John Atkinson & Steve Guttenburg

Alan

An interesting watch, two gents who represent very different approaches to audiophilia. Both experienced and worth listening to, IMO.

There is more to come in this interview series.

Alan

This posting and sharing is fiddly on a mobile device!

If this worked, here is part two of the interview. Again, most interesting - perhaps even more than part one.

uglymusic

I've been watching some of Steve Guttenberg's videos, so I'll give these a go.

Alan

I've enjoyed both interviews so far, and I think JA and SG do make an interesting pair to listen to. Although their views on assessing equipment performance may represent polar extremes, there is more overlap and common ground between them than not, both as music lovers and experienced hifi buffs.

I personally don't feel a need to identify particularly with either extreme of these gentlemen's experiences, rather I'd like to find myself in the overlap in the middle. Both seemed mature enough to accept each other's point of view and have something valuable to say that I can learn from. As a subjective and relatively uneducated consumer I am certainly taking more and more value from equipment tests these days, without losing sight of the fact that more imperfect kit can still be superbly enjoyable when operating in a complex manner - ie playing music. That recognises the limitations both of tests and my own ability to read the results and extrapolate them to reality.

Good kit that measures well is always going to be reassuring, but kit measuring less well still has potential to be very enjoyable indeed - as JA experienced. In the overall sense of what gear is 'good' and enjoyable to listen to, the tests answer only some questions, but they certainly can put one on the right track.

There's nothing binary about this hobby! JA's measurements have taught us that.