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
does anyone posit that in order to enjoy the fruits of listening to music it is necessary or ssufficient to have a method of assessing a systems' neutrality ?

if , as i suspect it is not necessary or sufficient to be concenrened with the coloroations or lack thereof to enjoy music, why is there such an interest in trying to determine a stereo systems neutrality or the lack thereof, regardless of methodology.

there seems to be an implicit sense in the desirability of pursuing some algorithm for "measuring" neutrality which, unfortunately may be uncorrelated to the results of listening to music.
Bryoncunningham - we have two problems here:

First - you believe that more neutral sound will be a joy to most of the people - not true. People like particular sound of their system (coloring, attack, decay reverberation etc.) even it it is not exactly real.

Second: music on neutral system will sound more unique and diverse. Not true, IMHO, since certain aspects of music will still keep its proportion no matter how system plays it. Somehow you imply that system looses resolution and therefore ablility to present differences. It is not true since most of the tube amps do some coloring keeping high resolution and proportions at the same time.

As for your comment "What is [sic] suppose" I hope you realize it was a typo (but even if it wasn't it was not a pleasant thing to print - I'm perhaps one of those foreign guys, you mentioned, that cannot appreciate good discussion)
Mrtennis and Kijanki - I have said many, many times on this thread that I believe that neutrality is only one virtue AMONG MANY. Perhaps I should begin several new threads, "How do you judge your system's resolution? ...musicality? ...beauty?" Each of those would be interesting topics, and it might help convince you that my statements about the finite value of neutrality are sincere.

Kijanki - I did not intend to offend you by my use of "sic." It is an old habit from years of writing. I apologize.

Mrtennis - You asked: "why is there such an interest in trying to determine a stereo systems neutrality"? I would ask in return: Why is there such an interest in diminishing the value of these discussions?
Bryoncunningham - You're a nice guy and I like reading your posts very much. Merry Christmas to you and all Audiogonners.
hi byron:

my point is simple:

if you enjoy a stereo system while listening to music, you won't enjoy it any more by analyzing it.

unless one is a reviewer, the analytical mode is often an academic excercise with little reference to the satisfaction one attains from listening to music.

any attempt to judge the attributes of a stereo system ususually does not enhance the pleasure one gets from listening to music in general.

while reviewers assess the merits of stereo sysytems, i question the utility of such an endeavor for serious listeners.

obviously if you don't like the sound of your stereo system, it may be useful to determine the reason.