Steve Guttenberg

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Is Dylan full of static or has he got it right when he declares that modern recordings suck?
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Steve Guttenberg  |  Sep 03, 2006  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  66 comments
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Jim Fosgate: Of (Surround) Sound Mind
Interviews
Steve Guttenberg  |  Jan 02, 2005  |  First Published: Dec 02, 2004  |  0 comments
Jim Fosgate fits the category of Classic American Inventor to a T. This softspoken, quietly intense man has earned 18 patents and founded three successful electronics companies. In the late 1970s, he pulled out of the car audio business to follow his quadraphonic bliss, and designed the Fosgate Tate 101, arguably the finest quad decoder of the era. He also created the best-selling matrix surround processor of all time, Dolby's Pro Logic II, and in 2003 won an Emmy for the Development of Surround Sound for Television. He now serves as a senior executive consultant for Fosgate Audionics, a division of the Rockford Corporation.
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Lights in a Box?
FeaturesJ. Gordon HoltThink Pieces
Steve Guttenberg, J. Gordon Holt  |  Jan 03, 1996  |  0 comments
"Without content, television is nothing more than lights in a box."
---Edward R. Murrow.
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Loudon Wainwright III: a Biography in Song
Music and Recording FeaturesInterviews
Steve Guttenberg  |  May 03, 2012  |  0 comments
Photo: Aiyana Elliott

Even when Loudon Wainwright III (left in photo with Ramblin' Jack Elliot) was a young man he was writing autobiographical songs, and his old themes of family, sex, and death resonate more deeply on his new record, Older Than My Old Man Now. He usually performs solo, armed with just an acoustic guitar or a banjo, but most of his recordings present more heavily produced versions of LWIII's music. When I chatted with LWIII in late April I wanted to explore that dichotomy and how those transformations take place.

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Modern Sounds
As We See It
Steve Guttenberg  |  Dec 17, 2006  |  0 comments
"You listen to these modern records, they're atrocious, they have sound all over them. There's no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like—static."—Bob Dylan, interviewed by Jonathan Lethem. Rolling Stone, September 7, 2006
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New Sensations
As We See It
Steve Guttenberg  |  Apr 22, 2014  |  First Published: May 01, 2014  |  19 comments
Here's what I've learned in my 35 years in the High End, first as a hi-fi salesman and then as a full-time reviewer and blogger: No hi-fi, no matter how expensive or exalted, will ever deliver the holy grail. While there have been considerable advances over the years, I can cite two 50+-year-old loudspeakers—Quad ESL electrostatics and Klipsch's big horns—whose transparency and dynamic range, respectively, blow away those of many contemporary high-end speakers. The very best of today's speakers, electronics, and source components don't zero in on a single perfected sound indistinguishable from the experience of being in the same room as the musicians—no, every one of them sounds different from all the rest. I want to experience as many of those flavors as I can.
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Rediscovering the Faith
As We See It
Steve Guttenberg  |  Mar 15, 2010  |  0 comments
I may have had 4000 LPs and a perfectly wonderful Linn LP12 turntable, but I could go for weeks on end without listening to a single LP. But I still thought of myself as one of the vinyl faithful, even as I rationalized my digital-centric listening tendencies. I loved analog in theory—I just couldn't bring myself to listen to it all that much.
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Should Music Be Free?
As We See It
Steve Guttenberg  |  Aug 28, 2013  |  First Published: Sep 01, 2013  |  33 comments
No one ever had to pay for recorded music—it was always "free" on the radio—and the home taping of LPs, the copying of cassettes, and, later, burning CDs made buying music optional. Then Napster and other file-sharing sites kicked it up a notch and made it very easy to assemble a 10,000-song collection without spending a dime. Now, Spotify, BitTorrent, SoundCloud, MOG, and YouTube make music instantly accessible on demand. It raises the question: Will music lovers continue to buy music? Paying for recorded music is now, more than ever, a voluntary act.
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Sisters in Sound
FeaturesInterviews
Steve Guttenberg  |  Oct 29, 2002  |  First Published: Oct 30, 2002  |  0 comments
We all know that women generally have better hearing than men and enjoy music at least as much as men do, but women are conspicuously absent from every segment of the high-end audio scene. The vast majority of high-end companies are owned by men, and any head count of female designers, retailers, reviewers, or consumers will yield a pitifully small number. High-end audio is a man's, man's, man's world.
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Start Making Sense
As We See It
Steve Guttenberg  |  Jun 23, 2014  |  First Published: Jul 01, 2014  |  20 comments
Record-business profits peaked 20 years ago, just before Napster and other file-sharing sites turned their world upside down. There have been occasional surges, but the future of the Compact Disc looks bleak, and while income from downloaded files is still climbing, the shift of profitability from à la carte music sales to unlimited streaming on demand seems inevitable. The realignment is already underway—the vast majority of today's music listeners, young and old, haven't bought a CD, file, or LP in years. It pains me to admit it, but after hearing, at the 2014 Midem music exhibition, a presentation by Marc Geiger, of William Morris Endeavors, I was convinced that music-streaming companies are poised to reboot the industry. If Geiger's predictions are accurate, the music business will be more profitable than ever, and swell to $100 billion in 20 years or less (see www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcNsAR_FM5M&feature=share).
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