How do you judge your system's neutrality?

Interesting comments by Learsfool and Bryoncunningham.

For myself, I would say that digital photography is FAR ahead of digital audio.

Agreed, and again because the music distribution companies limit what the public has access to whereas camera manufacturers MUST do their best for creators (photographers) who will move to better systems to please their clients and justify their fees.

The serious point is that the audiophile has some role in controlling the representation of the musical event, but a far lesser role, it seems to me, than the photographer has in controlling the representation of a visual event.

Well said by Bryon, and again the photographer has tools to create an ORIGINAL work, pretty much limited only by what he and the client are willing to spend. If the new Nikon and Canon 24 Million chip is not enough, there are large cameras with associated computer in tether that can create files so large that almost anything can be done with them (resolution wise).

The digital image business is driven by advertising and commercial and somewhat by portrait and wedding. When Apple makes billions offering MP3, then Sony, Phillips and others that have the power to offer ultimate digital music to us feel it would be pearls before swine.

That's a shame because I suspect the original high resolution digital file (in the studio) would stun us into silence in our complaints about the shortcoming of digital audio.

Sadly it seems we will not be offered that quality level and for that reason I purchase as many analog master tapes as possible. That's as good as it gets for us music lovers until something better is offered.

15 IPS half track probably compares in the analog photo world to the beautiful 8X10 Kodak and Fuji chromes from my Swiss made Sinar view camera. Most people have no concept how much resolution a piece of film this size contains.

Area is greater than an entire roll (36 exposures) of 35MM film, simply stunning.

I kept believing that digital didn't have it because folks like above said so, and their accumulative wisdom should be right. Then, I seriously started mining the information stored in the 16 bit CD. The deeper I dug, the more digital gave forth. Encouraged, I kept at it. Now, in just the last few days, I took my system into it's most revelatory status yet. I know my system is surely better than any vinyl system I have heard.

It is my opinion CDs are not the problem. It is the CD player that is at fault, with cabling stirring more sediment up. The digital player industry has been pushing one digital devil fix on us on another. Oversampling, upsampling, jitter, dithering, and filtering have battered the music signal beyond recognition as is attested to by previous posters compalints.

My source sets the picture for the system's playback. My speaker is able to express the whole of the picture. So, the source is where it is at. I use a transport that measures it's circuit in millimeters. It certainly does nothing to, "Improve," the signal on it's way out. The receiving DAC is just as hands off, though not quite as simple.

I will challenge anyone to detect any defect in this playback, one that has only been clocked, read, and played. The depth of material inserted into the 16 bit CD is simply phenomenal.

Muralman - I know nothing about your system, and so I cannot comment on your claims, though I assume you recognize how provocative they are.

I myself am a digital only person, so I would like to believe the things you are saying about digital playback. However, having listened to a number of high quality analog systems, I have to confess that they have typically sounded wonderful, in all the ways that analog is famous for. My own view is that it is possible to make digital sound almost like analog, but it is a difficult thing to achieve.

Having said that, the relative merits of digital and analog playback is a topic that is very far afield from the substance of this thread, and so I will now return to my system and try to contain my analog envy. :-)

Byroncunningham, I was reacting to comments made by posters above concerning digital vs. analog. Sorry about

Neutrality to me defines a system that provides a sound bereft of self noise, or the large part of it. Frankly, I think that is very tall order.

I have discovered a way to approach that ideal. Every circuit detracts from the very notion of neutrality. That is why I profess ridding the circuit of the worst offenders, and keeping cables simple.

Muralman - I agree that noise, like distortion, diminishes the neutrality of a component or system. As far as neutrality being a "very tall order," it is worth keeping in mind that neutrality is a matter of degree. It is not a binary state. As colorations are decreased in a component/system, neutrality is increased. Hence a component/system may APPROXIMATE neutrality, to a greater or lesser degree. This was discussed at great length in this thread, though I'm not recommending that you go back and read the whole thread, unless you are prepared to sacrifice half a day of your life. :-)

Concerning your view that "every circuit detracts from the very notion of neutrality," you mentioned something similar in your post on this thread from 12/02/09, where you wrote:

It has been my experience less is more. My wires can't be more simple. The DAC lacks a filter chip. The preamp is spartan. Every little change proclaims itself loudly, training me to go simple.

I think this is a valid point of view, though I have not approached system building the same way, as I wrote in reply to you on the same day:

I don’t have a problem with this idea, in theory. In practice, it has not always been my experience. I can give two examples from assembling my system.

Example #1: The use of Room EQ Wizard software in combination with Meridian Room Correction made a dramatic difference in the quality of bass I was able to achieve in my listening room. This is reflected in a much flatter in-room frequency response below 200Hz, as well as the subjective impression, confirmed by other listeners, that my EQ work significantly improved the timing and transparency of my system. Meridian Room Correction involves intensive real time computation. It is not simple.

Example #2: The addition of a reclocker between my transport and my dac improved my system in at least four areas: (1) increased perceived resolution; (2) better imaging focus; (3) less shrillness in high frequencies; and (4) lower noise floor. The reclocker discards the timing data of a digital audio stream and reclocks the audio data using a high precision clock, thereby reducing jitter. Also, not simple.

...While I agree that complexity provides more opportunities to get things wrong, I think in some cases, it provides opportunities to correct things that are already going wrong. Having said that, it is probably significant that the two examples I mentioned are both in the digital domain. If you look at my system from the point at which it becomes analog, you will notice that it is quite simple: The preamp is in the same unit as the dac (the Meridian), followed by 1 meter of analog interconnects, followed by a Pass amp of very simple design, followed by 2 meters of speaker cable to the speakers. This reflects my partial agreement with you about the value of simplicity.

My own view, FWIW, is that simplicity can be a great asset with analog signals, but it is somewhat less essential with digital signals. Here is my reasoning...

You may be right that digital signal processing is always a deviation from neutrality AT THE LEVEL OF THE COMPONENT. But it does not follow, and I believe it is not true, that digital signal processing is always a deviation from neutrality AT THE LEVEL OF THE SYSTEM. That is because digital signal processing can compensate for deviations from neutrality ELSEWHERE IN THE SYSTEM. For example, a reclocker compensates for deviations from neutrality in the transport; room correction compensates for deviations from neutrality in the listening room. Hence, I believe that the added complexity of digital signal processing, if used judiciously, can result in greater neutrality AT THE LISTENING POSITION, which is where it counts.

Having said that, I have heard digital systems with the kind of circuit simplicity you are advocating, and I agree with you that they can sound excellent. So I am not suggesting that one approach is better than the other. I think there are several paths to a rewarding musical experience.