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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
bryoncunningham OP
893 posts
 
Dgarretson - Great post. Some thoughts...

It would be complicated for non-audiophiles to judge neutrality or any other metric of high quality playback...The general population-- widely exposed to norms of Ipod and boom box listening-- has insurmountable biases against neutrality.

I agree with this. I wasn't trying to suggest that a laymen's naive judgment about neutrality would be valuable. It would not be. I was trying to suggest that a layman's naive judgment about how different high resolution systems sound from one another would be valuable. I think the laymen would hear fewer differences than the audiophile, and as a result, judge those systems to be more similar than the audiophile does. This was a way of making the point that perhaps audiophiles exaggerate the differences among high resolution systems, as, for example, when they describe them as "completely and totally different." No doubt differences exist, and they are something audiophiles are passionate about. But my (admittedly optimistic) view is that there is more potential for common ground than some audiophiles suggest. I quite agree with you, though, that "consensus" is not often achieved.

Personally I agree with Bryon that resolving, neutral, and transparent are three of the best audiophile adjectives. But allowing even for wide disagreement among audiophiles regarding the meaning and significance of these descriptors, his three are in the final analysis somewhat static. They fail to account for time-domain factors like microdynamics, macrodynamics, pitch, timbre, and of course timing itself.

I agree completely that any concept of transparency must include time domain characteristics. I am inclined to think of time domain characteristics, like micro- and macrodynamics, as part of resolution. And I am inclined to think of correct pitch and timbre as part of neutrality. But now I really am being semantic. So on to more important matters...

The more technical improvements poured into each down unrelated analog & digital paths, the closer they converge on the same sound. And this convergence may be as good a demonstration of neutrality as any other.

This idea is fascinating. You mentioned it in your first post in this thread and, although no one ran with it, it stuck with me. I wonder how other posters feel about it...
dgarretson
2,613 posts
 
Bryon, so much of this is about convergence. Interesting speculation that as we move up the food chain of components, instead of arriving at a convergence of opinion, distinctions continue regarding nuances. This is understandable, as once the worst of common coloration is removed, the more small differences are revealed for scrutiny.

In the past few years we increasingly read magazine editors & reviewers remark upon the accelerating pace of sonic improvement. The context for these remarks is usually highly-engineered solutions that stand out from previous designs. I'm inclined to agree with some of this-- particularly in the area of loudspeakers and piece parts. As a generalization, the best equipment is beginning to sound more alike, and the few remaining differences between the best components are more challenging to articulate. Yet even as a rising tide lifts all boats, small differences still tend to jump out at you. Reviewers continue to make distinctions using the same words, but the words describe a changed reality closer to convergence. Does this arise merely because of the all too human need to make distinctions(and to sell magazines), even without meaningful differences? If the pace of change continues, at some point ALL components will join Stereophile Class A Recommended Components, even as the magazine's reviewers continue to try to communicate uniqueness in the full reviews.

The aging of the high end consumer has also brought nostalgia into tastes and purchases. Vinyl takes us back, MM/MI takes us back, under-engineered SET amps takes us back. In the context of aging, coloration becomes a virtue.

Finally, through the economic bubble there has been a huge accumulation of high-end inventory in the marketplace-- much of it falling into the bland middle ground of the bell curve of performance. During this period boutique manufacturers and costly components proliferated all out of bounds, and with this the challenge to review and compare equipment. In some instances subjective opinions about the advantages of certain colorations may be used to advance hidden agendas or retroactively to justify unwise purchases.
learsfool
1,215 posts
 
Interesting posts, guys. First, the 50K systems example. I thought I had made it clear that I was also speaking of this level of system in my example. I do indeed maintain that even if heard in exactly the same space (easily done in a large dealer's biggest showroom, for example), that anyone, not just audiophiles, will hear significant differences between several different systems. I think the designers of the equipment in question would be appalled at the idea that someone couldn't. Frankly, I am baffled by the very idea that there should be eventual "convergence" - one of my favorite things to do is hear how different the exact same source material can sound on several different systems. I think the variety out there in high end audio is a good thing, and that it is a bad thing that new stuff coming out sounds more and more the same.

Dgarretson's comment about his vinyl and CD rigs sounding more and more like each other as he improves them (if I am paraphrasing properly) I think actually speaks more to my own point - they sound more the same not necessarily because the technology is "better" (though it certainly could be), but because he is refining his own personal "reference point," and only in this sense might it be considered more "neutral," and even then only for him and others with similar sonic tastes. A different person, audiophile or not, may think it sounds much less like live music, or "neutral," or whatever their reference point is. As I said before, I don't think this is a bad thing at all. Every audiophile has to decide for themselves what their own personal reference point is. Much of what Dgarretson says about auditory memory is true - but what can also be the case, it should be pointed out, is that sometimes in the quest to improve the sound of their systems, many audiophiles completely lose the forest for the trees, and begin thinking that their system sounds "better" than live music. I certainly don't consider my own system the best of all possible worlds. As far as "golden ears" go, I have never heard anyone actually claim to have them. This is usually used as a derogatory term in my experience. The fact is, some people do hear better than others, and there are a great many audiophiles out there who do not actually have very good ears. And among people with very good ears, there can still be big variation in the sorts of things they are good at hearing. Yet another reason why you will never get very many people to agree on which system is the most "neutral." Everyone hears differently, whether their ears are trained well or not.

Please do not take this personally, Bryon, but another comment I can't refrain from making is that I don't see how anyone could consider "correct pitch and timbre" part of "neutrality." I actually flinched when I read that - a musician's carefully crafted tone colors are NOT "neutral," and I personally would never want to listen for long to a system that removed subtle differences in this area (as many very expensive latest greatest systems do). Are you saying you really want us to sound the same every time?? This thought is very depressing to me. If "better technology" becomes more important than the music, to the great detriment of the latter, priorities aren't right.
bryoncunningham OP
893 posts
 
Learsfool wrote:

I don't see how anyone could consider "correct pitch and timbre" part of "neutrality." I actually flinched when I read that - a musician's carefully crafted tone colors are NOT "neutral," and I personally would never want to listen for long to a system that removed subtle differences in this area...

I am not saying that a musician's "tonal colors" are, or should be, neutral. We have already had that conversation on this thread. In your second post, you wrote:

Music is not, and never should be "neutral." As a professional musician, the term has always been hilarious to me when applied in this context. No musician wants to sound "neutral," that's for sure!

To which I responded:

The term 'neutral' is not a description of the music. It is a description of the playback system and its components.

In a subsequent post, I wrote:

Again, neutrality is not a virtue of music or of recording. It is a virtue of a playback system.

And in a recent post, I wrote:

NEUTRALITY: The degree to which a component or system is free from coloration. Once again, this does NOT refer to coloration in the recording, but only to coloration introduced by the playback system.

As I hope is clear from this, my view is that neutrality is NOT a desirable characteristic in music or in recording. It is a desirable characteristic in a playback system.

As to your comment that "I personally would never want to listen for long to a system that removed subtle differences in this area," I am in complete agreement. But it is my view that the more neutral the playback system, the MORE it will reveal subtle differences in tone/timbre. That was my point in the original post, when I wrote:

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.

Learsfool - I think our disagreement here can be reduced to two different answers to the following question:

WOULD A NEUTRAL AUDIO SYSTEM MAKE THE MUSIC SOUND "NEUTRAL"?

Judging from your posts, I believe you would answer this question "Yes." In other words, I think your view is that, the more neutral an audio system is, the more it makes things sound THE SAME. I have the exact opposite view, namely, that the more neutral an audio system is, the more it makes things sound DIFFERENT.

The reasoning for my view is the following: The more neutral an audio system, the less it colors the music with ITS OWN SIGNATURE. The less an audio system colors the music with its own signature, the more you will hear THE SIGNATURE OF THE MUSIC. And the more you hear the signature of the music, the more DISTINCT individual pieces of music will sound, and the more DIVERSE your collection of music will sound.

As to correct pitch and timbre, the rationale for including them under the concept of neutrality is the following: A system that is highly neutral contaminates pitch and timbre (with its own signature) less than one that is highly colored. And the less pitch and timbre are contaminated, the more "correct" they are.

To summarize my view on this: Neutrality (i.e. freedom from coloration) in an audio system does not lead to neutrality (i.e. SAMENESS) in the music played back on it, but rather the opposite. Neutrality in an audio system leads to DIVERSITY in the music played back on it.

dgarretson
2,613 posts
 
Learsfool, there is a remote possibility that the gradual convergence between modded analog & digital sources occurred by coincidence or was guided by a common bias operating separately through two qualitatively different mod processes. However, as analog and digital sources approach each other AND coloration becomes nearly undetectable, then perhaps sufficient conditions for neutrality have been satisfied. Not that listening is a perfect science, or that there are no differences of opinion between listeners regarding neutrality. However once and awhile one hears a system that sounds very much like real music free from coloration, and IMO this should set the particular listener's expectation for neutrality. IMO in terms of flat frequency response, correct pitch and timbre, resolution & transparency, the current SOTA gets quite close to live music. Where all systems seem to fall short is in the dynamics of live music. Or if they communicate excellent dynamics, then they tend to fail by other measures. In any case the quality of dynamics should probably be distinguished from neutrality.
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