neutrality vs. realism

Your mind is pretty well made up that "ultra high-end" amplifiers sound so much better, why bother ask for opinions? Again your post here seems to be pretty much a closed loop. Contrast your post with that of the fellow who bought an Onkyo receiver at a yard sale and is pleasantly surprised at how good it sounds. Listen to what you like and don't fret too much over these questions. If you feel that some distortion, some noise, some non-linearities add to the listening experience, consider yourself part of the new breed of audiophiles who have helped sound reproduction complete the circle. Good day.

This should be a good discussion. First, consider the older amplifiers with 0.001% distortion. Lots of feedback to give great specs, and terrible sound. I think we have come to realize that specifications do not equal great sound, but your question I think really goes to the heart of the listener, more so than the equipment. Even though you stated this is not tube vs solid stat I think it is a great example: quality tube amp, vs a solid state amp in the same league (price, quality etc). The solid state will "measure" better in almost every circustance, but some people will prefer the sound of the tubes. Analog and digital playback have the same phenomenon. In almost every aspect of measuring the CD will win, but many, including myself, prefer vinyl.
Now, because I am an acoustical engineer and design listening rooms for living, I would like to take a small twist on your topic to an area I know a bit better--the room. The room has, I think more variation, and in many cases more impact on the listening experience than any individual component. A room can actually be tuned to an individual's taste and there are always give and take. Let's start with the extreme, a studio control room. This is very neutral, and usually sounds a bit on the dead sound. While not over damped, it is damped more heavily than most rooms to keep reverberation times to a minimum. It is usually engineered the Helmhotz resonators and has an absolute (or close) frequency response. In most cases (with smaller studios), the heaviest damping is behind the speakers, and if there is a live end, it is behind the engineer. This is because (as an example), the live end is usually where the performers are and the dead end is behind the microphones. The goal in the studio is to give back the sound to the engineer as though he were standing in the performers position and the mics were speakers. This works great for the studio engineer, it would not be so great for most listeners. We have designed rooms with longer reverberation times for some people than others. Some want an overdamped room and a very dry sound. Some people play at high volumes and need sound isolation as well as slightly more high frequency attenuation.
Now to take it one last step further. I think you've really gotten to what building a system is about. It has to be musically engaging. There has to be the magic--not just the notes. Someone may be able to play the notes of a song, but they can't play the music. They just don't seem to have the sense, pacing, and naturalness to really play the music. I've heard many concerts that I felt like that was the case--and then I've heard others that I was just in awe of. In building a system, I think it's the same. While every component may not have that etherial magic to it, when combined with other parts of the system it does create a real naturalness, and a large part of that is the speakers coupling to the room. The most distortion, phase and otherwise, occurs due to this interaction. This interaction is need to give you a sense of space and dimensionality, which to me is what creates that naturalness in the presentation. Have you ever listened to a pair of speakers out in a pasture--no walls no interaction. Probably wouldn't sound too good--but you would have gotten rid of the one thing that causes the most distortion--the room.
I think I've said enough. I'm looking forward to others thoughts on this one as well.

my view of this issue is the concept of your system "getting out of the way of the music". when you are able to concentrate on the performance and not on the influence your system has on the musical message.....you have gone beyond 'HiFi' into 'just the music'......when it is the musical whole instead of particular pieces. i have pursued this concept for awhile.

my efforts have brought me to the realization that sometimes the absense of items in the signal path allows the music to come thru unrestricted. so neutrality or accuracy or realism or sounding 'live' or whatever you want to call it is attainable to some degree.

it is not neutrality verses realism.......but that neutral components or cables have the least influence on the musical message and ALLOW realism.

the biggest barrier to success in this challenge is that if you have a component in the signal path that is not neutral (i.e. it has it's own sound) then you need other components to balance that distortion with their own.....pretty soon it is a hopeless case. so you must build your system around neutral components initially if realism is your goal.

one real barrier to this approach is that components that are neutral are many times 'not exciting' when initially encountered.....it is not until many of these 'neutral' components are put carefully together that the synergy can happen and bring you closer to the musical event.

Oh, boy! Here we go again.

My take on this is that our ears are the ultimate judge, and I will grant that impressions may vary from person to person. If this makes me a "subjectivist" so be it.

Now, alot of the controversy and confusion come from the idea that psychological phenomena play a part in product auditioning, and that may very well be so. I do not discount that totally.

The other part of the controversy comes from the idea that bench measurements will tell us whether our listening impressions could be correct or not. Some people say that if an amp sounds right, then who cares what the bench measurements say. I am one of them. Other people say if the bench measurements are not "good" then the amp is no good no matter what it sounds like. The description given to them is "euphonic distortion"(pleasing distortion- whatever that might be). IMO the major fallacy with this latter method, is that it relies on electronic tests that have no direct bearing on the amplifier in "real world" use. It depends on largely test-tones, and and meters, in steady state conditions to make its tests. 20 years ago, this method was proved to be flawed, and thrown out the window, by anyone serious about audio, but it has kept "hanging around" ever since then. The classic foil for this is,"How come my Technics receiver has .0000000001% distortion, but that $10k amp has 1% distortion and sounds way better. My Technics has lower distortion, doesn't it? So the Technics should sound better." Now, granted, this is a simplified case, but the fact is that the measuring methods and equipment are simply not measuring the right things. They are measuring the things that they were designed to measure. Electrical characteristics. They were not designed to measure the listening quality of music. That is what ears are designed to do. And that is why ears should be the measuring instrument, and not meters. To think that meters can measure the complex interaction between the reproduced music, and the emotional reactions of the brain, by testing the function of a negative feedback circuit is quite humorous indeed. In fact, it appears that amp designers and measurement technicians do not even have a good grasp of how their products will interact with other components, like speakers, which is what they are supposed to drive. But they know all about how it will perform on an oscilloscope. Too bad we don't listen to oscilloscopes.
Ultimately the only measurement we need to know, is whether the product sounds good to us. All else is merely an attempt to quantify "why" it might sound good. I have read on these pages, that any experience in listening, which may contradict the measured numbers, is simply "explained away" by the red herrings of "self-delusion for the purpose of justifying expenditures", or "unverifiable subjective responses that could not withstand double-blind testing". Both cases calling into question, the abilities of the listener. I call into question the abilities and methods of the testers and equipment, and state categorically that they cannot withstand scrutiny, because they do not always conform with the actual real-world performance. The "psycological" argument is nothing more than a smoke-screen to mask the mis-application of the test methodologies that cause incorrect conclusions to be drawn about the actual listening performance of a product. These mis-applications, and the conclusions drawn, cause design changes to be done, that may actually detract from the listening performance of a product, as is the case with some high-negative-feedback designs.

I liken this to deep philosophical discussions, where there is great amount of study given to "why" or "what" is existence. But, ultimately, you have to live your existence, regardless of whether you can explain it or not. This is where the "rubber hits the road" and, so it is the case with listening impressions of audio gear. The measurements don't matter, if the gear sounds like crap, or if it sounds like heaven, for that matter.

I don't totally disregard measurements, but I don't let them tell me what I hear and what I don't hear. I would use measurements for what they are designed to do, and use my ears to do what they are designed to do.

I believe that neutrality and realism are one in the same when it comes to the goals of audio components and the reproduction of music. However, many (maybe all) companies that use such adjectives to describe their equipment do so only for marketing purposes. Understandably, they're in business to make a profit. Some manufacturers, such as Levinson/Madrigal, produce equipment that is lifeless and unemotional, painting a "two dimensional" picture and robbing the music of microdynamics and pace. The audiophile press has praised the "neutrality" and "accuracy" of such gear. Others companies, like Krell, tout "authenticity" and "realism," but have a highly polished, chrome plated, "larger than life" sound that is great for a brief audition and a quick sale but eventually proves to be too bright, too brash and fatiguing. Many users and purveyors of tubed gear assert a claim of "musicality," which I gather is supposed to a higher plane of both neutrality and realism. Unfortunately, tubed gear often produces a warm, euphonic and overly romantic sound that exaggerates the midband and smears the timing of music. I'm sure others will disagree with or be insulted by my opinions and examples, but ultimately, it comes down to what flavor of coloration you prefer.