Tidal Speakers owners

My two cents as the designer behind the speakers mentioned in this thread: neutrality is nothing but an objective criteria. It is a fact which can be found out, and no opinion or a feel.

Neutrality can be defined very simple by the difference between what goes inside of the speaker and what comes out of it. It can be measured in many complex ways. The most famous and also most simple one to understand is the 'frequency response', but it does not tell the whole story of a speaker at all - otherwise all speakers with a flat FRQ would do sound the same.
But almost all effects to "sound" can be measured and follows the same principle: the difference of IN and OUT. The less the difference, the more 'neutral'. And this is at least what we do at TIDAL: bringing this difference as low as possible.

But HOW one likes neutral speakers/systems closer to neutrality then others - well, about this one could talk back and forth since it is a subjective issue/feel/opinion.

many greetings, Jörn

Jorn, once again I don't understand the statement that neutrality is objective. I agree that comparing what goes in with what comes out is "neutral." However, as you admit frequency response is a measure but is necessary not sufficient for neutrality. Were we to have digital information on both what goes in and what comes out, we could have a correspondence measure that would get at this, but I don't think anyone does this. Instead they listen. This is a very sensitive measure but is typically rejected by "objectivists" as too subjective, as some listeners will not like a speaker and standing beside them another person will.

Tbg, again you miss the point. Your speaker's designer has explained it, we've linked articles, others have chimed in. Here is the reality: YOU don't have a comprehensive understanding of these, but there IS a gropuong of generally agreed-upon measurements that, when examined and assessed by an expert speaker engineer, do tell us whether a speaker is basically neutral. This isn't guesswork or subjective. It is widely agreed upon. This is THE way good speaker design is done. And with neutrality -- what goes in comes out -- as the goal. We understand that you don't understand, but please don't confuse your misunderstanding with the facts as they have been layed out for you!

Appreciate your chiming in Jorn, and well summarized Holenneck. It's getting a bit tiresome and a little long winded on this basically simple subject.

Holenneck, no I don't misunderstand. There is much that we know about how to design speakers, such as a good frequency response, wide dispersion, and sometime good phase consistency. But as Jorn suggests speakers with these good characteristics don't sound alike. Of course going further is subjective and it is somewhat more than guesswork. Please don't persist in the nonsense that we know enough to make perfect speakers. We don't have anywhere near perfect drivers, and there are severe costs to weigh in choices of parts.

I know objectivists always want to believe there is no guesswork in any audio component, but the reality is that our ears are the only real guidance we have. I am obviously very impressed with some designer's work and believe others come up short.