Thsalmon: Right on! Your descriptions, although generalized, match my impressions exactly in every case. Funny how that works!
Re the original post, I'm not sure what point is being made here. "Neutrality" and "Realism" ought to be one and the same, so maybe I'm not understanding the definitions. In my mind, both describe a desire to approach the original recorded sound as closely as possible, without "romantic" or "euphonic" colorations (which many people undoubtedly prefer to realism). Unless maybe you are referring to neutrality as a measurement quality rather than a sonic one, in which case you have a point. By the way, I have never felt Madrigal products to be anywhere near neutral, at least by my definition of the term. They have always sounded extremely polite and sanitized, and quite lacking in life. Many people would refer to this as "refined", and some might even call it "neutral", but I think that is a misnomer. "Neutral" to me means that you can't tell the component is there, and that is most certainly not the case with their products. Granted, their deviations from neutrality are on the "subtractive" side rather than the "additive" side (eg, Krell), but they are not neutral.
Re the original post, I'm not sure what point is being made here. "Neutrality" and "Realism" ought to be one and the same, so maybe I'm not understanding the definitions. In my mind, both describe a desire to approach the original recorded sound as closely as possible, without "romantic" or "euphonic" colorations (which many people undoubtedly prefer to realism). Unless maybe you are referring to neutrality as a measurement quality rather than a sonic one, in which case you have a point. By the way, I have never felt Madrigal products to be anywhere near neutral, at least by my definition of the term. They have always sounded extremely polite and sanitized, and quite lacking in life. Many people would refer to this as "refined", and some might even call it "neutral", but I think that is a misnomer. "Neutral" to me means that you can't tell the component is there, and that is most certainly not the case with their products. Granted, their deviations from neutrality are on the "subtractive" side rather than the "additive" side (eg, Krell), but they are not neutral.