Neutral or warm? Which do you prefer?

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.

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.

I use that term because when I listen to live acoustic music, it can sometimes sound weak and thin. If using neutral to say that speakers sound like live music is wrong then I don't understand.

Bob

"What is wrong with a system being balanced or unbalanced ?
If it is unbalanced, that can mean either upward or downward."

I agree, the word balanced is less open to interpertation.

So BALANCED is added to the list of words to be used insted of neutral.

I was just going to say, until Bob beat me to it, that live acoustic events can sound weak, thin, and not very image specific. Go one step further and play the same acoustic material at another place and the sound can and will change dramatically. Quite the can of worms, eh?

So, like Peterayer and Jmcgrogan2 imply (if I infer it correctly) is that an actual acoustic event can be not so neutral sounding as we'd like. I think this is due to our hearing acuity, which we should never doubt. Live events can sound wrong if out of tune or played incorrectly. Neutral is satisfying to our ears as no one part of the spectrum is out of line with the rest, drawing attention to itself.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if something sounds pleasant, involving, and gratifying to us, it can be considered to sound "neutral", which then makes it very specific and therefore unique to each and every one of us. But a consensus can be arrived at that most can agree on. The same goes for our home systems even more since that is where we build and validate our beliefs.

All the best,
Nonoise