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What Neutral Means in Reviews & Our Discussions? Are We Confusing Tame/Flat For Neutral?

Does tame or flat = neutral? Shouldn’t "neutral" in describing audio sound mean uncolored and accurate to what the artists sounded like to the naked ear at the time of the master recording? Or is neutral, as used in our community, intended to mean a lack of crescendo, or the like?

I realize this may get controversial, so lets be mindful of other’s experiences and insight. I’m going to use Dynaudio as an example. They’re often touted as being amongst the most neutral of speaker lines. Monitor Audio is another example of such reviews. I’ve listened to several middle of the line Dynaudio’s, including many times at my brother’s house, where he has them mated to an EAD Power Master 1000 thru MIT cables. They do sound beautiful, airy, smooth, and even slightly warm to my ear (though the touch of warmth could easily be the MITs and EAD). His common statement supporting how great they are is, the audio recording industry sound engineers prefer them as their monitors. But I’ve read that the reason audio engineers prefer them is because they are smooth and "flat" or "level", enabling the engineers to hear the difference of the nuances which they create as they manipulate sound during the editing process. Apparently lively or musical monitors, many engineers find to be a distractor, with too much information over riding what they want to focus on as they edit the sound.

I’ve enjoyed watching live bands at small venues for over 3 decades. Anything from a pianist, to cover bands, to original artists of anything from rock, blues, jazz, etc. My personal listening preference for home audio is dynamic sound which brings the live event to me ... soundstage, detail, with air, transparency AND depth. I want it all, as close as it can get for each given $. When I’ve listened to Dynaudios, Ive always come away with one feeling ... they’re very nice to listen too; they’re smooth and pleasing, airy ... and tame.

Recently while reading a pro review of the latest Magico S7 (I’ve never heard them), a speaker commonly referenced as amazingly neutral, the reviewer mentioned how, while capable of genuine dynamics, they seem to deliberately supress dynamics to enough of an extent that they favor a more pleasurable easy going listening experience.

That’s what jarred my thought. Does "neutral" mean tame/flat; does it mean accurate without audible peaks in db of one frequency over another, which is not on the recording; or is it something we’ve minced words about and have lost the genuine meaning of in the name of some audio form of political correctness?

 

 

 

sfcfran
newbee
4,751 posts
 

immatthew,

"But if neutral is absolute"

What would you suggest in 'audio' is neutral and to what?

Re 'almost neutral' would that be the same as being an 'almost whore'? Easy to say, tough to define. :-)

immatthewj
1,168 posts
 

@newbee

not to start an argument, but when you typed that

"There is no such thing, grammar wise, as near neutral"

were you referring to in only an audio way? That may be, but as an example of "almost neutral" in other areas would be acid/base. For that example, a solution that had a PH of 7 would be neutral and a solution with a PH of 3 would be quite acidic; but if you had a solution that had a PH of 6.99, it would still be technically acidic, but that PH would make it "almost neutral."

On the other two points, you typed that:

Neutral is a word which is absolute.

but that

Bottom line, everything is subjective.

Those two sentences seem to me to contradict each other.

 

"But if neutral is absolute"

What would you suggest in ’audio’ is neutral and to what?

I honestly do not know. I have a tough time defining many of these audio terms. I agree with you when you type that everything is subjective, including neutral, which you also said was an absolute. I suppose neutral would be true to the mastering--not warm, not bright. not airy, unless the mastering was such. I guess. Maybe.

Possibly it would mean not adding any of it's own flavor to the mastering that your source was playing back.  If that's even possible. 

 

 

newbee
4,751 posts
 

immatthewj

Well your illustration of using neutral as a noun with an modifier is certainly correct . My characterizing it otherwise was mistaken. But I do believe that when used as an adjective it becomes more acceptable to expect it be used in an absolute sense. In other words I find it clumsy to say 'the neutrality of xyz component is compromised by the existence or absence of xxxxxx, which renderers it less than neutral, close but no cigar. Ergo it is not in fact not neutral!

We have a spell checker now all we need is a grammar checker! :-)

ghdprentice
6,397 posts
 

OP,

 

I think you got it. Neutral does not actually mean neutral. It means flat and polite.

 

Just the reality of a very complex and multilayered pursuit. I have found the way to get your arms around this is to read professional reviews and audition these components and listen to lots of acoustical music… to calibrate these three things.

 

When you do (this took decades for me), then you understand the real meaning of the words. Honestly, when I hear the word neutral in a review interpreted the word to mean anemic and run the other way. Thirty or forty years ago the word warm would have me run away… but it’s meaning today usually means much more natural than neutral.

 

Yeah, high end audio is not for those uncomfortable with ambiguity.

newbee
4,751 posts
 

Clearly from ghdprentice's post what we need is a new FAQ page titled ’audiophile euphemisms’. Then we could all be on the same page with audio reviewers and others who would seek to describe the sonics of their system. Now if we could just find an objective moderator for such a page. Any volunteers? :-)

 

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