It never ceases to tickle me how such ambiguous and subjective terms can become so widely articulated when brought into the audioland context.
Of course by now, any member here must not only have their own quite music with which to audition but the latest edition of an unabridged dictionary. Dealers would be well advised to make a display of some right next to the cash register.
Adjacent to the encyclopedias & dictionaries, there should be titles such as “Everything you’ve always wanted to know about audio and how to speak it. ” or “The audio speak to English Translator” or “Is what you are hearing what was meant to be heard and would you like it if you did?”
On a more practical note, another title I feel would sell better perhaps, might be, “How To Wind Up With Great Sound and Keep Your Checking Account & Sanity in Tact” The forward of this book would say, “Pay no attention to the other books for sale here… see? You’ve saved $100 already, doesn’t that make you feel better?”
Or something like them…
As importantly as is knowing something of the build of recording studios for their dead acoustic, and the engineer whose hand is on the various kknobs & sliders, is the intended audience for the music being recorded.
A prominent maker of high end cables, formerly a studio musician himself, told me he’s personally seen board ops, engineers, etc., mix their end products for the sort of more commonly used methods the intended audience is likely to replay the music on. A single car speaker. A boom box. Mass fi audio or HT theater, or All in a box, clubs or bars, discos, an or all in one wonders where cost is more than an issue systems.
The short answer of how to affix or determine neutraility is merely by the use of your own ears, which immediately taints the result, and your own ears experience with a multitude of products. To better fill out the experience pallet, one should also gain some exp with recordings, recording venues, room acoustics voices of the singers, various instruments, strings, reeds, mouthpieces, and so on.
If one doesn’t have a solid beginning foundation for the sounds of certain instruments, how then does one go about contriving a system to reproduce them? There’s a whole bunch of instruments. It kills me when some article indicates with a given piece, they can hear if it’s a this or a that… well, some liner notes will tell you that too.
I want to know if they were wearing a wrist watch…. And which kind? They probably were, but I’d venture they were LCDs.
Naturally, this is IF and only IF, neutrality means a lot to you or is your ultimate goal in building your room, and system. Other factors too interplay as importantly. Power & resonance too are further considerations.
I feel at times, when I am visited upon by a fleeting, yet quite sane moment of clarity, a lot like this current instance, I think to myself, : “So freaking’ what!!”
Should I become entangled into aspiring to at best an illusive or unachievable goal in most practical applications, OR…. Should I follow a more pragmatic and attainable end? This end being that which finds my knees bobbing and the corners of my mouth turned up routinely?
I say this as the result of experience. My own. It has to do with priorities and realities.
As laudable as it is for any one of us to so aspire. To fill out a rig which captivates the body and mind I have to say it’s not that remote a thing to do. It does cost money though, perhaps not as much as some are able to spend but it do need dough to make it do what it do, as mr. Charles was so fond of saying. Further it’ll take a modicum of common sense and good judgment. Niether does it have to adhere rigorously to the vices of neutrality nor to those of sheer transparency.
Even negligees shouldn’t be totally transparent. Sometimes they are at their best in the light of total darkness.
I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a completely flat, entirely neutral, or definitely transparent system, and I’m not terribly sure I would either want to or for that matter, actually own one. In the case of my own current preffs, ‘vacuum tube power trains’ many can justifiably argue with such a philosophy, neither neutrality nor transparency can ultimately be achieved if spending is handcuffed at all.
What’s a boy to do then?
I aim in each buy to find those things that are faithful, honest, organic, complimentary to the rig, and within my means as is possible…. Mostly. I’m OK today with mostly. Especially when I see such accounts of components which have such high a price tag affixed to them as to make them other worlkly appliances, and merely ‘”the stuff that dreams are made of’”, as one noir actor is remembered for to this day.
The capacity for ‘reason’ and ‘accomodation’ or ‘compromise’ steer the majority, so maybe, just maybe, we can only aim to acquire a portion of a thing, than the thing itself. I intend nothing derisive by discounting aloud these precepts, but aim only to submit the contrast from the practical to that of the grandiose.
I’ll by my own nature still try to clutch the audio nut creedo of “no compromise” in the one hand, but perhaps heed more the voice of that hand resting upon my wallet, while coming to grips with their differences. If when in this endeavor, my accomplishment, or handiwork makes me want to turn on my gear more often, and makes me abhor turning it off, and in the intervening time I am involved and happy, I’ll not take issue with anyone else who finds my outfit straying from neutral, or less than transparent, regardless my feelings, or it’s subjective nearness to them both.
As for the actual disposition of whether or not a newly integrated thing has become subtractive or additive to the sound, I’m pretty sure you’ll know. Past that summation, who cares?
It is after all, your verdict that matters most. Don’t sweat the petty stuff, and give it your best shot, that’s all anyone dcan do anyhow. The only times I’ve been disappointed were those times I listened to someone else’s ideas, and not my own ears.
