How do you judge your system's neutrality?

Learsfool - Your last post contains many interesting and valid observations, IMO. But I disagree with the following argument:

The answer I would make to your question in your last post is that I believe there is no such thing as a neutral audio system, nor could there be. Every piece of audio equipment is "colored"...Hence, why I think that "neutrality" is a useless concept.

As far as your observation that "every piece of audio equipment is colored," I am in complete agreement, as I have said many times throughout this thread, including in the original post, where I wrote: "I don't believe a system's signature can be reduced to zero."

What I disagree with is (1) your conclusion that neutrality is a "useless concept" and (2) your reasoning to that conclusion.

First your reasoning: It does not follow from the fact that every component is colored that every component is EQUALLY colored. The existence of differences in coloration was a point illustrated by Al's (intentionally extreme) example of the differences between a $300 boombox and any $50K system. The idea was that no one would deny that differences in neutrality exist between those two systems. Maybe you would deny that. Or maybe your view is that, once you achieve a certain (fairly low) level of fidelity, there are no longer differences in neutrality. My own view is that differences in neutrality persist into quite expensive systems, including $50K systems.

As far as your conclusion that neutrality is a "useless concept" because "every piece of audio equipment is colored," I would say: Is 'water purity' a useless concept because every water source is contaminated? Certainly not. The whole point of the concept of water purity is to (1) identify the contaminants; (2) determine which are the most harmful; and (3) remove them, to the extent that it is technologically and economically feasible.

That is exactly the same thing I would say about coloration and neutrality. Yes, every component is colored, just as all water sources are contaminated. But not every component is equally colored, just as not all water sources are equally contaminated. And the recognition that every component is colored does not motivate the conclusion that neutrality is useless concept any more than recognizing that all water sources are contaminated motivates the conclusion that water purity is a useless concept. Instead, I believe it should motivate an effort to (1) identify the colorations; (2) determine which are the most harmful; and (3) remove them, to the extent that it is technologically and economically feasible.

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...

I just want to bump Bryon's question, because I, too, wondered about this concept. It seems to me if you listen to two different sources (digital and vinyl) through the same system, you've actually eliminated the variable of system neutrality from the equation, and what you are experiencing is source convergence. That may, I suppose, be referred to as a kind of neutrality (and perhaps a worthy goal) but even if you were to achieve it perfectly, what would that say about the overall system's neutrality?

Interesting points, guys. Dgarretson, in general I agree with you - certainly a designer of a piece of audio equipment is not thinking of every timbre of every instrument when he "voices" his equipment. Though I do remember reading an interview with a very prominent current designer of an extremely high-end speaker where he said that he started out by trying to design one that made his guitar sound right, which was interesting, and it grew from there. I am sure that each individual designer does have a definite idea about how he wants the equipment to sound, however, and it is in this sense that I was speaking of (actually, I don't think I used the term - when I referred to the negatives of digital processing, I was referring to unintended effects that the designers are still trying to solve). This is part of the reason I argue that there can be no such thing as true "neutrality" in a piece of audio equipment - each is "colored" in this way by it's designer.

Bryon, I think we will have to agree to disagree. I will point out a flaw in your water analogy, though. With water, although all sources are indeed contaminated, we can identify the definite impurities, and there is no debate on the subject, because science call tell us what truly pure water would be like. We just don't have the technology to remove all of the impurities yet, as you said. This is certainly not the case with a piece of audio equipment. In high end audio, there will always be debate over what is a "coloration" and what is not. There is no way to know what this "neutrality" would be/sound like, since there is no single "absolute sound" to measure your "neutrality" with/against. All anyone can do is use their ears to decide whether the piece of equipment is an improvement towards our own individual ideal sound or not. Of course, there are those who don't listen and only go by the specs, but such a person wouldn't be following this particular thread anyway, I wouldn't think....

With water, although all sources are indeed contaminated, we can identify the definite impurities, and there is no debate on the subject, because science call tell us what truly pure water would be like.

Actually, I think the water analogy is pretty apt here. Science rarely, if ever, delivers absolute truth -- send a bunch of water samples around to different labs, and you get different answers and those answers will all come with error bars. And, as you say, we can't filter out everything in water any more than we can build perfect audio components.

But just because science can't deliver absolute truth (any more than an engineer can deliver a perfectly neutral audio component) should we throw away the whole concept of science?

Cbw723, I can't extend my experience of close convergence between modded analog & digital sources to downstream components. I can only report that mods to downstream components were IMO technically sound and moved the system closer to neutrality as I sense neutrality. The leap of faith necessary to believe this is whether you accept that piece parts made by Duelund, Mundorf, ClarityCap, V-Cap, VSE Superregulators, etc., result in superior performance or merely alternative colorations. However dropping some of these exotic pieces into standard commercial designs is if nothing else an interesting test of the subjectivist viewpoint.