How do you judge your system's neutrality?

This simile of a filtering ski goggle is interesting, as is the water analogy. Perhaps audio components are analogous to brightness and contrast controls on a TV. With such controls it is possible to vary saturation and to whiten or darken the visual palette. Visual "neutrality" lies near the middle of the range of both controls. Perhaps the stereotypical SET has over-saturated contrast, while SS amp is under-saturated with brightness turned up. However to develop useful indices of audio neutrality, one should probabably avoid reasoning by analogy and describe aural phenomena directly. But this is more difficult(and perhaps less interesting)than analogies.

If you really are looking for neutrality then get a Frequency Spectrum Analyzer and a pink noise generator. Set up the calibrated microphone, or even better get a binaural head and set it up in your listening position. Then you can adjust your system and the room with dampeners to achieve a flat frequency response. See if you like those results. I did that back in the early 90's (I was doing a lot of NVH research in Automotive at that time) and the system sounded dead-lifeless. Seeking neutrality is a dead end road.

When you get your system tuned to a point that you just smile and start tapping your feet, then you have found the magic. Meters and cables can only go so far.

Tonywinse wrote:

If you really are looking for neutrality then get a Frequency Spectrum Analyzer and a pink noise generator. Set up the calibrated microphone, or even better get a binaural head and set it up in your listening position. Then you can adjust your system and the room with dampeners to achieve a flat frequency response. See if you like those results. I did that back in the early 90's (I was doing a lot of NVH research in Automotive at that time) and the system sounded dead-lifeless. Seeking neutrality is a dead end road.

This test of the value of neutrality is not testing 'neutrality' in the sense it has been used in this thread. In your example, neutrality is: FLAT FREQUENCY RESPONSE AT THE LISTENING POSITION. When you achieved this in your test and you heard disappointing results, you concluded that neutrality is not a thing to be valued. But the term 'neutrality' has not been used in this thread to mean flat frequency response at the listening position. It has been used to mean: FREEDOM FROM COLORATION.

One of the previous posters in this thread suggested that neutrality, in the sense of freedom from coloration, is REDUCIBLE to flat frequency response. I don't share this view, since it ignores the transient and harmonic characteristics of components/systems.

In the context of your example, a more valid test of neutrality would be: Am I hearing at my listening position what the rerecording engineer heard at his listening position IN THE FINAL MIX? To the extent that I am, my system is neutral. I very seriously doubt that that would turn out to be the same as flat frequency response.

Thanks for the clarification, Bryon. I guess where we really disagree, then, is on whether you have in fact proposed "conditions that reliably indicate the presence of a characteristic," emphasis on reliably. I must have missed Hamburg's post - he is challenging on basically the same grounds, as you say. Dgarretson is probably correct that we should stick to describable aural phenomena, but that is indeed what makes discussion difficult. One person may not be able to hear what the other does, or one person may be fooling themselves into hearing something that isn't there, or they may disagree on what they do both hear, or be unable to describe it. That is why many objectivists decide to go only by the numbers - though I agree with Tony that that route will certainly lead to a dead end, whether in searching for neutrality or anything else. All one can do is trust one's own ears in the end, and try to develop a better sense of hearing, which can be done.

Music is coloration- ie. a blend of sounds and overtones and the nuances of tonal responses. Every instrument, violin, piano, ect. has its own unique coloration as it were. If your system can resolve the differences of one violin to another, for example, then I would think that is a very good stereo.

Trying to reproduce exactly what the recording engineer heard is an exercise in futility. Even if the recording engineer came to your house, he will not remember every nuance of tone and detail from the original recording session.

In the end your system will have the imprint of your sonic signature on it just as someone else's system will have their sonic signature. When I lived close to some hifi buddies in South Bend, In and Niles, Mi, we would come around and listen to our respective stereos and we all eventually agreed that we had some nice systems, each one being unique with their own +'s and -'s. We concluded that all systems will have their own unique sound and could enjoy any one of them. Additionally, the set-ups varied depending on our listening tastes as well. One friend was big into classical and did not like brightness one bit.

My system has changed over the years- I hope for the better, as my tastes have changed and as influenced by hearing other systems.

I was at a recital at my son's University a few weekends ago. An intmate, acoustic setting with a Grand Piano, flute and vocalist. (The vocalist did not use a microphone.) I was fortunate to sit 2nd row center seat. During the performance I closed my eyes and I could have been sitting in front of my stereo. The music was very satisfying and I was pleased to hear strong similarity to my stereo system in terms of tone, imaging and resolution. Would someone else that sat in that room and then in my living room come to the same conclusion? Perhaps but maybe not.

Flat frequency response in your listening room achieves nothing- that was my point.