05-10-11: Roysen
Neutrality is what we are searching for. It’s the ultimate goal. That is why we upgrade. To get sound played back closer in quality to the real thing.
Roysen – If you look at the posts on this thread, especially those by Newbee and Learsfool, you will see that some audiophiles do not value neutrality, or at least they do not prioritize it above other considerations.
Personally, I do value neutrality. But I do not regard it as the “ultimate” goal, as you do.
Our definitions of "neutrality" are similar, though not identical. You define neutrality as accuracy (relative to the recording). On this thread, I defined neutrality as the degree of absence of colorations, and I defined "colorations" as audible inaccuracies (relative to the recording).
If we choose your definition of neutrality, then greater neutrality is synonymous with being more truthful to the recording. If we choose my definition of neutrality, then greater neutrality is *nearly* synonymous with being more truthful to the recording.
I say “nearly synonymous” because, since I define neutrality in terms of *audible* inaccuracies, I must acknowledge that, while more audible inaccuracies always amounts to less neutrality, less neutrality does not always amount to more audible inaccuracies, for the simple reason that some inaccuracies are inaudible. If you can understand that sentence on first reading, you are a smarter man than I am. Nevertheless, it is a true statement, I believe. But it is irrelevant to the point I am trying to arrive at, which is...
I do not believe that greater neutrality *always* results in sound that is, as you put it, “closer to the real thing.” I believe that, sometimes, small movements away from accuracy to the recording (i.e. away from neutrality) results in sound that is "closer to the real thing."
The reason is this: Many, perhaps all, recordings REMOVE information that was present at the real event. Hence, a system that tries to ADD the missing information back may actually sound closer to the live event than the system that is strictly accurate to the recording (i.e. neutral). Of course, the EXACT information from the live event is lost forever, if it does not make it to the recording. But I believe that an APPROXIMATION of the lost information can sometimes be added back, and that by doing so, the system may be "closer to the real thing."
I do not mean to overstate this. I do believe that efforts to make a system more accurate to the recording, and hence more neutral, will *generally* result in sound that is more truthful to the live event. But I do not think that is *always* the case.
05-10-11: Tbg
I do believe in "objective truth."…
When it comes to audio, however, I would imagine that it would be very difficult to find agreement as to what objective measures might be used to assess which speaker is better. It is easy to assess frequency response, phase correctness, and dispersion. Perhaps we could even agree about distortion. Were we to then choose the ten best speakers and conduct listening sessions, I doubt that we would have any agreement about which is best. The reason is we are missing too much of what makes a speaker better and don't share opinions about these other attributes, much less having the capability to measure them.
As I mentioned on the Tidal thread, there are two issues at stake…
1. IS component x neutral?
2. HOW DO WE KNOW if component x is neutral?
My impression is that Roysen is arguing that there are objective truths about (1) and you are arguing that there are not objective truths about (2).
But the absence of objective truths about (2) does not prevent the existence of objective truths about (1). That was the point I was trying to make on the Tidal thread.
Put another way, the fact that audiophiles cannot agree about the neutrality of a component does not mean that there is no fact of the matter about the neutrality of a component. Intersubjective agreement is not a necessary condition of objective truths. That is the whole point of saying a truth is “objective.” The force of the term “objective” with respect to truth is to express the idea that truth is INDEPENDENT OF PERSONS. And if truth is independent of persons, then agreement or disagreement is irrelevant to whether or not a component is, in fact, neutral.
On the other hand, agreement and disagreement are not irrelevant to the QUESTION of whether a component is neutral or not. This may appear to be a play on words -- I admit that I'm in a bit of a Lewis Carroll mood today. But I can assure you that my comments are in earnest.
Lastly, all of this has nothing to do with preference. People should choose components according to their own preferences, not someone else’s.
Bryon
