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
A contribution to the topic of neutrality was posted on the Tidal thread by Jorn Janczak, founder of Tidal Audio:

05-12-11: Tidal
My two cents as the designer behind the speakers mentioned in this thread: neutrality is nothing but an objective criteria. It is a fact which can be found out, and no opinion or a feel.

Neutrality can be defined very simple by the difference between what goes inside of the speaker and what comes out of it. It can be measured in many complex ways. The most famous and also most simple one to understand is the 'frequency response', but it does not tell the whole story of a speaker at all - otherwise all speakers with a flat FRQ would do sound the same.
But almost all effects to "sound" can be measured and follows the same principle: the difference of IN and OUT. The less the difference, the more 'neutral'. And this is at least what we do at TIDAL: bringing this difference as low as possible.

But HOW one likes neutral speakers/systems closer to neutrality then others - well, about this one could talk back and forth since it is a subjective issue/feel/opinion.

many greetings, Jörn

FWIW.

bc
since all components are imperfect, a thorough audition will reveal some flaw or consistent sonic signature.

if there exists a component which is "virtually" neutral, i.e., does not reveal any flaws, i would like to know about it.
Mrtennis, I have given up that quest, nor will I trust most who might tell me there is such a speaker.
Mrtennis, I have given up that quest, nor will I trust most who might tell me there is such a speaker.

Norm, don't tell me you purchased a speaker just because it sounds good and you enjoy it?

What in the world is this site coming to...