How do you judge your system's neutrality?

Thanks for the recommendation, Bryon. My uncle, who taught philosophy, has given me a couple of books as well, I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I think I am going to tackle mythology first, actually. I have read a few logic books, and I took a logic course in college, but that is the extent of the philosophy background I have.

Has there ever been the assumption that a photo or painting could be mistaken for the real thing? Does that make it any less beautiful? Why should audio be any different?

Sometimes they all bring our a beauty that was hidden even when we saw the real thing.

@ Cdc, short answer, no and no. But who has ever mistaken a photo or a painting as the real thing? The goal of stereo reproduction is fundamentally different in that regard.

Tholt, I agree that for many, the fundamental goal of stereo reproduction is the illusion of the real thing. Not so for photographers. Maybe they are saving themelves a whole bunch of grief not trying to chase down the impossible.

Let's start at the beginning. Are there any recordings that truly sound real? Maybe the best one can hope for is perfect reproduction of what is on the original recording. Because even those are an artistic interpretation by the recording studio, just like a photograph. For example, mic placement can hugely alter how an event is sounds.

So where did this goal come from? Stereophile and the other mag's propagate this so people spend more money trying to achieve what is, dare I say, unachievable. Was this always the goal of hi-end audio? Even back in the 60's when it was considered a main stream, legitimate endeavor by society.
Fact is, when you insert even one wire into the chain, you have irreversibly altered the signal so it is not real anymore.

So when you have the illusion of the real thing in your living room is the stereo creating the illusion or is the listener deceiving himself? Sometimes on first listen and for short periods of time, reproduced audio can be mistaken for the real thing. The classic case is the audio reviewer whose wife calls in from the other room and says it sounds real. Sure, brief non-critical listening. It can happen.

The longer I listen, the more the pieces of phoniness start to make themselves known. In any system. Maybe that's why people keep changing their stereo over and over. The more you listen, the more you hear the defects and thinks by change, they will go away. They do until the new shortcoming pop up. Yes, you can upgrade and the problems are less, but they are never going to go away completely. So where do you stop the madness?

I talked to this one guy who started with Epos and made the rounds for 5 years with many different speakers. I asked him how he compared what he had now to the Epos - balancing out pros an cons - in HIS particular situation. He paused, thought about it, and admitted he really had just been going in circles and had really accomplished nothing. It's all about the journey, I guess.

I see folks getting so into the trees they don't see the forest. For example, John Marks in October 2010 Stereophile who upgrades to Cardas wire and notices the sound is clearer with more bass. But what about the overall perspective that, say, their system with a passive x-over is fundamentally flawed and they are only "polishing a turd"?

Has there ever been the assumption that a photo or painting could be mistaken for the real thing? Does that make it any less beautiful? Why should audio be any different?...

...for many, the fundamental goal of stereo reproduction is the illusion of the real thing. Not so for photographers. Maybe they are saving themselves a whole bunch of grief not trying to chase down the impossible.

Let's start at the beginning. Are there any recordings that truly sound real? Maybe the best one can hope for is perfect reproduction of what is on the original recording. Because even those are an artistic interpretation by the recording studio, just like a photograph.

Cdc - You raise interesting and provocative questions, but I'm not sure exactly what point of view you are expressing. It sounds like you are saying that, since recordings are themselves "interpretations" of musical events, accuracy in playback is not especially important, particularly for those who value beauty above other things.

My own view is that accuracy and beauty are related in the following way: As system accuracy increases, the beauty you hear is the beauty of the RECORDING, rather than the beauty of the SYSTEM. It may seem inconsequential whether the beauty you hear comes from the recording or the system. But I believe it's important, for the following reason: The beauty of a system is largely CONSTANT, whereas the beauty of recordings is infinitely VARIABLE. To illustrate with your analogy...

As you point out, a photograph is an "interpretation" of an event, in the sense that the characteristics of the photograph - color, contrast ratio, depth of field, etc. - are not identical to the characteristics of the event that the photograph represents. It may be tempting to conclude from this that the presentation of that photograph – i.e. its display for viewing – might as well be an "interpretation" that maximizes the beauty of the photographs. So you decide, for example, to display a group of photographs under a pleasing golden light. By doing do, you may increase the CONSISTENCY of the beauty in the photographs (to those who find golden light beautiful), but you decrease the VARIETY of beauty among the photographs (assuming the photos are color). By giving the photographs a uniform yellow tint, you have reduced their visual diversity, and therefore reduced the variety of beauty in their presentation. A more ACCURATE presentation – i.e. uniform white light, white walls, etc. – would provide greater visual diversity, and therefore greater opportunity for variety in the beauty of the photographs. This highlights the value of accuracy even for those who value beauty above all else: Increasing the accuracy of the presentation increases the VARIETY of the beauty presented.

In my view, the situation with musical playback is precisely the same. As you point out, a recording is an “interpretation” of a musical event, in the sense that the characteristics of the recording – dynamic range, frequency response, transient response, etc. – are not identical to the characteristics of the event that the recording represents. It may be tempting to conclude from this that the presentation of the recording – i.e. its playback – might as well be an "interpretation" that maximizes the beauty of the recordings. So you decide, for example, to use an amp that provides pleasing harmonic distortion. By doing so, you may increase the CONSISTENCY of the beauty in the recordings played back in the system, but you decrease the VARIETY of beauty among the recordings. By giving the recordings a uniform harmonic signature, you have reduced their sonic diversity, and therefore reduced the variety of beauty in their presentation. A more ACCURATE presentation – i.e. lower in colorations – would provide greater sonic diversity, and therefore greater opportunity for variety in the beauty of the recordings. This highlights the value of accuracy, even for those who value beauty above all else: Increasing the accuracy of the presentation increases the VARIETY of the beauty presented.

For this reason, I don’t believe that the fact that a recording is an “interpretation” of a musical event supports the conclusion that accuracy is irrelevant for those who value beauty above other things. Even for people who value beauty above all else, accuracy is an important consideration, because it provides the opportunity to experience a greater variety of beauty.