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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
brianw
373 posts
 
Albert: I'll never, ever forget those incredible analog photos of yours, featuring various Benz cartridges for Garth of Musical Surroundings. That was way back when I'd first met you. You had these cartridges blown up to somewhere around 20 or 24 inches, with perfect clarity. The resolution was/is just insane. And to have such perfection when the blown ups were room display sized. Does Garth still use these? He should.

How would the best modern day digital photography do by comparison? If you were to do a similar project today, would you go analog or digital?

My apologies if I've taken this thread on a slight tangent.
muralman1
1,527 posts
 
Bryoncunningham - I do know what you mean. I am rather embarrassed to admit my DAC has tubes. The reason for that is tubes are notorious for going off neutrality. I have done a lot of tube rolling through the years to know they all leave their signature. I have also found there are tubes that err less than others, and those are the ones that attract me. For miniature tubes, I loved the 5751 Sylvania Black Plate. It worked miracles with the Llano amp, and a Jolida 100 I was using way back then.

My DAC has tubes. That is a fact I have to live with for now. I am hoping for a non sampling DAC that has no tubes that I like. The 47 Labs Progression has no tubes, but it has a rather soft delivery.

So, the quest will continue for complete neutrality.
albertporter's avatar
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albertporter
4,949 posts
 
Albert: I'll never, ever forget those incredible analog photos of yours, featuring various Benz cartridges for Garth of Musical Surroundings. That was way back when I'd first met you. You had these cartridges blown up to somewhere around 20 or 24 inches, with perfect clarity. The resolution was/is just insane. And to have such perfection when the blown ups were room display sized. Does Garth still use these? He should.

How would the best modern day digital photography do by comparison? If you were to do a similar project today, would you go analog or digital?

Believe it or not those were from 4X5 film, the 8X10 camera produced even greater resolution.

I used 8X10 for Interstate Battery, Bank of America and other clients that wanted perfection. The cost was very high, from the camera and lens to the 8X10 Polaroid proofs, film and process.

What you saw at CES were real (Kodak paper) color prints.

Digital photography has pretty much taken over, for better or worse. Much like the music business. It's just too easy for clients to make copies, send in email, prep for four color printing and manipulating the image for alternate purposes.

If I were doing the job today and wanted equal resolution I would have to rent something. The ultra high resolution digital systems for photography are super expensive (about $80K). So unless you have clients with deep pockets there is no way to justify the expenditure.

Like digital in music, easy to get cheap copies (think MP3 and photo from iPhone :^). The big Nikon and Canon 24 million pixel cameras are unbelievably good but not yet up with the ultimate film could deliver.

When I do jobs today I never quote film. Film is difficult to impossible to get and all the labs in Dallas that processed pro film have pretty much shut down their lines.
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kijanki
4,413 posts
 
Is 8x10 suitable for any task? Can you use it for late afternoon sports pictures? AFAIK depth of field is very low requiring high F stops. I remember that A. Adams was running "F/64 Club". Such apertures require long exposures making it more suitable for landscape or portrait photography. Cost of the lens with low aberration at such apertures has to be very high not to mention size of the gear and processing. Pictures also cannot be "Photoshopped"
without high resolution scanner for 8x10 negatives.

Price and practicality are important to me. There might be analog TVs that are way better than best HDTV but in what is available to me (Best Buy) is the other way around.
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albertporter
4,949 posts
 
Kijanki,

The question began as a query as to how I achieved the large images shown at CES some years ago. I answered the question truthfully.

I'm a professional photographer and I justified my rates by overcoming very difficult technical obstacles. I'm sure you're not the only one who appreciates the speed and ease that digital provides but that was not the question.

As for lenses that operate at F 64, my camera had all bench matched lenses from Sinar, Switzerland.

They also manufacture electronic lighting which was employed for for nearly 100% of the images I produced. A single pop at 1/60 of a second could easily expose 8X10 film at F 90.

As always there are tools for whatever level of quality is required.
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