Neutral or Detailed. You can't have both


At least not how I understand the audiophile terms. The problem comes in the mid-treble.

A truly, measurably, objectively neutral speakers doesn’t come alive until the volume is turned up, but will lack the perception of detail, because those details come from exaggerated and often rough treble responses.

B&W however has some of this reputation. They are not objectively neutral speakers.

The Magico S1 Mk II has an uptilt in the treble, but is glass smooth. It is probably what I consider the best example of this combined desire for a neutral but detailed speaker.

Monitor Audio’s top end speakers - Objectively neutral, superbly engineered. Often too laid back for most people, Audiophiles would not consider them "detailed."

As always, you should buy what you like. Maybe you don’t like neutral speakers. Goodness knows some reviewers don’t.
erik_squires
Ok, I cheated.

I use neutral amps/pre with speakers which I built from scratch. But more importantly the amps allowed me go with active crossovers for these 3-ways, so I was able to 'dial out' crossover related roughness and nonlinearities and naturally I had a say in driver quality matching to begin with and driver levels and delay were easily set and so on. But another major factor for me was finding a great power treatment than manged not to screw up the audio band at all.

So the upper-mid/treble playing field leveled considerably...the number of choices of possible driver candidates expanded greatly in terms of tonal response smoothness and inner warmth vs detail improvement. The number of tweeters, for example, that might otherwise have been deemed by me as too harsh, all but fell off a cliff. Things have worked out well here, no matter what the volume.

There must be any number of possible influences and variables here in your scenario, but the worst ones I was able to work around. But, as far as among existing speakers, that may be be another matter. But, like some others here, I tend to think that there's no real, direct relationship between neutral and detailed. I tend I guess to think of the relationship you describe as not necessarily fundamental and I'm thinking may only superficially exist as a combination of various things like noise and the vagaries or errors of crossover/speaker design in general in the market today. But, I mean, if you go and unravel that onion, and I have, the underlying terms of neutral and detail appear to be rather unrelated.
Michael is right - natural. Real live sound is both natural and detailed.
To hell with tremble to begin with, midrange is what should be done right, though Michael might say that this is wrong too - everything should be done right at the same time as a coherent whole, you don't do it in pieces. Yep, if you can.
I would add that acoustic instruments are not created equal either. I haven't heard Amati or Stradivarius but I have heard great guitar and piano, I also heard terrible ones. Do you want to accurately reproduce the sound of a terrible instrument or you want to deviate from neutrality in this sense and try to 'improve' it ? Sometimes instruments are also slightly out of tune. Anything to do about it or leave it alone ?
Neutral and detailed comes together,when you have  both: a neutral amplifier ( like Esoteric f- 03, f-05, datzeel, d’agostino.....) and a good (neutral) pair of speakers ( Audio Monitor PL., Ilumnia Magister,....)If you listen ,to a bad recording,it sounds bad. A good one ,good. Neutral means:”how the sound really is, each instrument on the right place,neutral means also holographic and to the point. If it is neutral, means :it’s also detailed. For me, a lot of speakers like  B&W ,Y.G. ..are not neutral. They overflow the music. There is no right sinergy, between  ,high mid, and low. If you put a bad recording on it,it sounds stil good: this isn’t neutral ,let alone detailed sound. Why? :the Instruments do not sound the way they really should sound. I have now 6000 cd’s,my player is a Luxman sacd-D-06. He is very neutral. From the 6000,they are maybe 1000 that sounds very good. Many others too sharp or deep, and a large number not to hear. In high-end ,both ( neutral and detailed) come together.
It’s like a photo of you. If you take this with a normal camera, you  Will look good, no Winklers....you take one with a sophisticated one, you see all the details: wrinkles,how you really look,you look older ( not as you really want)...that’s the same with music. Enjoy it!!!