How do you judge your system's neutrality?

Newbee, there's a lot to be objective about. In GET BETTER SOUND, Jim Smith makes a case (tip #171) that the "personal taste" argument is flawed. He argues that if there were perfect speakers, almost everyone would prefer them. In fact, his whole book is dedicated to getting the system out of the way so you can get closer to the "live" sound of your music.

I don't even understand the subjectivist argument. I can imagine listening to a specific piece of music and thinking "they should have mixed the percussion higher" or "that should have been a cello not a bass" or "they should have upped the tempo there." But I can't imagine saying "all music should have more X," where "X" is some factor imposed by the playback system (except, of course, where X = "fidelity to the source"). What would it be that you'd want your system to add (that isn't in the source) to everything you listen to? Bass? Treble? Harmonics? Rap lyrics? It's all distortion that might make some music sound better to you, but other music will certainly sound worse.

And this is, I think, the source of Bryon's observation in the original post. When you remove a bit of system distortion, different things sound more different because a common element has been removed from everything you hear.

"When you remove a bit of system distortion, different things sound more different because a common element has been removed from everything you hear."

Exactly my experience through hundreds of internal modifications to components. I'm in the camp of the Objectivists-- except for slight reservations about where the truth lies in LF. A few recent speaker designs like Emerald Physics and Bamberg use Class D digitally EQ'd bass amps to deliver a qualitatively different kind of LF extension and control. This is all fairly new, and I feel more subjectivity judging the shifting paradigm for neutrality in LF than in other areas of FR.

Hi Byron - I must make an observation here. You posted that you want to hear as close as possible to what is heard in the recording studio. My point about the actual recording studios is that you would NEVER want to do this. Recording studios are not designed for listening to music - they are extremely dead, with none of the reverberance or other positive sound characteristics of an actual live music venue. They sound terrible, actually, and it is quite difficult to play in them. Everyone is isolated from everyone else, using click-tracks to stay together - there is much less connection between the performers than normal. Often every single performer is on a separate track, if it is a small group. As I said before, this is all done by design, so that the recording engineer can design the sound to his own specifications - they have complete control, and you are at their mercy as to what you are going to end up sounding like. There is almost nothing "real" about a recording studio. Some of the most famous artists, whether pop or classical, will of course have some measure of control if they wish it, but most often the studio execs have the control. As an orchestral musician, I certainly have no input as to what I end up sounding like (though most orchestras making a symphonic recording do not record in recording studios, of course, but in a real live venue - I am speaking of say an orchestra put together to record a jingle for a TV commercial, etc.). The orchestral players that record for all the movie and television studios (both Hollywood and London and anywhere else), for instance, have no control over their own sounds, either, and I can tell you that they are quite often very dissatisfied with the results when they see the film in the theaters or the episode on TV. Even young and up and coming wannabe pop stars usually have no control over what they sound like, either - their sound is designed by the record label execs. If you heard them without the mikes and the mixing boards, which are of course always present when they perform live as well, the vast majority of them would be unrecognizable. I think even some of the most knowledgeable audiophiles would be shocked and horrified if they realized just how their favorite rock and pop singers sound "for real." There is almost no "truth," as you call it, to anything that comes out of a recording studio, in the vast majority of cases, as opposed to something recorded in a live venue. If the producers want it to sound like a live venue, they will record in one.

Cbw (& Byron), I have never taken any exception to the point that as you remove distortion artifacts from your system the more easily you will hear all of the information in the pits and grooves. Byron has discovered this as he has improved the quality of the stuff in his room he has been appreciating the differences and his ability to discern them. Removing distortion enhances the sense of resolution.

Assuming that the collective manufacturers had the ability to make distortion free equipment and audiophiles exhausted all of the possibles in system/room set up, one could clearly state that he had a truly "Neutral" system. A perfect world. You would only need one set of speakers, one amp, one source, varing only by the nature of the acoustic. You could do this with a computer I think. Life would be so easy.

But in my view 'neutrality' really doesn't and cannot exist because it is a term like life or death, neutrality is an absolute thing. There is no room for equivication. It is either neutral or it isn't. Like being pregnant! No halfway measures.

But we can talk about distortion in its many forms in the various components, acoustic venues, and equipment set up, which influence our hearing experience. When I go to a symphony I want to sit in the center of the main floor about 6 to 10 rows back in most classic halls. I get loads of detail, imaging, and dynamic's. You've got to sit there an listen to Mahler! This is the sound, tonally speaking, I want in my home. Is it neutral? Compared to what. Sitting in the lower balcony? Sitting in the upper balconies or the back of the main floor. No it is not more neutral, it is different and it is live, i.e. real.

Apart from getting all of the resolution you can get from assembling components and setting up you system in your room there isn't much you can do to establish a system that is really neutral. The sound you hear is still the collective sound of all of the components, speakers, and room acoustics. What makes you assess the resulting sound as neutral is nothing more that the free use of your imagination. I would suggest that 'natural' would be a move achievable goal in the real world.

FWIW.