How do you judge your system's neutrality?



Here’s an answer I’ve been kicking around: Your system is becoming more neutral whenever you change a system element (component, cable, room treatment, etc.) and you get the following results:

(1) Individual pieces of music sound more unique.
(2) Your music collection sounds more diverse.

This theory occurred to me one day when I changed amps and noticed that the timbres of instruments were suddenly more distinct from one another. With the old amp, all instruments seemed to have a common harmonic element (the signature of the amp?!). With the new amp, individual instrument timbres sounded more unique and the range of instrument timbres sounded more diverse. I went on to notice that whole songs (and even whole albums) sounded more unique, and that my music collection, taken as a whole, sounded more diverse.

That led me to the following idea: If, after changing a system element, (1) individual pieces of music sound more unique, and (2) your music collection sounds more diverse, then your system is contributing less of its own signature to the music. And less signature means more neutral.

Thoughts?

P.S. This is only a way of judging the relative neutrality of a system. Judging the absolute neutrality of a system is a philosophical question for another day.

P.P.S. I don’t believe a system’s signature can be reduced to zero. But it doesn’t follow from that that differences in neutrality do not exist.

P.P.P.S. I’m not suggesting that neutrality is the most important goal in building an audio system, but in my experience, the changes that have resulted in greater neutrality (using the standard above) have also been the changes that resulted in more musical enjoyment.
bryoncunningham
By it's unwillingness to be pulled into conflict while still holding a morally superior position.

Alternately, by comparison to other systems using the same source material.
"My original post was intended... to operationalize the term 'neutral.'"

"Neutrality by definition is 'without difference'."

"...by comparison to other systems using the same source material." (Emphasize "same source")

Apart from the usual judgments regarding faithfulness to source, if neutrality is defined as a lack of difference, then neutrality requires that analog and digital sources converge. Otherwise we would have separate definitions of neutrality. Elimination of differences between analog & digital sources does not of itself prove neutrality. However, elimination of differences between the two may be considered a reasonable condition for neutrality.

To "operationalize" neutrality(at least regarding selection of source equipment), one should listen closely for differences between the formats and strive through upgrades toward convergence.
since all components are inaccurate, one cannot achieve perfections. coloration will always be present. perhspas a better term to use is a flat frequency response. get a spectral analyzer, pink or white noise and measure deviations from a flat frequency response. such an approach is objective. the other ideas are completely subjective and since perception differs, there will be disagreement. stick to objective terms which can be measured when dealing with accuracy, neutrality and transparency.

i must admit i am in the subjective camp. if i like the sound or if it doesn't drive me out of the room i'm happy. subjective analysis is a highly personal endeavor and meaningful to one listener.
how about thinking of the lower amount of distotion in the system from source through speakers the better it will be true to the material on the cd -record tape etc--neutrality is very hard to concieve of in this medium where each component adds or subtracts from the source material--another thing to be defined :)