@ghdprentice Thank you! I’ve done all of what you suggested, also for about 4 decades. I’ve also noticed the change of meaning in terms over those decades, including neutral and warm. I agree with you spot on, about the change of the term ’warm’. Part of my confusion, and my ability to notice different meanings being ascribed to ’neutral’ is that it used to be used in a different way, going back to the 70s and 80s, then it seems to be used in more recent times.
’Neutral’, without a shred of doubt in my mind, used to mean (in the audio world), a highly aspiring lofty, yet unattainable goal, of anechonically perfectly flat between what comes out of the speaker, relative to what is coming out of the audio source (CD, vinyl, radio signal, etc.). Now it does seem to often be used, as you stated, to mean flat in sound, without emphasis, regardless of the signal coming from the source audio component.
Yet to be certain of that, and to bring clarity to myself and all, I created this post. I’m loving the discussion and input going on here, and I think it makes my point, that we all interpret it differently, which means when a pro-reviewer tells us how wonderfully neutral a speaker is, we all are receiving that to mean something different, which impacts our auditioning and buying decisions.
Based on the way this thread is going, I’m finding it unfortunate that @newbee seems to be correct in his assertion that the term ’neutral’, along with many other terms we commonly use, are subjective. In my mind, they should only be subjective as to what extent we hear things when auditioning, but not subjective to the definition of what those things mean when we speak about them. Perhaps I wish too much for a perfect world.
If someone with some umpa in the community, like Steve Hoffman, were to publish a pamphlet of subjective definitions, I think the audiophile community might just gulp it up, and it would benefit the hobby on the whole. Oh man...lets please not get into a discussion about whether or not I am right about that. lol.