AudiogoN Forums: How do you judge your system's neutrality?

How do you judge your system's neutrality?

Here’s an answer I’ve been kicking around: Your system is becoming more neutral whenever you change a system element (component, cable, room treatment, etc.) and you get the following results:

(1) Individual pieces of music sound more unique.
(2) Your music collection sounds more diverse.

This theory occurred to me one day when I changed amps and noticed that the timbres of instruments were suddenly more distinct from one another. With the old amp, all instruments seemed to have a common harmonic element (the signature of the amp?!). With the new amp, individual instrument timbres sounded more unique and the range of instrument timbres sounded more diverse. I went on to notice that whole songs (and even whole albums) sounded more unique, and that my music collection, taken as a whole, sounded more diverse.

That led me to the following idea: If, after changing a system element, (1) individual pieces of music sound more unique, and (2) your music collection sounds more diverse, then your system is contributing less of its own signature to the music. And less signature means more neutral.

Thoughts?

P.S. This is only a way of judging the relative neutrality of a system. Judging the absolute neutrality of a system is a philosophical question for another day.

P.P.S. I don’t believe a system’s signature can be reduced to zero. But it doesn’t follow from that that differences in neutrality do not exist.

P.P.P.S. I’m not suggesting that neutrality is the most important goal in building an audio system, but in my experience, the changes that have resulted in greater neutrality (using the standard above) have also been the changes that resulted in more musical enjoyment.

Bryoncunningham (System | Reviews | Threads | Answers | This Thread)

11-05-09

Responses (201-250 of 401)

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12-11-09 Tolstoy: "truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by it ... Dgarretson

12-11-09 Dgarretson writes: heh. relating to continuousness, move ... Cbw723

12-11-09 Dgarretson wrote: this is a very interesting observation. i ... Bryoncunningham

12-12-09 many message boards give you the option to put trolls on ig ... Cbw723

12-12-09 Dgarretson, you are as sharp as a tack! love your response a ... Newbee

12-12-09 Newbee, sorry i was inhospitable. your speculation that the ... Dgarretson

12-12-09 lol! by posting an on-topic discussion on the application ... Cbw723

12-12-09 Meanwhile, back in the on-topic world, i think i’ve come up ... Cbw723

12-12-09 Dgarretson – thanks for clarifying your view on “embodiment. ... Bryoncunningham

12-12-09 Cbw, my interpretation of bryon's posts has been that he wan ... Learsfool

12-12-09 A little while back, al suggested substituting another term, ... Bryoncunningham

12-13-09 yes, that is essentially the argument. #1 and #3 are by def ... Cbw723

12-13-09 A fuller extract of ideas from g. holt’s audio glossary seem ... Dgarretson

12-13-09 Learsfool wrote: like many people, i have had this experie ... Bryoncunningham

12-14-09 Dgarretson, thanks for the clarification. i actually didn't ... Learsfool

12-14-09 Preference for a particular coloration(s))and the general t ... Mrtennis

12-14-09 Learsfool – i appreciate your thanks and i’m grateful for yo ... Bryoncunningham

12-14-09 I agree with mrtennis. this discussion is analogous to jugg ... Tvad

12-15-09 Hi bryon - i agree that this has been an interesting debate. ... Learsfool

12-15-09 Learsfool – although it is hazardous to argue by proxy, i wi ... Bryoncunningham

12-15-09 I would like to say a few words, not the detractors of neutr ... Bryoncunningham

12-15-09 Bryon, i would like to apologize to you for my acts of hosti ... Newbee

12-15-09 Bryon wrote, "by improving the way you think about thin ... Dgarretson

12-15-09 i second these thoughts, and share these feelings in my own ... Almarg

12-15-09 Hi bryon - nice posts! your second interpretation of the &q ... Learsfool

12-15-09 this is the part i find most puzzling. i realize that ther ... Cbw723

12-15-09 To whip the horse's eyes with one more water analogy, " ... Dgarretson

12-15-09 Learsfool says: by this argument, you also believe that pre ... Cbw723

12-15-09 Cb723 - my vacuum cleaner is very low pressure cleaner. hop ... Kijanki

12-15-09 Newbee, dgarretson, al, and cbw – thank you all for your com ... Bryoncunningham

12-16-09: Cbw723
A while ago Bryon produced some equations. Among them:

1. CA = (1/L+N+D). A COMPONENT’S ACCURACY is determined by the amount of loss, noise, and distortion within the component. More specifically, a component's accuracy is INVERSELY PROPORTIONAL to its loss, noise, and distortion.

Just a nit pick here: operator precedence being what it is, the equation as written would be evaluated as CA = (1/L) + N + D. But your intent to have all component accuracy be inversely proportional to all three of loss, noise, and distortion would be better written as CA = 1/(L+N+D).

3. CR = CA + FR. A COMPONENT’S RESOLUTION is determined by the accuracy of the component and the format resolution of the source. Specifically, a component's resolution is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to its accuracy and the format resolution.

I've been wrestling with this one because I don't think of a component's resolution as limited by the resolution of the source -- that is, the output at any given moment may be limited by the source, but that is not be the component's inherent resolution limit. It is only when the source resolution exceeds the component resolution that you can know anything about the component resolution, at which point the source resolution ceases to be a factor. Or maybe I'm missing your point.

4. SA = SoCA. A SYSTEM’S ACCURACY is determined by the sum of its components’ accuracy. Specifically, they are DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL.

5. SN = SoCN. A SYSTEM’S NEUTRALITY is determined by the sum of its components’ neutrality. Specifically, they are DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL.

I have a couple of thoughts on these "sum of" relationships. 1) Some types of errors may not be simply propagated through downstream components, but may actually be reinforced by them. This kind of error may result in an exponential relationship, rather than a simple additive one. This would be an example of bad synergy among components. 2) In some cases, the entire chain may be limited by a single component. Resolution, for instance, may well be a function of the least resolving component in the chain, rather than the sum of small losses in several components. Neutrality, on the other hand, is likely the sum of the components contribution.

I realize that you did not intend these to be strict mathematical relationships, but these are some ideas that occurred to me about other types of relationships among components.
Cbw723 (Answers | This Thread)

12-17-09 Cbw – those are excellent observations. taking them one at a ... Bryoncunningham

12-17-09 Hi bryon - i think there is still some misunderstanding here ... Learsfool

12-17-09 Learsfool wrote: learsfool - i understand that you believ ... Bryoncunningham

12-18-09 Hi bryon - interesting questions, and i am sorry i can't tak ... Learsfool

12-19-09 In the english language , better is a subjective term, unles ... Mrtennis

12-19-09 Mrtennis writes: yes, it is. but it also isn't the subject ... Cbw723

12-20-09 Hi cbw: aural memory is very short. when judging the difffe ... Mrtennis

12-21-09 Mr. tennis, you aren't telling us your short memory prevents ... Muralman1

12-21-09 Vince - i have many piano recordings and each of them is dif ... Kijanki

12-21-09 There is much subjectivity involved in making statements of ... Mrtennis

12-21-09 Kijanki, the point i am making is, if you know what a grand ... Muralman1

12-21-09 Vince - yes, i can recognize piano when i hear one (i think) ... Kijanki

12-22-09 Observations: there are some really intelligent people in t ... Entrope

12-24-09 Learsfool - sorry for the late reply. i've been traveling fo ... Bryoncunningham

12-24-09 Mrtennis wrote: and kijanki wrote: let assume this: i g ... Bryoncunningham

12-24-09 Does anyone posit that in order to enjoy the fruits of liste ... Mrtennis

12-24-09 Bryoncunningham - we have two problems here: first - you be ... Kijanki

12-25-09 Mrtennis and kijanki - i have said many, many times on this ... Bryoncunningham

12-25-09 Bryoncunningham - you're a nice guy and i like reading your ... Kijanki

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