Viridian,
What I said was that 2d order harmonics sound more 'natural' to me. I parenthesized 'neutral'with a ? mark only to emphasize that I didn't think the my use of the term natural necessarily encompassed neutrality, but some might think these terms were identical in this context. That is, to be natural demands neutrality.
If I may digress a bit - I think many, myself included, are convinced that the best result in home audio is brought about by a careful matching of the speakers to room acoustics, the amps to the electrical requirements of the speakers, the pre-amps to the needs of the amps and sources, and lastly the sources to please the ears of the listeners.
None of these components need to be neutral to succeed in their function, in fact bending of the tonal balance by selection of certain components is often what makes a meaningful difference to the user because they need to compensate for other tonal imbalances brought about by compromises in the choice of room, speakers, amps, etc. They should all be highly resolving as pratical but tonally accurate (read neutral) is, for me at least, not necessary.
Some bend the tone with cable, IC's, tubes, PC's and even tweeks. But bend the tone they do and in the final analysis they have the tone that they feel is most natural, not which is not necessarily more neutral.
On a purist level, I will be very impressed when some one can prove to me, not just speculate, that they have been successful in actually replicating, or even coming close for that matter, to the sound that was recorded on the source. For those who might, I might ask if they were present when the recording was made and why they have such confidence in their long term aural memory.
Being a 'hair shirt' audiophile is no walk in the park! :-)
What I said was that 2d order harmonics sound more 'natural' to me. I parenthesized 'neutral'with a ? mark only to emphasize that I didn't think the my use of the term natural necessarily encompassed neutrality, but some might think these terms were identical in this context. That is, to be natural demands neutrality.
If I may digress a bit - I think many, myself included, are convinced that the best result in home audio is brought about by a careful matching of the speakers to room acoustics, the amps to the electrical requirements of the speakers, the pre-amps to the needs of the amps and sources, and lastly the sources to please the ears of the listeners.
None of these components need to be neutral to succeed in their function, in fact bending of the tonal balance by selection of certain components is often what makes a meaningful difference to the user because they need to compensate for other tonal imbalances brought about by compromises in the choice of room, speakers, amps, etc. They should all be highly resolving as pratical but tonally accurate (read neutral) is, for me at least, not necessary.
Some bend the tone with cable, IC's, tubes, PC's and even tweeks. But bend the tone they do and in the final analysis they have the tone that they feel is most natural, not which is not necessarily more neutral.
On a purist level, I will be very impressed when some one can prove to me, not just speculate, that they have been successful in actually replicating, or even coming close for that matter, to the sound that was recorded on the source. For those who might, I might ask if they were present when the recording was made and why they have such confidence in their long term aural memory.
Being a 'hair shirt' audiophile is no walk in the park! :-)