How do you judge your system's neutrality?

You all realize, just changing the volume knob up or down a notch changes everything. True neutrality means you have to play it back at the same volume, or loudness as it was recorded. That information is missing from the album so it is anybody's guess. But when my wife tells me to turn it down, I tell her that I must listen to it at the original sound level because any difference in sound level is distortion. She makes me turn it down anyway.

I know, why not hire your favorite band to play in your living room? Then you can A/B them with your stereo.

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.

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.

Hey what happened? I hope I didn't say something to spoil the party. When I got into this hobby I had a modest system that I thought sounded pretty good until I befriended some audiophiles. That lead me to purchase an ARC SP-6b pre-amp in the late 80's. That pre-amp sounded wonderful but had coloration. It had a nice sound but was a bit too warm and veiled until my buddy upgraded the capacitors, resistors, rca jacks and wiring for me. I enjoyed that pre-amp for many years. And that lead me to upgrading components inside my speakers, amplifiers and turntable.

Breaking out the soldering iron is a satisfying side of this hobby but I finally began to step up into the higher cost, high end pieces. And I must say that while a lot of snake oil is out there, in general, you do get what you pay for in audio. I enjoyed maximizing my sound per dollar in the past and I still do tweaks here and there, but most of the expensive equipment out there sounds really good.

Someone said in an earlier post that we must remain objective in this hobby. I agree. It is good and healthy to hear other systems and realize someone may have something better than what we have. That helps give us direction to making improvements. Only once have I come home from a listening session and was ready to throw out my whole system. A friend at work had the most amazing stereo at the time that I had ever heard. I didn't know where to even start. But many years and $$$ later I think I am close. It wasn't jealousy, I just wanted to enjoy music like I did with his system.

I also wanted to say it is good to hear live music of various types to calibrate ourselves. Even listening to musicians on a street corner can provide insight into areas for improvement.

Lastly, recordings are all over the place. I have a few special recordings that are definitely key to hear on other systems for reference.

I saw that in the posts- as independent researchers many of us come to similar conclusions. Perhaps we are on to something.

Bryoncunningham, to expand further on your discussion about accuracy and neutrality: The perception of coloration is going to occur mainly in the midrange. This is due to our sensitivity to voices and instruments in the voice range, ie. 200-1000 Hz. And as discussed before, the overtones and undertones add the finishing touches to both the perception of neutrality and accuracy.

You mention the differences of systems missing the sub 30Hz information vs. systems that have it. We can hear those differences everyday comparing either a car stereo or TV to our hifi system. And everyone can notice the "fullness" of sound as I like to call it from our hifi's that is missing from lessor sound reproduction systems. And that is what we pay for in terms of cost and size of both our system and dedicated listening space. The ability to reproduce the entire audio spectrum faithfully requires not only transducers of significant size but also significant power and speed (speed requires power too).

Take for example the ability to reproduce the cannons in T's 1812 overture. I can imagine very few systems exist in homes that can leave one feeling a cannon was just fired in their living rooms. It takes tremendous power to reproduce that impulse of a cannon shot. One, if so inclined to play this song, is likely better off firing a real cannon in their living room at the appropriate times and resigning themselves to replacing a few windows. While this may seem like a shortcut or "giving up" as it were, it will avoid a lot of time, money and frustration in trying to build a hifi system that can meet all parameters of music- including cannon fire. Maybe for the sake of our neighbors and windows, save the real cannon fire for special occasions.

Fortunately, most of us audiophiles mature past playing the 1812 overture (I did so by my mid-20's) and move on to the more pragmatic issues of building a satisfying hifi system that lets us put aside all the technical hurdles in our minds and just enjoy the music.