How do you judge your system's neutrality?

Great posts - Byron, I guess what myself, Newbee, Kijanki, Shadorne, and others are saying here is that no two people are ever going to agree on just what "neutrality" sounds like. A couple of recent posts mentioned "if we could hire conductors, musicians" to assemble systems. Well, I am a professional musician, and many of my colleagues, including conductors, instrumentalists, vocalists, engineers, and many others in the music world are also audiophiles. I can tell you that no two of us would agree on what this "neutrality" would sound like. As Newbee said, this is as hopeless as defining exactly what the "absolute sound" would be. Every piece of equipment, every system, every recording, has what you are calling "coloration." Every live music venue has it as well. Every room I play my horn in sounds totally different, and has a great effect on what I sound like. There is no possible way to "eliminate" it (recording studios being the closest thing, as I and others have said before, but every one of these sounds totally different as well), nor would this even necessarily be desirable. There are a great many different great sounds - how could anyone declare one of them arbitrarily to be the best?

Every audiophile must decide for themselves what their sonic preferences are, and try to build their systems accordingly. No one is denying that you can change one component and like your system's sound better. What we are saying is that just because you like the sound better doesn't mean you have either a more or less "neutral" system. I would be fascinated to hear you try to describe what this "neutrality" goal of yours would actually sound like, and I am all but certain that you couldn't find one single other audiophile who would perfectly agree with it. What you are really trying to define, ultimately, is your own sonic ideal. And there's nothing wrong with that! Variety is the spice of life, and that goes for music as well.

Learsfool wrote:
"I can tell you that no two of us would agree on what this "neutrality" would sound like."

I agree with this. But I do not conclude from it, as many of the posters seem to, that neutrality is either (1) unreal, or (2) unknowable.

Learsfool wrote:
"Every piece of equipment, every system, every recording, has what you are calling 'coloration.'"

I agree with this. But I do not conclude from it that every piece of equipment, every system, or every recording is EQUALLY colored.

Learsfool wrote:
"I would be fascinated to hear you try to describe what this "neutrality" goal of yours would actually sound like..."

That is precisely what I tried to do in the original post, namely, to describe something that is, admittedly, very difficult to describe. My description was:

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

Learsfool wrote:
"What you are really trying to define, ultimately, is your own sonic ideal."

No. In my original post, I wrote:
"I’m not suggesting that neutrality is the most important goal in building an audio system..."

In a subsequent post, I wrote:
"As to the doubt, expressed by several posters, that neutrality is a vital consideration in assembling a satisfying music system, I am actually somewhat agnostic."

In my very last post, I wrote:
"I do not think that neutrality is of paramount important, of exclusive importance, or of essential importance."

So, for the fourth time: In my view, neutrality is one virtue AMONG MANY in an audio system. My intention in starting this thread was to propose a way to develop that particular virtue, not to suggest that it is the virtue to be valued above all others.

"I am actually somewhat agnostic." - don't worry, there is a cream for that.

So, for the fourth time: In my view, neutrality is one virtue AMONG MANY in an audio system. My intention in starting this thread was to propose a way to develop that particular virtue, not to suggest that it is the virtue to be valued above all others.

Well, after 61 posts so far in this thread, I'll throw in my own brief $0.02. Upon careful reading and re-reading of Byron's well written initial post, it seems to me that it makes perfect sense, and that it proposes an evaluation criterion that will often be useful.

It seems obvious to me that there will be a significant DEGREE of correlation (although certainly not a perfect correlation) between colorations/lack of transparency/lack of neutrality/whatever you want to call it, that may be introduced by a component or system, and the degree of enjoyment that system will provide to the average discriminating listener when averaged across a wide range of recordings. An inverse partial correlation, to be perfectly precise.

Byron has proposed a means of facilitating assessment of that coloration/lack of transparency/lack of neutrality/whatever you want to call it that, while perhaps not commonly recognized, seems to me to be both valuable and self-evident on its face. It's as simple as that.

Regards,
-- Al

Kijanki wrote: "no I would not adjust sound for individual songs but rather pick affordable system that sounds best to me on average with the type of music I listen to."

Affordable? What does affordable have to do with anything? I thought this was an audiophile discussion.