How do you judge your system's neutrality?

Mr. Tennis, You aren't telling us your short memory prevents you from recognizing a live piano sound from one occasion to another. What would keep you from recognizing a music system that comes darn close, and know how far it varies?

Vince - I have many piano recordings and each of them is different (some very different). Even same modern Steinway can sound very different (not talking about other brands, non cast iron plate pianos or uprights).

At each concert they also sound very different even if it is the same brand and model (instrument, concert hall, seating).

1. Which concert sound I supposed to remember?
2. Which recording to use for testing my system?
3. Everybody else has to agree with me to make it objective
(in good society everybody has exactly same opinions anyway)

If the goal is to tell piano from the hammer, as CB723 suggested, I think it can be possibly done.

there is much subjectivity involved in making statements of a quantitative natture without a reference and relying exclusively upon memory.

when comparing say, 2 stereo systems, i suspect that there will be significant disagreements among serious listeners, unless a piano is available for comparison to a recording, as a basis for judgment. memory is too unreliable. i have some personal experienece as part of a master's program in psychology.

i do not trust aural memory.

there are ways to compare stereo systems which require elaborate designs, which are often impractical.

neutrality is such an abstract concept that it may be irrelevant as far as configuring a stereo system.

kijanki, The point I am making is, if you know what a grand sounds like and if you know your system can convincingly reproduce the sound of a grand piano you would know it. You don't have to know if the recording you are listening to sounds just the same as what was recorded. You have to make a judgement call on whether your system can recreate the sound of a piano to your satisfaction.

Like yours, all my recorded piano solos sound different. I have a few that were exceptionally recorded. I use those at full throttle to judge my playback.

Vince - Yes, I can recognize piano when I hear one (I think), but we're talking about subtle differences and perfect aural memory (mine is far from it). When Learsfool, musician by trade, says that remembering exact sound is difficult (if "reference" sound even exists) for me it will be very difficult or impossible (there are reasons I'm not a musician!). I can tell if I like the sound but to tell if it's accurate is beyond me.

Let assume this: I go to concert and 2 days later they make CD from this particular concert (they are very very fast), while my poor aural memory is still fresh. I play it at home and discover that piano has different tone and its dynamics are much smaller than what I remember. What is suppose to think? Is it my system coloring or is it recording engineer plus recording equipment coloring? Well - there is remedy for that. Let listen to many recordings of the piano to take "average" sound and verify how good my recording is. It happens that all recordings have low dynamics and different tone. Hmm - is it my system or recording engineer? He wouldn't be so ruthless to kill dynamics - it has to be my system then or I remember wrong.

That was one possibility. Imagine now that my speakers resonate with the floor at low frequency extending speaker's response. Some love it while others hate bass with poor definition. What is closer to neutral sound? It depends whom you ask.

I like sound of my system and don't really care how true it is to reality especially if there isn't one that can be defined. I also realize that you might hate sound of my system and that's the beauty of audio experience. Lets leave categorizing and testing to academics - scientists, psychologists etc.