Hi Erik
Can I change the word neutral to natural?
Michael Green
Neutral or Detailed. You can't have both
I've thought about this and I mostly agree. Most musical instruments are fairly loud and most recordings are made with microphones fairly close. It makes sense that a speaker that is neutral would have the full detail of the instrument when played at the same volume as the instrument. If listened to at a much lower volume a lot of the detail will become inaudible. I definitely think some speakers manage to retain detail at lower volumes better than others. I don't know what the factors are. I suspect low mass, stiff drivers are better at making small transients audible. I have two systems, one with Thiel 3.7s and another with ATC 110s and I love them both but they're distinctly different in that the Thiels are better at low volume while the ATCs excel when cranked. The ATCs sound boring at low volume but they are capable of far larger dynamic swings. |
I would think that at moderate listening volume, a neutral sounding speaker, as the human ear is concerned, would have a measurable dip in the upper mids/ lower treble. I believe this why the average studio monitor leans toward brightness and fatigue. I agree that exaggerated treble is often mistaken for detail. Case in point would be Golden Ear Tritons: https://www.stereophile.com/content/goldenear-technology-triton-one-loudspeaker-measurements They have quite a large boost above 10kHz. To my ears, these speakers produced about as much detail as $400 Klipsch towers, yet they were ear-piercing bright. Maybe the brightness was simply masking detail? |
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