How do you judge your system's neutrality?

Learsfool wrote:

Basically, I do not believe that "neutrality" can possibly exist at all, whether we are talking about a single piece of equipment, the entire system as per your definition, or in live music...

Learsfool - What do you think of Al's comment:

Consider a system purchased at Walmart for a total system price of $300, in comparison with say a $50K system such as some Audiogoner's have. I don't think anyone here will disagree as to which one will provide better and more enjoyable sound, and I don't think that anyone here will disagree as to which one is more neutral/accurate/etc.

Do you not believe that a $50K system is more neutral than a $300 Walmart system? And conversely, do you not believe that the $300 system has more coloration?

It is important to note that the last two questions must be answered the same way. That is to say, if you do not believe in neutrality, then YOU DO NOT BELIEVE IN COLORATION. That is because neutrality has been defined on this thread as the (degree of) ABSENCE OF COLORATION.

Colorations are additions or subtractions to the playback chain that conceal or corrupt information about the music. If you believe that coloration does not exist, then what is intermodulation distortion? What is the resonance of a speaker cabinet? What is crosstalk? In my view, they are additions to the playback chain that conceal and corrupt information about the music. That is to say, they are colorations. And if colorations exist, then neutrality, defined as the (degree of) absence of coloration, exists.

Learsfool wrote:

There is no such thing as a neutral room.

If you believe this, then you believe that there is no such thing as ROOM COLORATION. Then what is a room mode? What is flutter echo? What is comb filtering? In my view, they are additions and subtractions to the playback chain that conceal and corrupt information about the music. That is to say, they are colorations. And if colorations exist, then neutrality exists.

Learsfool wrote:

Bryon wrote "The success of room correction relies on the technology involved and how it is implemented." This completely ignores the human ears setting up and/or listening to the result of the technology…

I was not ignoring the human element. I meant that to be part of “implementation.” ‘Implementation’ can refer to the PHYSICAL DEVICES that perform some function or the ACT of performing some function, presumably by a person. I meant for both to be included.

Learsfool wrote:

Now, let us say you replace very high quality preamp A with very high quality preamp B, keeping everything else the same. How will you know which one is more "neutral"? I submit that you can't. But you can know which one makes the system sound better to you. And I would also guess that 100 audiophiles that listened to this comparison would probably split close to 50/50 on which one did sound better, and that there would be many different reasons why each made his choice.

One of the advantages to my operationalization of ‘neutrality’ is that forming judgments about neutrality does not require us to be able to arrive at a consensus about which is the better component in an A/B test, which as you point out, is often difficult and sometimes impossible. It only requires us to arrive at a consensus about which component makes individual pieces of music sound more unique and a collection of music more diverse. Perhaps that would be a difficult consensus to achieve as well, but I suspect it is far more realizable than getting audiophiles to agree on which component is "better" in any given A/B test.

And if a consensus were reached about which component was more neutral in an A/B test, it does not follow that the more neutral component is the "better" component, since there are other sonic virtues that are, and should be, considered when evaluating components.

Learsfool wrote:

I think your "neutrality" concept/operationalization falls apart, despite your VERY good arguments - it requires that there is ultimately one answer.

Yes. That is what it means to be an Objectivist.

Kijanki wrote:

Do you think that person who likes more bass than neutral should force himself to listen at home the way he doesn't like (neutral). If I cannot hear treble as well as when I was young - am I allowed to get brighter system?

You are allowed to do as you like. It is not for me to tell anyone how to listen to music. I think if you were to read my posts on this thread you would not find a single comment suggesting that someone else SHOULD listen in a certain way. I have, however, made arguments about the value of neutrality. This may seem like a contradiction, but it is not. That is because, while I am an Objectivist about neutrality, resolution, and accuracy, I am a Subjectivist about audiophile values. I do not believe that there is one "right" way to listen, but I do believe that there are more neutral, resolving, and accurate ways to listen.

As far as your comment about compensating for your high frequency hearing loss with a brighter system, the issue there is exactly analogous to the use of EQ in a system to compensate for room effects. In a previous post, I wrote:

[The] question is whether the use of EQ is NECESSARILY a deviation from neutrality. The answer is: It depends on which level of organization you are talking about. By definition, the use of EQ is a deviation from neutrality AT THE LEVEL OF THE COMPONENT. But it is not necessarily a deviation from neutrality AT THE LEVEL OF THE SYSTEM, where "the system" includes the room and your listening position in it. That is because the judicious use of EQ could compensate for room effects that are themselves deviations from neutrality. For example, if the room contains a lot of hard surfaces and is bright, EQ’ing the treble could result in a SYSTEM that is more neutral, even though, at the component level, you have made the signal less neutral.

Analogously, in the case of compensating for your high frequency hearing loss with a brighter system, I would say: That "compensation" is itself an attempt to achieve a measure of neutrality in the system, by removing the midrange and bass "coloration" created by your loss of high frequencies. But in your case, "the system" no longer stops at your ears - it INCLUDES your ears, along with the details of your hearing loss.

Bryon wrote: "I do not believe that there is one "right" way to listen, but I do believe that there are more neutral, resolving, and accurate ways to listen."

And I do believe that there is "perfect" woman out there but I'm not interested.

It is very subjective. I can always find somebody who will like sound of your Walmart system more (and call it more neutral/natural sounding). There is a few reasons for that. Some say clear=sterile and resolution=analytic. I read opinion that instruments should not sound separately but together. Some people don't like strong dynamics. There is no right or wrong here. Listener is a part of the system as room is and there is no escape from that. Who will be the judge? The proper question is not whether it sounds neutral (how to know that?) but rather if sound is pleasant, involving etc.
Can musical presentation that is "uninvolving" be more neutral? Presentation can often be converted to involving one by spicing frequency extremes or adding a little bit of distortion. My Benchmark DAC1 was praised by studio engineers and often called by people sterile and uninvolving. Studio engineers made once experiment in the studio recording guitar live and playing thru different DACs (similar price range). Benchmark was the most accurate but people liked other DACs more.

Defining neutrality reminds me TV discussion on the subject of "good taste" where serious people tried to define it (it does not exist).

Bryon, I have some more thoughts on the "excess contrast" issue, but in thinking about it, I realized there were some holes in my understanding of the operationalization (is that a word?) itself:

1) In the original post, you mention instrument timbres specifically sounding more distinct from one another, and then go on to say whole songs and albums sounded more unique and your collection, more diverse. Is that all a consequence of the change in timbres, or were there other characteristics that contributed to the uniqueness/diversity? (If it is reducible to timbre, then wouldn't the operationalization of neutrality be, "Instrument timbres sound more distinct?" And then wouldn't criteria #1 and #2 be consequences of increased neutrality rather than standards by which we identify it?)

2) Is criterion #2 a consequence of, in whole or in part, criterion #1? If so, and in whole, then a similar reduction might be possible. If not, or only in part, what are the additional characteristics that contribute to #2?

Kijanki wrote:

Defining neutrality reminds me TV discussion on the subject of "good taste" where serious people tried to define it (it does not exist).

Again, I would ask: Does coloration exist? Colorations are additions or subtractions to the playback chain that conceal or corrupt information about the music. I have given at least six examples from both equipment and listening rooms: intermodulation distortion, speaker cabinet resonance, crosstalk, room modes, flutter echo, and comb filtering. There are undoubtedly many more. Do these phenomena exist? If they do, then neutrality exists, as it has been defined on this thread, namely, THE (DEGREE OF) ABSENCE OF COLORATION.

Kijanki wrote:

My Benchmark DAC1 was praised by studio engineers and often called by people sterile and uninvolving. Studio engineers made once experiment in the studio recording guitar live and playing thru different DACs (similar price range). Benchmark was the most accurate but people liked other DACs more.

I have addressed this issue many times on this thread, including in my very last post, where I wrote:

...if a consensus were reached about which component was more neutral in an A/B test, it does not follow that the more neutral component is the "better" component, since there are other sonic virtues that are, and should be, considered when evaluating components.

Cbw – Excellent post. And yes, “operationalization” is a word.

Cbw wrote:

In the original post, you mention instrument timbres specifically sounding more distinct from one another, and then go on to say whole songs and albums sounded more unique and your collection, more diverse. Is that all a consequence of the change in timbres, or were there other characteristics that contributed to the uniqueness/diversity?

The changes in uniqueness/diversity that I noticed were not limited to timbre. They included nearly every aspect of the recordings. Some of those changes are, no doubt, attributable to improved RESOLUTION, but I believe that others are the result of improved NEUTRALITY.

Cbw wrote:

Is criterion #2 a consequence of, in whole or in part, criterion #1?

No, criterion #2 is not a “consequence” of criterion #1, because the relation between criterion #1 and criterion #2 is not CAUSAL. That is to say, criterion #1 is not the CAUSE of criterion #2. Criterion #1 and criterion #2 are really just two different ways of identifying the same thing: INCREASED DIFFERENTIATION.

If there is a causal relationship relevant here, it is that increasing neutrality is the cause and criteria #1 and #2 are the effects.

Cbw wrote:

…wouldn't criteria #1 and #2 be consequences of increased neutrality rather than standards by which we identify it?

This is a false contrast. That is to say, X can be BOTH a consequence of Y AND the standard by which we identify it. In science, this is the relation between observables and theoretical entities – observables are both a consequence of theoretical entities and the standard by which we identify them. If you have concerns about the circularity of that relationship, then you are not alone. Philosophers and scientists have worried about that for quite a while. One way to mitigate the circularity is to find corroboration of the existence and nature of theoretical entities through an interrelated set of other theoretical entities and observables. To apply this to our discussion: Neutrality is the theoretical entity and criteria #1 and #2 are its observables. But this does not throw doubt on the existence of neutrality, since it is corroborated by an interrelated set of other theoretical entities and observables.

Learfool 12/24: The bottom line here (going back to the OP) is that many of us feel that just because you change one piece of equipment in the system, making 1) individual pieces of music sound more unique, and 2) your music collection sound more diverse, this does not mean you have operationalized the term neutrality. It just means you have a better sounding system.

I think that this statement gives increased credence to what was implicit in my post in this thread dated 11/26, that perhaps the most fundamental reason for the disagreements we have seen in this thread is simply disagreement about semantics.

I proposed at that time substituting the word "accuracy" for the word "neutrality," meaning that Bryon's proposed methodology be viewed as a tool that can facilitate evolution of the system + room such that they can accurately reproduce what is on the recording. Which of course does not by any means necessarily constitute the end-point in the evolution of any particular system, but narrowing system inaccuracy to some degree is certainly an important part of that process. At least until the tolerance has become small enough to be overshadowed by other factors and preferences, whether subjective or objective.

Bryon then guided that thought to the point where it was agreed by at least some of us that neutrality represents the degree to which coloration is absent. With accuracy referring to the degree to which a component or system is both resolving and neutral, resolution referring to the amount of information presented by a component or system.

There was further discussion of the distinctions between accuracy, which focuses on minimizing differences between what is on the recording and what is presented to the listener's ears, and transparency, which focuses on minimizing differences between what is presented to the listener's ears and the original musical event, thereby encompassing issues with the recording as well as with the system and the room. And in turn it was recognized that inaccuracy in the system + room might in some cases be complementary to inaccuracy in the recording, with the two sets of inaccuracies tending to negate one another.

Given all of this, I would ask those who have opposed Bryon's proposal, as expressed in post 1 of this thread, to consider whether there is any wording change, or any change in their initial interpretation of the existing words, that would allow everyone's position to converge.

My basic feeling about all this is that Bryon has proposed a methodology or tool which can be helpful in working towards the goal of optimizing a system, and by "optimizing" I mean subjectively maximizing the degree of enjoyment that system will provide to its owner. Is there a way that Bryon's proposal/tool can be accepted in that spirit? Learsfool's paragraph that I quoted at the beginning of this post gives me some degree of optimism that it can be, and I think it certainly should be.

Regarding the last sentence in that quoted paragraph, my response is QED!

Regards,
-- Al