Neutral electronics are a farce...

Al I agree with all your points.

I want my recorded music to convince me it's live, warts and all.   So I want it to be neutral and accurate. 

If it sounds any way all the time, even smooth and relaxing, that is not a good thing to me.  Its not good either if the sound is continuously irritating and  chases me out of the room.  Its OK if some recordings are and come out that way.

I know all is well when I hear a lot of variety and want to just keep on listening rather than wanting to turn it off.   Only in recent years have I achieved that.

If it sounds any way all the time, even smooth and relaxing, that is not a good thing to me. Its not good either if the sound is continuously irritating and chases me out of the room. Its OK if some recordings are and come out that way.

I agree fully!

I'm only speaking for myself of course but IMO audiophiles tend to over analyze this kind of stuff too much. It's only natural considering the money involved. I've given up the need to over analyze frequencies or any other such stuff to come to a conclusion about my gear. The only thing that maters is what sounds neutral to me.  In the end It may not sound neutral to anyone else. In the search for "neutrality" you can go and blame the electronics, the electricity from the walls, the rotation of the earth for that matter. Your chasing a perfect circle. Meaning it's a concept that cannot truly be achieved. So the only person you have to convince is yourself. None of it amounts to anything unless you like it yourself. All this talk about what is and what isn't neutral is a waist of time IMO - interesting to talk about but ultimately a black hole for your time. We are all trying to achieve a sound the we - individually - like so there can never be one truth about any of this stuff. Just groups of people who cluster together at different points of the spectrum of what they consider correct. We all intuitively know this but I guess we are gluttons for punishment cause we keep going in circles about it. 😜

Neutral is too ill-defined as it applies to audio but it seems to be used frequently and many are not sure what it means. If I was interested in purchasing a particular piece of gear I might for a very brief moment want it to sound neutral, forgetting that the end result of any system is based on the combination of several other components. Someone made that word up, so get rid of it.

Dracule1, I too see no use for the concept of "neutral." I think realism is the goal I seek. One has to know what instruments sound like and hear the human presence around their playing or singing. But recently, I have heard realism at the fringes of the orchestra that are new. The illusion of a three or four person group seems easy but that of a symphonic orchestra or big band is not. I heard it somewhat in the Zandon suite at CES but much more with the new H-Cat X-10 MkIII amp. I no longer will be without this total realism.