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
the question is "how to judge neutrality ?"

if neutrality doesn't not exist, you can't judge it ?

without perfection there is no neutrality or accuracy.

there are ways of judging inaccuracy, or distortion or coloration , but not absolute freedom from errors, since components have flaws. whether you can hear them or not, no human being can achieve perfection, so why try to judge it ?
hi mike:

just a joke but "most neutral" reminds me of being a little bit pregnant. i think you meant swiss speakers are minimally inaccurate.
05-13-11: Mrtennis
without perfection there is no neutrality or accuracy.

"most neutral" reminds me of being a little bit pregnant.

Since...

Accuracy is a matter of degree.

Therefore...

Inaccuracies are a matter of degree.

Therefore...

Neutrality is a matter of degree.

Therefore...

Neutrality is not like being pregnant.

Therefore...

"Perfect" neutrality is a red herring.

Bryon
what you hear with neutral versus colored sound is analogous to what you see through clear and transparent versus tinted glass
hi byron

accuracy is not a matter of degree. something is either accurate or it is not. it is not a relative term. it is absolute.

is truth a matter of degree ? no. something is either true or false. there may be degrees of inaccuracy , but accuracy is a condition that one may try to attain therefore it is absolute.

if accurate were a relative term how would you know how accurate some thing is unless you had a reference ?

you may be confusing degrees of inaccuracy with degrees of accuracy which is illogical.

if you get 100 on a test that means as far as the test is concerned, you have answered the test questions accurately. you achieved the hihest score possible. there are no degrees of answering test questions accurately.

go to the dictionary and check.