Mosin,
I agree with you on the usage of the term neutral. This seems to be to most often abused expression in High End. People were educated going for a neutral (= no influences of any part of the TT in comparison to the original recording) reproduction. The term itself is a contradiction. But in man's history everyone was looking for the stone of wisdom and some church bishops developed rules and everyone followed. Followers have an easy job just repeating this formula all the time giving themselves a kind of wisdom.
Of course we know that the world is colorful and that even the quality of master tape recordings depends on the engineer's carefully designed set up as well as the capabilities of the musicians and the room. Whoever has visited different recording studios knows that the term neutral is complete bullshit. I understand that people are always on the road asking for traffic signs, guide lines and reglementation - also on audio.
Nevertheless one may argue if we cannot set up a standard in recording we need to agree on a standard in reproduction and this one we may call neutral.Following this reaching the highest standard in reproduction is a 1:1 copy delivered by the turntable. All small deviations caused by the drive, tonearm, cartridge etc. are not allowed. What you need to do is owning the master tape or at least a 1st copy tape and compare it with the turntable's result. I sometimes do it with my Reel to Reels just to get an idea of the turntables signature which all have!
Doing this I have found out that neutrality is a nice theoretical formula. People hunting for this might believe they are on the right track but the reality shows a different picture. Usually the ones being happy with the sound at home are those who know about the signature of their reproducing machines and do like this. It seems to me that more often unhappy people are going on the neverending quest for something neutral - my god there must be a unit providing this and who is not seeking a neutral reproduction cannot be a musical expert at all
