to ownership/access for great sounding gear.

A £100 24/96 soundcard these days can easily outperform a £10k tape deck from the 1970's/80's.

digital multitrack mixing with full automation can be had for somewhat less than the cost of a Neve or SSL console (£50k minimum!)