Tidal Speakers owners

You said, "Measurements have not been a major consideration in any case that I know of." The fact is that you must simply not know of any real speaker designers. They ALL measure. Read this to see how Revel and Vivid do it: http://www.soundstagehifi.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=228:high-performance-loudspeakers-how-theyre-designed&catid=62:monthly-column&Itemid=3

If you know of a single _credible_ speaker that is not designed using measurements first, then please name it. I'm sorry, but you just don't seem to know about which you speak.

Tbg,

You are talking about what was considered best of two speakers. That would of course be subjective and as such a matter of taste.

Neutrality is different. Its an objective fact. Either the speaker is neutral or its not regardless of someones opinion.

I never wrote that there exist one universal neutrality measurement. A set of measurements much more comprehensive than what JA is using will each one show deviations from neutrality on each character the measurements show.

Technology has moved on. Todays best speakermanufacturers like Tidal, Rockport Technologies, Magico, Wilson, Anat Technologies etc rely more heavily on measurements than the top companies of the past and mostly only huse listening evaluations for confirmation purposes. In fact one of the companies most respected for top sound and neutrality is Goldmund. They have made a press release that they only do listening evaluatios to confirm single compnent choice inside their products. Everything else is done by measurements.

Listening is too unteliable because its subjective and situation related.

Tbg,

You are talking about what was considered best of two speakers. That would of course be subjective and as such a matter of taste.

Neutrality is different. Its an objective fact. Either the speaker is neutral or its not regardless of someones opinion.

I never wrote that there exist one universal neutrality measurement. A set of measurements much more comprehensive than what JA is using will each one show deviations from neutrality on each character the measurements show.

Technology has moved on. Todays best speakermanufacturers like Tidal, Rockport Technologies, Magico, Wilson, Anat Technologies etc rely more heavily on measurements than the top companies of the past and mostly only huse listening evaluations for confirmation purposes. In fact one of the companies most respected for top sound and neutrality is Goldmund. They have made a press release that they only do listening evaluatios to confirm single compnent choice inside their products. Everything else is done by measurements.

Listening is too unteliable because its subjective and situation related.

Roysen, I don't accept that neutrality is objective. I find it strange that you use this term, but I unaware of an neutrality meter. What are the measurements of neutrality? I assume that you would argue that there is total agreement of what are these objective measures.

You say that listening is to unreliable, yet that is all we ever use our systems for. Again I don't really know what measurements other than those I listed that might be used nor do I think they determine quality sound. If Tidal, Rockport, and YG Acoustics share the measurements of neutrality with Wilson and Magico, I put no confidence in them.

Thg,

This is getting tiresome. It really doesn't matter what you can accept. Can you define what you mean by neutrality? It obviously is something different than undistorted, uncolored and uncompressed. I have just written that there is not one neutrality measurement but that you have to use all the measurements and look for distortion, coloration or compression. If there are, the speaker is not neutral.

No speaker is truly neutral. There is no speaker which has absolute ruler-flat frequency- and phase-response without any hint of any kind of distortion. They all have deviations from perfectly neutral. The different manufacturers have different priorities though and use different technologies which result in the mix of deviations from neutral they are able to acheive and prefer most of cost and political reasons. Many brands have a "house"-sound which sells speakers. This doesn't mean that their speakers are neutral. I would for instance guess that a Magico Q5 is far more neutral than the Wilson Alexandria without having seen the measurements. Still many prefer the fun factor of the Wilson speakers. That is because they prefer the Alexandrias deviations from neutral more than the deviations of the Q5.

Still if there was such a thing as a perfectly neutral speaker, it would not be a guarantee that it would be the universally preferred choice. Many listeners actually prefer more than less coloration in certain areas. Also keep in mind that no electronic component or recording is perfectly neutral either. So a perfectly neutral speaker would reveal all the deviations from neutral in the electronics, cables, the room and the recording. Many would not prefer that. This is the reason matching is so important. We need to find combinations of equipment that mask out each othersdeviations from neutral to a degree we like. Still if this sounds neutral, measurements will show that its not. The ears can be unreliable and our taste misleading if the goal is neutrality. However most don't really prefer neutrality and that is where subjectivity comes in because it is of course different what kind of combination of mix of distortion, coloration and compression we prefer.

Neutral is never ever subjective. How can it be? Its like claiming that the length of one feet is subjective.