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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
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,432 posts
 
"for a split-second I thought someone was knocking on my front door"

That's price you have to pay for having natural sounding gear. It happens to me all the time, answering door, answering phone. Once, by mistake, I even answered an iron (I hate when it happens)
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,389 posts
 
Sound effects of things that you are familiar with in real life make good tests.

We may never know exactly how the beatles sounded in the studio for reference but there are many sounds of nature and society we might know when we hear.

Logitech squeeze system provides several well recorded sound effects. Try some and see.
lohanimal
659 posts
 
I put out a recent post having not noticed this thread. In any event this is the great question for me. When I ntalk of a system that is 'musical' I say it may well be warm, or particularly dynamic/leading edge - they are each a type of musical. That said I am no longer convinced that this is not 'neutral'. True neutrality ought to be the accurate replication of a live performance. The problem starts with the phrase replication - this is of itself an alteration/change - so the notion of there being a classic concert, or a stadium in your lounge is impossible. What we deem neutral may just simply be the closest copy to the real event. However, most musicians that I know, and some people i know that work in the music industry say that what they aim for is to convey the musical message, and if a system achieves this, then they are satisfied. That being the case a system that is more 'musical' achieves the ultimate goal does it not?
One of the real problems of neutrality replicating the illusion is that I cannot recall last attending an un-amplified live performance in music, and trust me, I have tried very hard to do this, so I for one and truly denied that point of reference.
peterbj's avatar
peterbj
29 posts
 
the room acoustics,
is a least as important as a component.
But your thoughts on diversity getting greater with quality increase is brilliant.
tbg
5,263 posts
 
Lohanimal, you said, "One of the real problems of neutrality replicating the illusion is that I cannot recall last attending an un-amplified live performance in music, and trust me, I have tried very hard to do this, so I for one and truly denied that point of reference." I agree. Last weekend I sat in on five live performances at THE Show in Newport, CA. All were very enjoyable with Tierney Sutton and Nneena Freelon. All were heavily amplified and too loud, but I was very impressed.

I came home and listened to the same cuts from both singers on their albums. It was quite the equal to being there, especially volume wise, but I was thrilled at the realism.

I really don't think neutrality is our quest, it is realism.
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