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

Showing 5 responses by csontos

Exactly. The goal is to fool your ears into thinking it's real. Original performance doesn't mean squat.
Hey, if you end up replicating the performance, all the better. I think it's everyone's goal whether we know it or not.
With all due respect, it is a ridiculous exercise imo since none of the gear is voiced in that manner while being designed. He's discovered a novelty all his own. My experience has been that however wide, deep, or high the sound stage is, the better the gear gets, the smaller the sweet spot is. But, the bigger the ballpark gets.
I don't think anyone will disagree with you. But if we really want to be honest, there is a level at which objectivity trumps the mainstay of this forum. Namely the politically charged subjective forces that protect the party line. I think if someone here declares that they prefer the sound of an old pair of B&W 801/802 over a pair of Magico Q7's, we can safely declare they are full of shit. As far as brand P vs. brand X goes, from your experience, I would say my statement is a reasonable facsimile.