Neutral or warm? Which do you prefer?

Neither. Warm can sound muddy and neutral can sound weak and thin. My system is very close to neutral, but I listen to vinyl with tubes in the preamps. Also, I have a little open baffle bloom. This lights my fire.

Bob

I don't know what it is really called, but if I am listening to Eric Clapton Unplugged he better be in my room between my speakers playing,breathing and running his fingers up and down the neck of his guitar as was recorded;I prefer to call it accurate and natural.

On a good recording, if the performance sounds "accurate and natural", I find it usually means that the system has a "neutral" tonal balance, that is, it does not emphasize one frequency over another.

05-29-13: Rsimms
Neither. Warm can sound muddy and neutral can sound weak and thin.

05-29-13: Peterayer
On a good recording, if the performance sounds "accurate and natural", I find it usually means that the system has a "neutral" tonal balance, that is, it does not emphasize one frequency over another.

You see....that is the problem with the word neutral, it is often misused. In this case, Peterayer has used the word neutral correctly, while Rsimms has used the same word incorrectly. If it sounds weak and thin, it has tilted up high frequency response, and is therefore, NOT neutral.

However, this is not uncommon on these forums. In fact, I find that more folks use the term neutral to mean tilted up highs that highlight the treble region for the sake of detail, than use it to describe a natural sounding system which emphasizes neither the highs or the lows.

I always thought the opposite of warm was cool.
What is wrong with a system being balanced or unbalanced ?
If it is unbalanced, that can mean either upward or downward.