How do you judge your system's neutrality?

Learsfool writes:

It is apparent that there is already disagreement even between the three of you on exactly what is a "coloration" and what is not. Though these differences may be minimized some by further discussion, I don't think they can be eliminated. So going back to your definition of "neutrality" as the absence of coloration, if there can be no consensus on "coloration," there cannot be on "neutrality," either. What one person may see as a coloration, another will not, as I have said all along. I feel that despite your valiant attempt to expand into different categories of colorations, the early disagreement illustrates this.

I don't know how Bryon will respond to this, but for my thinking, I don't see that complete agreement is required in order to achieve a better understanding of the processes we are discussing. We are dealing with terminology that, in general usage, is not exact. If we insist on rigid conformance to our personal usage, you are right, agreement will never be reached. And even then, the discussion may be useful.

"Coloration," for instance, is a term for which my usage is considerably narrower than is Bryon's. My understanding of the term is closer to the visual analogy than is his: a coloration is a band-limited (or narrow-band) distortion. I found this definition on line, which is even narrower than my understanding of the term:

Coloration: Change in frequency response caused by resonance peaks.

Things like speaker cabinet resonance and room modes fit my definition (as per the above), but so do descriptions of systems that are "bright," "dark," "warm," "bass-heavy," etc., because these characteristics tend to be the result of excess or insufficiency (relative to the source) within a particular frequency range. I would put things like intermodulation distortion and crosstalk under a broader category of "distortion" or something like that (because, despite possibly being frequency dependent, they tend to wide-band), and put "coloration" as a sub-category within that category. But my understanding may not reflect the general usage within the community. It may be that Bryon's usage is the more normal. In which case "coloration" is the broad category, and "narrow-band coloration" is a sub-category. But in either case, I understand the term "neutrality," as used here, to apply to the broad category. When Bryon talks about playback system coloration, I just substitute "playback system distortion" because I know that is the way he is using the term. If I come to believe that my understanding of the term is non-standard, I'll adjust my thinking accordingly. If I become convinced that I'm right, I'll suggest to Bryon that he adjust his terminology.

As to the question of whether one kind of resolution loss should be assigned to one category or another, I don't see it as being enough to derail the general progress toward a clearer understanding of the topic. In my own classification scheme, I'm not even sure where I'd put harmonic distortion. But I can live with that. As a musician, you must be comfortable with shades of gray and non-absolutist thinking, even though the notes are set down in ink on a piece of paper by the guy who wrote the music.

The little blue pill may be a case in point regarding preference choices relating to neutrality and coloration. Of course there are more Subjectivists than Objectivists in this particular coloratura, so consensus tends to move in an upward bias toward the contention that the more color the better. But if this argument is to stand up to the close analysis, we must consider whether the pill adds coloration or removes it, in the sense of removing the corrupting veil that separates us from faithful reproduction of the “original performance”? But by removing this veil, have we achieved a realistic performance that is neutral in the manner of real life, or something more colored and larger than life? Before answering too quickly, consider that too many pills make one literally “see blue” as a side effect—and btw she is not fooled and may possibly even become uncomfortable by the stilted & exaggerated performance of TOO MUCH BLUE. But short of choking on this extremity, all vectors of experience tend to move together in the direction of preference, and for both sexes. However if after the deed is done a woman has been satisfied, then we may reasonable conclude that the analogy to high end audio has in the end gone limp.

Somewhat more seriously, Learsfool, granting your point, general agreement on a definition of neutrality is pinned to agreement about coloration—which is why I’m starting to think of neutrality in the broadest terms as “absence of coloration.” Also as you suggest, the Objectivist may fall into traps as easily as the Subjectivist. But if at an extreme the Objectivist emphasizes analysis over aesthetics, the Objectivist is guilty more of intellectual hubris than demonstrative of a failure of aesthetic appreciation. Similarly the Subjectivist may believe that by emphasizing taste and appreciation over analysis he has a monopoly on aesthetics—which in turn evidences his own kind of intellectual hubris. The two see the same phenomena from opposite directions but with similar human foibles. But make no mistake about it, in selecting his component according to preference, a cultivated Subjectivist has analyzed (even if selectively or subliminally) many listening variables, just as a cultivated Objectivist makes choices that are aesthetic as well analytical. That is why I began to explore preference choices as common ground for both parties, and to look at the dichotomous viewpoints of these observers on coloration as a possible basis for a deeper convergence.

Bryon questioned why I feel “The propagation of a desirable coloration is necessarily accompanied by the propagation of undesirable coloration.” The thought is simply the obverse of practice in modding of making a single-variable change inside of a component based on solid technical grounds. After making such a change I generally observe that all variables of the listening experience tended to move in the direction of preference—which as an Objectivist I consider a less colored presentation closer to neutrality. Had the same mod been done in reverse, varying kinds of coloration would have emerged. I think I could demonstrate to any experienced audiophile of either persuasion that some of these emergent colorations were undesirable to all, while other colorations might be considered by some as benign or even preferable—were they not accompanied by the collateral damage in other areas. So in view of this last point, my operationalization of conditions required for movement toward neutrality requires the absence of retreat of any listening variables from preference. Admittedly this requires that the Subjectivist become more objective in terms of exhaustive definition and analysis of listening variables. Admittedly the experiment is harder to operationalize in the context of a complex system involving whole component swaps. The approach may have particular appeal to DIYers, and also to owners of designs like Merlin and Atma-Sphere, which have been refined in small steps over many years. IMO practicing slow incremental change trains the ear to connect the art to the engineering differently than swapping through a succession of so-called “break-through” products.

Bryon, I like this idea of coloration-independent characteristics and loosely connect it to my idea of professed subjectivists and objectivists whose different aesthetics may each progress toward separate but valid senses of neutrality defined in the broadest sense. In the end this approach allows each to settle on a different sound that is in its own way close to colored, or colored with the minimal number of undesirable colorations. However my mod experience suggests it is very challenging to separate desirable from undesirable colorations, in the sense that a single engineering change does not affect everything through linked variables.

Reading a recent audio club review of a speaker that was demoed to around forty educated listeners, I was struck how the generally negative reviewers accentuated a wide array of perceived defects, while positive reviewers focused on the few strengths that they considered paramount in a component. Maybe Objectivists & Subjectivists divide along these lines when thinking about audio.

Dgarretson – Hilarious post. And informative.

Learsfool wrote:

It is apparent that there is already disagreement even between the three of you on exactly what is a "coloration" and what is not. Though these differences may be minimized some by further discussion, I don't think they can be eliminated. So going back to your definition of "neutrality" as the absence of coloration, if there can be no consensus on "coloration," there cannot be on "neutrality," either.

This is the issue of CATEGORY MEMBERSHIP, in that it raises the question: Just what things fall into the category of ‘coloration’ and what do not? It is a valid question, and any effort to refine our understanding of neutrality must address it. I have proposed a definition of 'coloration' that gives some minimal guidance as to its category members:

(1) They are additions or subtractions to the playback chain.

I should probably have included ‘alterations,’ so I will include it now:

(1b) They are additions, subtractions, or alterations to the playback chain.

And:

(2) They conceal or corrupt (as opposed to eliminate) information about the music.

Admittedly, this is a very broad category. I do not think that its broadness diminishes its validity, however, so long as we find STRUCTURE within the category, in the form of SUBSETS, i.e., TYPES of coloration (or, using the language of a previous post, LOWER-ORDER categories). The more structure we find within the category of ‘coloration,’ the more useful it becomes, and the more guidance we will have to make judgments about CATEGORY MEMBERSHIP. I tried to begin the process of finding structure within the category in my first post on 12/9.

It is worth pointing out that many, many categories have ambiguity and/or disagreement about category membership, including some scientific categories like ‘life’ (Is a virus alive?) and ‘planet’ (Is Pluto a planet?).

It is also worth pointing out that concepts, in the sense of mental representations of categories, are never identical from person to person. There is abundant evidence from cognitive psychology that shows that significant differences exist across individuals’ conceptualizations of all categories. For example, my conceptualization of the category ‘dog’ is similar but not identical to yours, because each of our conceptualizations is shaped by our experience with specific breeds (exposure effects), what dogs we’ve seen recently (recency effects), and a host of other variables. What this means is that there is NO SINGLE CONCEPT of ‘dog.’ There are many overlapping conceptualizations of ‘dog.’ Two things follow from this.

The first is that the disagreement among me, Cbw, and Dgarretson about the conceptualization of ‘coloration’ is to be expected, because IT IS TRUE OF ALL CONCEPTS. But that does not make the category 'coloration' useless any more than diverse conceptualizations of ‘dog’ make that category useless. Whether or not the differences among our various conceptualizations of 'coloration' can be minimized through discussion and debate is yet to be seen. In the meantime, I think Cbw's approach is the right one:

When Bryon talks about playback system coloration, I just substitute "playback system distortion" because I know that is the way he is using the term. If I come to believe that my understanding of the term is non-standard, I'll adjust my thinking accordingly. If I become convinced that I'm right, I'll suggest to Bryon that he adjust his terminology.

Second, the existence of diverse conceptualizations of ‘coloration’ highlights the need to STIPULATE a definition for the purposes of conversation. The stipulated definition is subject to error, ambiguity, vagueness, debate, and revision, but it is a necessary step in the discussion and development of ideas. The value of a stipulated definition should be judged by its ability to further investigation. In that sense, it is a HEURISTIC. Heuristics are sometimes messy, confusing, and frustrating, but they are the mainstay of the exploration of ideas.

Very interesting posts, indeed. Cbw, I did not mean to suggest that complete agreement on terms is necessary - certainly all of these terms are inexact. And you are correct that the vast majority of musicians are very comfortable with shades of grey and non-absolutist thinking. Almost none would call themselves "objectivists" as Dgarrestson has so well defined the perspective (however, very few would also say that they would be completely "subjectivists", either, though they would lean much more in that direction). This is a large part of the reason that the concept of "neutrality" does not have any appeal even as an idea to me and many others. I was speaking more of agreement on colorations when listening to a system, not when defining types of colorations. As you say, there is room for general agreement in defining certain types - I think the disagreement could come even over whether you were hearing them or not, and certainly over whether they were desirable or not.

Dgarretson, hilarious opening of your post! And we are in agreement about subjectivists and objectivists using much of each other's methods. As I said, your approach is very close to the one I suggested. And they do indeed share the same hubris/foibles. I also think you are correct on any desirable colorations also being accompanied by undesirable ones. There are always trade-offs, I think.

I would like to point out a connection to something Dgarretson said, and something Bryon said in their latest posts. Dgarretson speaks of "my idea of professed subjectivists and objectivists whose different aesthetics may each progress toward separate but valid senses of neutrality defined in the broadest sense." Bryon speaks in his last paragraph of stipulating definitions, and calls this "heuristic." I had not encountered that term in long time, and will admit having to look it up. Bryon is using it in the sense of the first definition in my unabridged dictionary, which reads very close to his explanation in his post. I was struck by the second definition, however, which is "encouraging a person to learn, discover, understand, or solve problems ON HIS OR HER OWN, as by experimenting, evaluating possible answers or solutions, or by trial and error." My emphasis, and I would also emphasize the plurals - answers and solutions.

It seems to me that Dgarretson's comment implies that there is more than one valid "neutrality." Perhaps this was not your intention, but it seems to me that here you are really talking about a "personal reference point," a phrase I used earlier on in this discussion. Likewise, Bryon, I think that although it may be possible to come up with a very lengthy list of different categories of colorations that many audiophiles could agree upon IN THEORY, I doubt that there would ever be much consensus on this IN PRACTICE, the result being that very few audiophiles would end up coming up with the same sense of "neutrality." Everyone's hearing is different, and their sonic priorities will be different as well. I think your approach ultimately is only useful for each individual on his or her own, to come up with his or her own "personal reference point." I don't think there could ever be a generally accepted sense of "neutrality," even as you have refined it with the different types of colorations.

I think your approach ultimately is only useful for each individual on his or her own, to come up with his or her own "personal reference point." I don't think there could ever be a generally accepted sense of "neutrality," even as you have refined it with the different types of colorations.

I'd like to point out that the title of this thread is "How do YOU judge YOUR SYSTEM'S neutrality?" [Emphasis mine.] It is not, "I'm going to compel you to make your system conform to my idea of neutrality." It seems an obvious point, but it appears to have been lost in much of the discussion throughout this thread.

Likewise, Bryon, I think that although it may be possible to come up with a very lengthy list of different categories of colorations that many audiophiles could agree upon IN THEORY, I doubt that there would ever be much consensus on this IN PRACTICE, the result being that very few audiophiles would end up coming up with the same sense of "neutrality."

I disagree. My own experience with my system leads me to believe that if you could A/B the various types of coloration in an otherwise constant system, almost all audiophiles would prefer the more neutral system. Maybe Dgarretson or Almarg could tell us if such a test is possible on some of the forms of coloration (for instance, is there a way you could introduce and remove intermodulation distortion, harmonic distortion, crosstalk, etc.?), but how many audiophiles are going to prefer a boomy speaker cabinet, room modes, comb filtering, etc.? I had the opportunity to listen to reduced jitter in my system in two stages (first my adding a Monarchy box between my computer and DAC, then going with a DAC with asynchronous USB), and with each improvement, there we significant improvements in sound quality that I can't imagine any audiophile not preferring. I liked my sound before, but after reducing this form of coloration, I can not imagine going back.

I think personal preference plays its strongest role when tradeoffs are required. For instance, if one has to choose between an excess of speaker cabinet resonance, or having poorer resolution, it is likely that audiophiles would be split. But the choice between more or less cabinet resonance is simple, and I think most audiophiles would choose less.