Neutral electronics are a farce...

No doubt you can only reproduce what’s in the recording most all of which are flawed in some way, even the good live recordings which are the only ones relevant for comparing a live event to what you hear off a recording.

I find once your system is performing well, the recording is essentially always the biggest bottleneck by far in regards to sound quality or "like live".

You can’t reproduce what’s not there to start with.

In a lab experiment like Atmasphere’s with ultimate care in recording and playback, only then is one in a position to be talking about anything approaching zero distortion or perfection.

With the best live recordings I know of like teh best from Mercury Living Presence, Dorian or Mapleshade most good systems should sound like being there. Even my somewhat modest rigs do. I’m sure if I was at teh live performance recorded, with same perspective as the mikes, which alone is not likely, I might notice some differences. But why should that matter? They are ALL recordings.  Flawed and/or limited representations of real life.   Some might be like a high res photo and some like abstract Picassos,  some even just a total disaster like DT might say.  What matters is the illusion of a live recording. That happens with most any decent recording in a good setup, even if produced in a studio.

I'd say the neutral and balanced-labelled equipment has become a tool for sales guys to pitch us some low-end stuff. Maybe not.

I can honestly say I can't distinguish a neutral or balanced sounding mix unless i listen to what an unbalanced mix is. 

Well, I can say that my rule of thumb for getting the right kind of equipment would be to trust my ears and what details it would love to hear.

nootral? i know how to hear natural: I can record my guitar, accordion or beat box and if it sounds same in the same room via speakers than it's natural or maybe nootral.

One can assume a very generic definition of neutral in regards to sound and say that if it generally sounds like the real thing its neutral whereas if not it has some unique aspect to the sound, FBOFW. Vanilla ice cream versus other flavors essentially. More people like vanilla but some like other flavors. Most people recognize vanilla.

Not much more to it practically than this I think. Neutral is generally the norm. Still some variation possible and still be judged "neutral". Anything else is more an acquired taste. Different strokes....

So its a very generic term that is useful but not sufficient alone for people like audiophiles that must obsess on details of everything.

geoffkait,

Things are just not that simple. There are distortions associated with speakers, with room acoustics anomalies such as slap echo, standing waves, reflected waves, with the effects of seismic vibration, the effects of mechanical vibration of motors, transforrmers, etc., the effects of static electric fields on the CD or LP and cables, the effects of induced magnetic fields in the wires and cables, the very large induced magnetic fields in large honking transformers, distortions resulting from wire and cable and fuses being installed in the wrong direction, distortions due to local environmental influences (Morphic fields), improper speaker set up, not to mention weather effects, sun spots effects, time of day effects. In other words in order to achieve "live" the audiophile who is attempting to get into audio nirvana must pay attention to everything, not just the speed of acoustic waves in air. 

All of this is true except if the last reference - "not just the speed of waves in air" is not dealt with your system will never produce live no matter how much control you have over the vibrations. The velocity has to be right or you are wasting your time.