Is Steve Guttenberg a genius?

[Henry66]

Take a look at one of his recent blog posts: Teenage audiophiles speak out

So maybe Steve can't wrap his brain around the subtleties of binary encoding/decoding, but his effort to recruit or engage the young is attacking the problem of bad sound at its very core. My hat off to you Mr. Guttenberg.

[Griffin]

It's a pitty though he seems to solely focus on the hardware. Quality should be good enough to let one experience and enjoy sound (usually music). The hardware is just a tool whilst music IMHO is all about the overall experience.

So, no, IMHO, SG is not a genius at all.

[Wombat]

The sad thing is that Mr. Guttenberg doesn´t have to care what he writes anymore!
Soo many people found their way to the internet that better shouldn´t.
There are always some that will find "any" activity someone does good. The bad thing is that to the informed reader obviously flawed things these days are the best thing ever for some pinheads.
For these people the internet is a place where they finaly can spread their brainfarts with no mercy. Large talk with no substanse is getting widely spreaded. In real life i suppose they often stand alone or most likely often wondered why no one listens to them

In some way the musican Prince is right when he leaves the internet completely...

[earwaxer9]

Take a look at one of his recent blog posts: Teenage audiophiles speak out

So maybe Steve can't wrap his brain around the subtleties of binary encoding/decoding, but his effort to recruit or engage the young is attacking the problem of bad sound at its very core. My hat off to you Mr. Guttenberg.

Steve is not a genius. Not even close. None of us are. We are all just a bit off, in one way or another. Some ways good, some not so good. Music is one of those things in life that touches those of us who are in need, in a special way. We dont relate to life in the usual way. Music is there to take up the slack. There are no kings in our space.

[Henry66]

The problem, as I see it, from an overall perspective, is that too many music fans are content with mediocre sound quality.

The solution is to produce more audiophiles, especially young ones.

All audiophiles that I meet, online or away from the keyboard, are doddering old farts like me. It feels like we are a dying breed. (And why are there no women? Is it because geeky gadgets are involved?)

I am the oldest of my siblings, and I became an audiophile at about 18 because my best friend's older brother was one. My friend and I recruited a dozen or so of our peers during our college years.

Mr. Guttenberg is doing the right thing. He is engaging/sparking some young people through his medium and the seeds will spread. The rest of us decrepit lot should do what we can with our children, nephews, nieces, etc.

[Mnyb]

Perhaps the fact that a once respectable hoby has degenrated to an obscure cult can explain a lot.

You should reboot the whole audiophile thing, from before " cables " and " prat " thats was the starting piont for the cargo cult we have today

A cult where the very expensive prices are a part of the cult ? In computers the next gen is better cost the same or sligthly less where a " mark 2" of any audiphile product is 50% more expensive and audiophiles just suck it up we been had since the 70's.
Rationally all improvements dont makes things more expensive choosing a better transistor etc should not.

Combined with the ongoing unchecked feedback loop " audiphile engineering" and magazines and.
Eventually you descent into audionote ongaku and other cult items with no rationale to exist ?
Or German vinyl rigs thtas looks very steampunk and only cost the gbp of a third world country.

I think outsider see this all to well and don't want any part of it.

But there is hope there is a more rational branch off audiphiles in sweden nowdays..

And earbuds is not such a bad start, just turn of all that eq and stuff many mp3 players has and many sound better than you think, add a very modest senheiser in ear phone and you are on your way for very little money.

All phones have qualities that most big speakers struggle to get, a good set of cans beats most speaker except for the scale and physical impact of involving the whole room and "feel the bass" etc

[Henry66]

too many music fans are content with mediocre sound quality

Let me qualify this. I mean the sound quality of the recording. The part that we can do nothing about no matter what whiz-bang equipment we have for playing it back.

To remedy this, we need a large base of music fans who are critical about the quality of the recording produced by their idols. This base needs to be grown to a point where they have enough clout to provide monetary incentive for musicians, mastering technicians and labels to produce non-crap.

Yes, many audiophiles are obsessed with equipment measurebation, but it gets them nowhere if the source material is a turd. Audiophiles spend their time and money on things they can control, but a side effect is that they demand quality source material.

I sometimes forget the places I have been on my journey as an audiophile. I used to lust after all the insane stuff I read about in Stereophile, but now I spend most of my time and money on looking for good recordings. It is far more satisfying to find a gem album than to get some new gadget.

[Mnyb]

Let me qualify this. I mean the sound quality of the recording. The part that we can do nothing about no matter what whiz-bang equipment we have for playing it back.

To remedy this, we need a large base of music fans who are critical about the quality of the recording produced by their idols. This base needs to be grown to a point where they have enough clout to provide monetary incentive for musicians, mastering technicians and labels to produce non-crap.

Yes, many audiophiles are obsessed with equipment measurebation, but it gets them nowhere if the source material is a turd. Audiophiles spend their time and money on things they can control, but a side effect is that they demand quality source material.

I sometimes forget the places I have been on my journey as an audiophile. I used to lust after all the insane stuff I read about in Stereophile, but now I spend most of my time and money on looking for good recordings. It is far more satisfying to find a gem album than to get some new gadget.

+1

I tend be more about the music these day, far to few " real" and popular ( and good ) musicians do good recordings . But listening to special audiophile records is not and option they s*ck musically or are completely meaningless in any mucial perpective...( they are very similar to comercial jingle music where they mimick some real music but don't quite commit any copyrigth crime )
But good music exist and what a good hifi has done for me is to expand my musical taste far more
genres can be listened to on a good hifi I also expanded to home theater.

Getting the music " rigth " first is the deal breaker, hifi is meaningless without good recordings in all genres, has loudness war come to classical music yet ? My own classical collection is small 200 or so records nothing that recent, it is one genre where ok recording quality was/is normal ?

[earwaxer9]

The problem, as I see it, from an overall perspective, is that too many music fans are content with mediocre sound quality.

The solution is to produce more audiophiles, especially young ones.

All audiophiles that I meet, online or away from the keyboard, are doddering old farts like me. It feels like we are a dying breed. (And why are there no women? Is it because geeky gadgets are involved?)

I am the oldest of my siblings, and I became an audiophile at about 18 because my best friend's older brother was one. My friend and I recruited a dozen or so of our peers during our college years.

Mr. Guttenberg is doing the right thing. He is engaging/sparking some young people through his medium and the seeds will spread. The rest of us decrepit lot should do what we can with our children, nephews, nieces, etc.

Most of us on these post are middle agers with fond memories of how we "turned on" to music in our youth. My adolescent son is in a different "space" than I was at his age. I really dont expect him to "turn on, tune in and drop out" if you will, like I did at his age. A much different time. Much more audio visual stimulation available. We now have the internet, etc. I dont expect kids today to have the same relationship with music that I did in the 60's, 70's. In some ways I am glad that my son has a different (less involved) relationship with music than I did. For sure, I love my music. There are other things in life just as good.

[maggior]

For sure, I love my music. There are other things in life just as good.

Blasphemy! Especially in the audiophile forum! :-).

All kidding aside - you are right, kids have so many other things to occupy their time today (internet, video games, texting, etc.) that music doesn't have the focus like in our day. My kids are still young (my oldest is 7) and they share some of my passion for music. It will be interesting to see how that changes as they get older.