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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 (51-100 of 396)

Click title to read one, or click date to read all below it.

11-18-09 Kijanki wrote: "well - i'm my own playback engineer and ... Cbw723

11-18-09 Byron, imho we simply disagreed on the use of the term neutr ... Newbee

11-18-09 Cbw723 - no i would not adjust sound for individual songs bu ... Kijanki

11-18-09 Nothing creates as much discord among audiophiles as the top ... Tvad

11-18-09 Tvad - you forgot "analog vs. digital" and "t ... Kijanki

11-18-09 isn't that what part of what these talented people do? they ... Shadorne

11-18-09 I had a girlfriend once, who was quite neutral looking, neut ... Gawdbless

11-18-09 Shadorne - i don't question existence of better recordings o ... Kijanki

11-19-09 Great posts - byron, i guess what myself, newbee, kijanki, s ... Learsfool

11-19-09 Learsfool wrote: "i can tell you that no two of us woul ... Bryoncunningham

11-19-09 "i am actually somewhat agnostic." - don't worry, ... Kijanki

11-19-09 well, after 61 posts so far in this thread, i'll throw in m ... Almarg

11-19-09 Kijanki wrote: "no i would not adjust sound for individ ... Cbw723

11-19-09 Cbw723 - don't you have any financial limitations? if not ... Kijanki

11-20-09 I've been doing critical listening lately from 12-24" a ... Cdc

11-20-09 you may have an issue with room acoustics (extremely common ... Shadorne

11-20-09 al, we agree (as usual) - see the first posted reply in thi ... Shadorne

11-20-09 I started this thread with a proposal about how to identify ... Bryoncunningham

11-20-09 I like this definition, but what about imaging? couldn't a ... Cbw723

11-20-09 I think the original two point are valid but a third point i ... Samhar

11-20-09 Byron, it's hard to argue with your new, or restated, positi ... Newbee

11-20-09: Almarg
Excellent last several posts, most definitely including Newbee's despite (and perhaps because of) it's non-emulation of a particular lesser light around here :)

I still feel, though, that the main thrust of the op has been diverted throughout most of this thread by unnecessary focus on semantic nuances, as well as on matters which (although well reasoned, and about which reasonable people can differ) are essentially extraneous to the issue at hand.

After I submitted my previous post, it occurred to me that when I used the phrase "lack of colorations/transparency/neutrality/whatever you want to call it," I should have added the word "accuracy" as well.

Basically all of these terms relate to how accurately what is reproduced by the system (and its room environment), resembles what is sent into it by the recording.

And my restatement of what I believe to be Byron's (Bryon's?) initial basic point, which which I agree, consists of two elements:

1)A significant degree of correlation (although certainly not a perfect correlation) can be expected between listener satisfaction and lack of coloration/increased transparency/neutrality/accuracy or whatever such term may be preferred. And,

2)If a component change, or a change to the entire system, results in consistently increased differentiation of the sounds of different recordings, there is a good likelihood that "lack of coloration/increased transparency/neutrality/accuracy or whatever such term may be preferred" has been improved. Meaning, per item 1, that listener satisfaction stands a good chance of having been improved as well.

Regards,
-- Al
Almarg (System | Threads | Answers | This Thread)

11-20-09 "the word 'unique' as you have used in your original po ... Cbw723

11-20-09 Al - you have stated exactly the intention of my original po ... Bryoncunningham

11-20-09 Way cool discussion going on here. had a feeling this one wo ... Tholt

11-20-09 good question, t, and i think that the answer stems from the ... Almarg

11-20-09 Cbw723, you are right civility is very important and hostili ... Newbee

11-21-09 Fascinating discussion! newbee, i agree with you 100%. bry ... Learsfool

11-22-09 Learsfool - i agree with your observation that it would diff ... Bryoncunningham

11-22-09 It would be complicated for non-audiophiles to judge neutral ... Dgarretson

11-22-09 Dgarretson - great post. some thoughts... i agree with thi ... Bryoncunningham

11-23-09 Bryon, so much of this is about convergence. interesting sp ... Dgarretson

11-23-09 Interesting posts, guys. first, the 50k systems example. i ... Learsfool

11-23-09 Learsfool wrote: i am not saying that a musician's "t ... Bryoncunningham

11-23-09 Learsfool, there is a remote possibility that the gradual co ... Dgarretson

11-24-09 Hi bryon - i am once again thankful i became a musician, and ... Learsfool

11-24-09 Learsfool, all good points. regarding whether "converge ... Dgarretson

11-24-09 Incidently, in forums & industry market-speak the notion of ... Dgarretson

11-24-09 Learsfool - your last post contains many interesting and val ... Bryoncunningham

11-24-09 this idea is fascinating. you mentioned it in your first p ... Cbw723

11-24-09 Interesting points, guys. dgarretson, in general i agree wi ... Learsfool

11-24-09 actually, i think the water analogy is pretty apt here. sc ... Cbw723

11-24-09 Cbw723, i can't extend my experience of close convergence be ... Dgarretson

11-24-09 Learsfool wrote: i disagree that we cannot identify definit ... Bryoncunningham

11-25-09 Very interesting thoughts, bryon, points on the water analog ... Learsfool

11-25-09 You all realize, just changing the volume knob up or down a ... Tonywinsc

11-25-09 Learsfool - i agree that this has been a thought-provoking d ... Bryoncunningham

11-25-09 This simile of a filtering ski goggle is interesting, as is ... Dgarretson

11-25-09 If you really are looking for neutrality then get a frequenc ... Tonywinsc

11-25-09 Tonywinse wrote: this test of the value of neutrality is no ... Bryoncunningham

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