How do you judge your system's neutrality?

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.

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.

Tonywinsc - No, you didn't say anything to spoil the party. You have made several valuable observations, though some of your objections to neutrality have been discussed at length earlier in this thread. For example, you wrote:

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.

There has been much discussion on this thread about the distinction between coloration in music and recording, on the one hand, and coloration in playback systems, on the other. The consensus among Objectivists and Subjectivists alike is that coloration is an essential part of music and recording. The disagreement lies in whether coloration can be reduced in a playback system, whether it is desirable to do so, and if so, how. You may find reading the rest of the thread of use, and hopefully fun as well.

I, for one, welcome your contributions.

Bryon

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

If one were to wear yellow glasses while skiing during an overcast day, visual improvement in the snow's light and dark shadow detail would be apparent. Those same glasses on a bright day would not be beneficial...
The improvements in your system may have actually increased the level of contrast above and beyond the original instruments of the musician.

Here, Hamburg is challenging the idea that items (1) and (2) are indices of neutrality. I thought this to be one of the more effective and relevant challenges to my original post, but no one seemed to run with it.

I think he has a point, and that point raises an existential question.

Let's look at the continuum of neutrality as defined in this thread:

At one end of the spectrum, you have a system that plays back, say, a 1kHz tone, no matter what the source. This is the anti-neutral system: everything sounds exactly the same.

At the other end of the spectrum, consider a hypothetical system that processes the source, and through the use of pattern recognition, seeded pseudo-random number generators, and large variety of sampled sounds, effectively replaces the source with something else. One violin might sound like a subway train, another, slightly different violin might sound like a jackhammer, a cello sounds like a babbling brook shifted one octave up and slowed down by 20%. So we satisfy criterion #1: different instruments sound more different. (They just sound nothing like what they really are.)

Similarly, using the same system, we look at the first n bits of any recording (where n is large enough to insure uniqueness over the body of recorded music) and use those bits to seed our random numbers to insure that each recording sounds completely different from all of the others. So now we've satisfied criterion #2 of neutrality: any music collection sounds more diverse.

This absurd system would be, by our operation of the term, more neutral than anything any of us currently has. But I don't think it would lead to improved musical enjoyment. So clearly, within the idea of neutrality we are making assumptions about truthfulness to the source, and consistency of playback.

Which brings me back to Hamburg's point.

If we consider a system that smooths out recording artifacts, we also risk smoothing out sounds that are real features of the music, making the system less truthful (i.e., it suppresses real contrast). In Hamburg's example, the divergence from the truth is the unwarranted exaggeration of contrast. While neutrality, as operationalized here, resists the suppression of contrast, it doesn't appear to resist its exaggeration.

So somewhere in the operation of "neutrality" there is a necessary condition that the playback system maintain truthfulness to some reference point or points. How, exactly, one codes that constraint, I don't know. But if it were coded, would it, in and of itself, be a sufficient condition for neutrality?

Cbw, I think that the scenarios you have cited pinpoint some important points that underly some of the disagreements which have been rampant in this thread.

In my two posts dated 11/20, one of the things that I tried to express, but perhaps didn't as explicitly as I should have, is that if throughout this thread the word "accuracy" had been substituted for the word "neutrality," the amount of controversy and disagreement might have been significantly less.

To me those two terms, in the context of an audio system, mean essentially the same thing. But I'm not sure that they have been interpreted in the same sense by some of the others.

To a first approximation, what goes into the system and what comes out of the system should resemble each other as accurately as possible. Of course, there are then the obvious issues, that have been gone over multiple times in this thread, about not being able to know exactly what is going into the system, about euphonic inaccuracies resulting in sound that is subjectively more pleasing, etc., etc.

But as I see it, those issues, while often being highly significant, are second order effects. And if the word "neutrality" were understood to mean the same thing as "accuracy," which is how I and I believe Bryon and some others have been using the term, I think we would have seen a lesser degree of divergence in the viewpoints of many of the protagonists in this thread.

And by a similar substitution of terms, I believe that the conundrums which you have cleverly posed in your previous thread would be largely reconciled:

Neutrality, as operationalized here, resists the suppression of contrast, it doesn't appear to resist its exaggeration.... So somewhere in the operation of "neutrality" there is a necessary condition that the playback system maintain truthfulness to some reference point or points. How, exactly, one codes that constraint, I don't know. But if it were coded, would it, in and of itself, be a sufficient condition for neutrality?

Substitute the word "accuracy" for "neutrality" in this paragraph, and it seems to that, to the extent that it is practicable to judge accuracy, we resist both the suppression and the exaggeration of contrast.

And if we impose the constraint of truthfulness to some reference point, presumably the listener's prior exposure to live music, while we by no means obtain any certainty of optimal results (either objectively or subjectively), if we interpret "neutrality" in the sense of "accuracy," then I submit that typically there will be a considerable (and useful) degree of correlation, albeit a partial correlation, between the ability of a system to make different records sound different, and the likelihood of obtaining those optimal results.

On another note, happy Thanksgiving to all!

-- Al

Cbw, loved your post! Almarg, I have always enjoyed your interesting and informative posts as well. In this case, however, although I see what you are driving at, I am not sure that the substitution of "accuracy" for "neutrality" really changes anything. Those who buy into the concept of neutrality will naturally make this equation of terms; however, those who do not would just as naturally not equate accuracy with it.

A designer of a piece of audio equipment I think certainly would attempt to be truthful to his reference point of live music (and actually, I would not consider that a "constraint" - that's an interesting choice of word - I prefer to think of it as the designer being "free" to try to create the sound he wants, and I am pretty sure the vast majority of designers would feel that way - many of them I think correctly consider themselves artists), but this reference point will still be different for every designer and for every listener. What sounds accurate to one will not to another. I usually ignore the term "accuracy" when encountering it in reviews, etc., unless it refers specifically to pitch accuracy, for example in reference to a turntable's speed accuracy.

Almarg wrote:

...if throughout this thread the word "accuracy" had been substituted for the word "neutrality," the amount of controversy and disagreement might have been significantly less.

Al – I think you are probably correct that, if we were to substitute the term ‘accuracy’ for the term ‘neutrality,’ there would be less disagreement in these discussions. But the cost of that substitution, in my view, is the loss of a small but significant degree of conceptual precision. That is because there are circumstances that an audiophile commonly faces where the concept of ‘neutrality’ does not fully reduce to the concept of ‘accuracy.’

To see this, it is useful to conceptualize accuracy in terms of information, specifically, the information available at the source vs. the information presented at the ear. (I say “at the ear,” rather than “at the speaker,” since the room, and your listening position in it, are ultimately part of the system). If we think of accuracy in terms of information, there are three kinds of deviation from accuracy:

(1) The ADDITION of information.
(2) The SUBTRACTION of information.
(3) The ALTERATION of information.

Examples of each of these might be:

(1) ADDITION: Intermodulation distortion.
(2) SUBTRACTION: Loss of frequency extremes.
(3) ALTERATION: Phase inversion.

My view is that the ADDITION of information is often (perhaps always) a deviation from neutrality. I have used the example of intermodulation distortion throughout this thread, because it seems to me an uncontroversial example of a how the addition of information can be a deviation from neutrality, in the sense of adding COLORATION.

However, the SUBTRACTION of information, while a deviation from ACCURACY, does not always seem to be a deviation from NEUTRALITY. Consider the example of loss of frequency extremes. I don’t think most audiophiles would be inclined to think of a system that failed to present the bottom 30Hz of information as not neutral, in the sense of COLORED, but they might be inclined to think of it as somewhat less accurate than an identical system that did present the bottom 30Hz of information.

To my mind, this illustrates (a) that ‘neutrality’ and ‘accuracy’ are not identical concepts; and (b) that the concept of ‘neutrality’ fails to reduce to the concept of ‘accuracy’ without an undesirable consequence, namely, the diminishment of conceptual precision for situations that audiophiles commonly face.

Cbw723 wrote:

While neutrality, as operationalized here, resists the suppression of contrast, it doesn't appear to resist its exaggeration.

Cbw – I think you are correct that my proposal for the operationalization of ‘neutrality’ is not exhaustive because it would fail to identify as colored (i.e. not neutral) systems that exaggerate contrast. I agree with Al that, if we were to substitute the term ‘accuracy’ for ‘neutrality,’ then maybe my operationalization could be rescued from that criticism. But since I disagree with Al’s substitution, I cannot avail myself of his solution.

As you are of course aware, the hypothetical system you described, while conceptually possible, does not reflect how real audio components are actually designed and built. I understand that your hypothetical system is a thought experiment designed to highlight a theoretical shortcoming in my operationalization of ‘neutrality.’ While I acknowledge the THEORETICAL shortcoming, I wonder whether it is really a PRACTICAL shortcoming. It seems to me that the Rube Goldberg lengths your thought experiment had to go to meet the conditions of my operationalization reflects the fact that this is not likely to be a practical concern for the real world audiophile.

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.

Not all ATC's are neutral. The SCM 11 is described by John Marks as having a "smiley face" F-R. Although the 2nd order x-over could have be one reason they sound good.

Narrow dispersion such as Snell with +/-15 degree dispersion could reduce room effects and increase "neutrality".

Loss of transparency can come from a lot of things. Driver distortion, crossover distortion, delayed sounds that come from a heavy, underdamped, cabinet; heavy drivers that resonate, time delays between drivers. Flat F-R is only one component.

I disagree that a $50,000 system will always sound more enjoyable than a $300 system. Throwing a lot of money at audio doesn't guarantee good sound. I have found that while an expensive system can have more detail, bass, volume, on and on for the most part, I simply don't like how they sound. Maybe it's because they expose TOO much - the bad as well as the good. And that goes for the systems shwoing off its own arts as well. While I can appreciate all their audiophile traits, I simply don't like how most high end systems sound. Meaning if you just kick back and listen without being critical of every nit (how audiophile's are trained to listen) do you enjoy the experience.

When you limit a driver in the frequency domain, you also limit it in the time domain. I've heard it often, especially in bass drivers. When the bass driver is cut off over "X" frequency vs. running full range, bass becomes slow and lacks punch, timing, impact and rhythm.

When you limit a driver in the frequency domain, you also limit it in the time domain. I've heard it often, especially in bass drivers. When the bass driver is cut off over "X" frequency vs. running full range, bass becomes slow and lacks punch, timing, impact and rhythm.

This might be because the attack of the bass drum or toms is around 5 Khz. Slap of bass guitar is around 3 to 5 KHz.

See this explanation of how to achieve desired sounds.

Almarg wrote:

...if throughout this thread the word "accuracy" had been substituted for the word "neutrality," the amount of controversy and disagreement might have been significantly less.

And I replied:

...the concept of ‘neutrality’ fails to reduce to the concept of ‘accuracy’ without an undesirable consequence, namely, the diminishment of conceptual precision for situations that audiophiles commonly face.

Although I disagreed with Al’s substitution of ‘accuracy’ for ‘neutrality,’ his suggestion stuck with me, because something about it seemed to be essentially correct. This morning I got around to mulling it over, and I came up with a new proposal, one that I believe captures the spirit of Al’s suggestion while also preserving as much conceptual precision as possible. The proposal is:

'Accuracy' is a SECOND-ORDER CONCEPT that includes both 'resolution' and 'neutrality.'

A second-order concept is a concept that subsumes other concepts. In biology, for example, ‘genus’ is a second-order concept relative to the first-order concept ‘species.’ The relation between second-order and first-order concepts in science is analogous to the relation between sets and subsets in mathematics and logic. That is to say, first-order concepts are members of second-order concepts the way that subsets are members of sets.

To say that ‘accuracy’ is a second-order concept, then, is to say that ‘accuracy’ is a concept that includes, as its members, the concepts of ‘resolution’ and ‘neutrality.’ We can add this definition of 'accuracy' to our expanding lexicon on this thread:

RESOLUTION: The amount of information presented by a component or system.

NEUTRALITY: The degree to which a component or system is free from coloration.

TRANSPARENCY: The degree to which a component or system is sonically “invisible.”

And now…

ACCURACY: The degree to which a component or system is both resolving and neutral.

In my last post, I suggested that it is useful to think of a system’s accuracy in terms of information, specifically the information available on the recording vs. the information presented “at the ear.” Under that conceptualization, a system is accurate to the extent that it does not add, subtract, or alter information. My new proposal that ‘accuracy’ is a second-order concept that includes ‘resolution’ and ‘neutrality’ is implicit in the conceptualization of ‘accuracy’ in terms of information, since the diminishment of resolution or neutrality by the addition, subtraction, or alteration of information is NECESSARILY a diminishment of accuracy.

In my last post, I offered an example that I believe illustrated (1) that ‘neutrality’ and ‘accuracy’ are not identical concepts; and (2) that the concept of ‘neutrality’ does not reduce to the concept of ‘accuracy’ without the unwanted diminishment of conceptual precision. Al’s suggestion that we should substitute the word ‘accuracy’ for the word ‘neutrality’ contained an important insight, however, which is that the concepts of ‘neutrality’ and ‘accuracy’ are INTRINSICALLY RELATED. The current proposal is about exactly how they are related. My view is that the concepts of 'resolution' and 'neutrality' are first-order concepts that can be subsumed under the second-order concept of 'accuracy.' In other words, the concepts of 'resolution' and 'neutrality' CONSTITUTE the concept of 'accuracy' in audio. Because of this, the concept of 'accuracy' can be REDUCED TO the concepts of ‘resolution’ and ‘neutrality.’ Or:

‘ACCURACY’ = ‘RESOLUTION’ + ‘NEUTRALITY’

A note on the “reduction” of concepts: A concept A is reducible to a concept B to the extent that B has the same explanatory and predictive power in A’s theoretic domains. Like everything else in life, reduction is imperfect. But like many imperfect things, it is also valuable.

At the heart of Al’s suggestion that we substitute the term ‘accuracy’ for the term ‘neutrality’ is, I believe, the recognition that the use of the two concepts often amounts to the same thing. My new proposal is intended to be a refinement of that important insight.

A few words, by way of footnote, on how this discussion dovetails with earlier ones. In a previous post, I offered the following equation:

EQUATION #1
RESOLUTION + NEUTRALITY = TRANSPARENCY

This was meant to suggest that systems that were both highly resolving and highly neutral would also be highly transparent, NOT that the concept of ‘transparency’ is reducible to the concepts of ‘resolution’ and ‘neutrality.’

In this post, I have proposed that the concept of ‘accuracy’ can be reduced to the concepts of ‘resolution’ and ‘neutrality,’ represented by the equation:

EQUATION #2
‘ACCURACY’ = ‘RESOLUTION’ + ‘NEUTRALITY’

Unlike Equation #1, Equation #2 is a first and foremost a statement about concepts, though it entails that systems that are highly accurate are precisely the same systems that are highly resolving and highly neutral.

As you have probably noticed, resolution and neutrality are equated with TRANSPARENCY in Equation #1, whereas they are equated with ACCURACY in Equation #2. This raises the question: What is the relation between transparency and accuracy? My answer:

EQUATION #3
TRANSPARENCY = ACCURACY

Like Equation #1, Equation #3 is about characteristics of components and systems, NOT about the concepts that represent those characteristics. Equation #3 is meant to suggest that systems that are highly accurate are the same systems that are highly transparent. The concepts of ‘accuracy’ and ‘transparency,’ however, may not be reducible to one another, in light of the fact that they invoke different kinds of understanding and different metaphors. ‘Accuracy’ invokes our understanding of truthfulness (e.g., an accurate description) and perhaps measurement (e.g., an accurate scientific instrument). ‘Transparency’ invokes the metaphor of seeing through a medium (the audio system) to something behind it (the music). For this reason, the concept of ‘accuracy’ and the concept of ‘transparency’ may not be interchangeable, but I believe that those two concepts refer to the very same virtue in an audio system.

Hello Bryon,

I love your read. Since I was impressed with your thoughts on system attributes, I took the liberty to check out your system. There I noticed you have every base covered with laudable name brand audio gear. Positive feedback can be found on each component in your system.

I believe you have spent a lot of time and money building your system. Given that each addition is only as strong as the whole, how do you know the real worth of each element old or new?

Bryon, that all strikes me as brilliantly conceived and brilliantly expressed!

And I agree just about completely.

The one thing I would add concerns the discussion at the end of your post about the relationship between transparency and accuracy. I agree that "accuracy invokes our understanding of truthfulness ..." while "transparency invokes the metaphor of seeing through a medium (the audio system) to something behind it (the music)."

Perhaps that distinction can be further refined if we say that accuracy pertains exclusively to the system (including the room, of course), while transparency must encompass consideration of the source material as well as the system.

A perfectly accurate system, referring to your equation 2, would be one that resolves everything that is fed into it, and reproduces what it resolves with complete neutrality. Another way of saying that is perhaps that what is reproduced at the listener's ears corresponds precisely to what is fed into the system.

Which does not necessarily make that system optimal in terms of transparency. Since the source material will essentially always deviate to some degree and in some manner from being precisely accurate relative to the original event, then it can be expected that some deviation from accuracy in the system may in many cases be complementary to the inaccuracies of the recording (at least subjectively), resulting in a greater transparency into the music than a more precisely accurate system would provide.

Which does not mean that the goals of accuracy and transparency are necessarily inconsistent or in conflict. It simply means, as I see it, that the correlation between them, although substantial, is less than perfect.

Best regards,
-- Al

I need to add something. It has been my experience less is more. My wires can't be more simple. The DAC lacks a filter chip. The preamp is spartan. Every little change proclaims itself loudly, training me to go simple. The end result spotlights the depth of material gathered onto the lowly CD.

Thus my question. How, with all the layers of components can one know if one component addition or change makes a difference on it's own or is it a lost in complex relationships with the other components.

Muralman - Absolutely agree - less is more. 0.5m IC is much better than 1m IC and every addition takes away from clarity. I keep cables as short as possible and use DACs volume control to avoid using preamp. Some people claim that adding preamp improves sound. It can happen if you have impedance mismatch (driving problems) but extra component in the chain cannot improve anything. This component might add even harmonics that many people like or add a little THD to make sound less sterile but cannot improve clarity. In certain cases we trade one thing for another like getting upsampling DAC (and therefore filtering) to defeat jitter but in general less is more IMHO

Good link Shadorne, thanks.

Almarg wrote:

Since the source material will essentially always deviate to some degree and in some manner from being precisely accurate relative to the original event, then it can be expected that some deviation from accuracy in the system may in many cases be complementary to the inaccuracies of the recording (at least subjectively), resulting in a greater transparency into the music than a more precisely accurate system would provide.

Al - This is a fascinating idea. If I understand you correctly, you are saying two things:

(i) The target of the concept of ‘accuracy’ is the RECORDING, whereas the target of the concept of ‘transparency’ is the MUSICAL EVENT that the recording represents.

(ii) In some cases, sacrificing some accuracy (to the recording) may increase transparency (to the musical event).

Regarding (i), I am in complete agreement. I think your observation about the differences between the respective targets of the concepts of ‘accuracy’ and ‘transparency’ captures both the usage of the terms among audiophiles as well as the underlying metaphors that those terms invoke.

Regarding (ii), I am in agreement, but in a more tentative way. I have actually been giving this topic some thought over the last few days, in the context of mulling over Cbw’s Rube Goldberg machine, viz., an audio system that exaggerates contrasts. Cbw raised it as a possible challenge to my operationalization of ‘neutrality’ presented in the original post, but I’ve been thinking more about whether an audio system that exaggerates certain contrasts, while not being truthful to the recording, might be more truthful to the musical event that the recording represents. Or, to use your observation, the question is whether an audio system that exaggerates certain contrasts might sacrifice some accuracy for the sake of greater transparency.

The sonic characteristic I’ve been thinking about in particular is dynamics. In light of the fact that so much compression is used in music recording, a playback system that exaggerated dynamics swings, while not being strictly truthful to the recording, might be more truthful to the musical event that was recorded (prior to the use of compression). That idea makes complete sense to me.

Yet my agreement with (ii) above is tentative, for two reasons. The first is that there are other sonic characteristics, like timbre, that do not seem like they would benefit from exaggeration. The second is that my technical understanding of how exaggerations in contrast might be achieved is limited. For example, can dynamics really be exaggerated above those of the recording by the kind of equipment available to the consumer? If so, how does the exaggeration of dynamics affect, for example, transient information? If you have other ideas and/or experiences of how sacrificing accuracy can sometimes increase transparency, I would love to hear about them.

Muralman wrote:

How, with all the layers of components can one know if one component addition or change makes a difference on it's own or is it a lost in complex relationships with the other components.

I said a few things about this subject in an earlier post on this thread. Here is what I wrote:

It is, of course, impossible to hear a component individually. We can only hear it in the context of a system. Because of this inescapable fact, there is always a potential fallacy when we hear a characteristic of an audio system and then attribute that characteristic to an individual component. A system might sound bright. Is it the speakers? Is it the cd player? Is it an impedance matching issue? If we get this wrong, we’ve made the Fallacy of Division, i.e., the misattribution of a system characteristic to one of the system’s components.

Muralman – I quite agree with you that audio systems are HOLISTIC, in the sense that the system-level characteristics are a result of the complex interaction of all of the system’s components. But it seems to me that our understanding of audio systems is almost always MECHANISTIC, in the sense that we try to reduce system-level characteristics to component-level characteristics. That is, I believe, more of an artifact of our minds than of the audio systems we are trying to understand. Hence I also wrote:

… the attempt to reduce system characteristics to component characteristics is unavoidable. It is fallible. But it is what we have.

Muralman - I believe you are saying that, the more complex a system gets, the more difficult it will be to attribute system-level characteristics to individual components. I agree with this. I do not completely agree, however, with your conclusion:

It has been my experience less is more. My wires can't be more simple. The DAC lacks a filter chip. The preamp is spartan. Every little change proclaims itself loudly, training me to go simple.

I don’t have a problem with this idea, in theory. In practice, it has not always been my experience. I can give two examples from assembling my system.

Example #1: The use of Room EQ Wizard software in combination with Meridian Room Correction made a dramatic difference in the quality of bass I was able to achieve in my listening room. This is reflected in a much flatter in-room frequency response below 200Hz, as well as the subjective impression, confirmed by other listeners, that my EQ work significantly improved the timing and transparency of my system. Meridian Room Correction involves intensive real time computation. It is not simple.

Example #2: The addition of a reclocker between my transport and my dac improved my system in at least four areas: (1) increased perceived resolution; (2) better imaging focus; (3) less shrillness in high frequencies; and (4) lower noise floor. The reclocker discards the timing data of a digital audio stream and reclocks the audio data using a high precision clock, thereby reducing jitter. Also, not simple.

Muralman - You mentioned my system in your post, so I assume your comments about the drawbacks of system complexity were triggered by the relative complexity of my system. While I agree that complexity provides more opportunities to get things wrong, I think in some cases, it provides opportunities to correct things that are already going wrong. Having said that, it is probably significant that the two examples I mentioned are both in the digital domain. If you look at my system from the point at which it becomes analog, you will notice that it is quite simple: The preamp is in the same unit as the dac (the Meridian), followed by 1 meter of analog interconnects, followed by a Pass amp of very simple design, followed by 2 meters of speaker cable to the speakers. This reflects my partial agreement with you about the value of simplicity.

(i) The target of the concept of ‘accuracy’ is the RECORDING, whereas the target of the concept of ‘transparency’ is the MUSICAL EVENT that the recording represents.

(ii) In some cases, sacrificing some accuracy (to the recording) may increase transparency (to the musical event).

Bryon, yes that is an excellent restatement of what I was trying to express.

I'll try to present further thoughts tomorrow on your reservations concerning the second point. But my quick initial thought is that the inaccuracies I was referring to would not necessarily (or even typically) be "exaggerations." They would be either complementary colorations (a simple illustrative example being a frequency response inaccuracy in the system offsetting a complementary inaccuracy in the recording), or they would be inaccuracies in the system which smooth over, obscure, or homogenize inaccuracies in the recording.

Best regards,
-- Al

Wow. Fascinating posts, Bryon. However, ultimately I remain unconvinced by your argument, though it is an impressive statement of your case. Just to take a couple of for instances, first the EQ issue. Surely if a system is very "neutral," "transparent," or "accurate," it would not need any EQ? It seems to me that by applying EQ, you are not faithful or truthful either to the recording or the musical event that it represents. Again, IMO you are merely changing the sound of your system (and the recording, of course) so that it represents your personal sonic priorities. There is also the "flat frequency response" thing we have already discussed in this thread - no concert hall has a flat frequency response - this simply doesn't sound good for the live event, so to try to create it in your system seems pointless (and usually results in a very lifeless/soulless sound, IME). The room correction issue is interesting, too - again, what is the standard that you are trying to correct the room to? I don't think any two audiophiles would perfectly agree on this. To be clear, I am not suggesting that room correction is worthless, indeed these systems can make a big difference; I just wonder - how do you know when it has been corrected? Again, only you can answer that for yourself, and your answer may be very different from any other given audiophile's. The "lower noise floor" is also a topic of much division among audiophiles - take my brother's Nottingham turntable, a line which is well known for it's "black background." To my ears, the sacrifice made here to attain this is the removal of too much of what some call "low level information," for example a loss of much of the sense of the sound of the actual musical event/space that was recorded. Live music does not exist in a vacuum, even in a very dead recording studio - the sound of the space is an integral part of the music. This is particularly noticeable in moments of silence within the music. As John Cage famously demonstrated with his piece 4'30", silence is never really silence in a concert hall.

Sorry about the rambling - I'm under the weather, and never was the clearest writer - your posts are much better than mine in that regard! I just wanted to share the thoughts that came to me as I read your interesting posts. I would be particularly interested in your answer to my first question about the EQ issue, as it seems to me that if true "neutrality", "accuracy", and "transparency" could exist in a system, EQ would be completely unnecessary, and I was very surprised to see you mention it in this context.

Learsfool wrote:

…it seems to me that if true "neutrality", "accuracy", and "transparency" could exist in a system, EQ would be completely unnecessary, and I was very surprised to see you mention it in this context.

Learsfool – I did not mention EQ in the context of our ongoing discussion about neutrality, accuracy, or transparency. If you look again at my post, you will see that my mention of EQ was in the context of a reply to Muralman’s suggestion that it is difficult to identify the contribution of each component in an audio system, and that systems that are complex suffer from this more than ones that are simple. Nowhere in Muralman’s posts, or in my reply to him, is there mention of neutrality, accuracy, or transparency. Muralman’s question was not about neutrality, accuracy, or transparency. But I found his question valid and interesting in its own right, and so I took the time to answer it as best I could.

It is worth mentioning that I never suggested that my own system is especially resolving, neutral, accurate, or transparent. I value each of those characteristics, and I would like to believe that I have achieved some measure of each of them. But I have left the specifics of my own system out of the discussion up until my last post, because I didn’t want the conversation to become a comparison of different equipment, which there is an abundance of on Audiogon. I broke my silence about the specifics of my own system only because Muralman brought up my system in his post as an illustration of his concern about complexity. It was in an attempt to answer his concern that I described some of the particulars of my system. But I do not regard my system as a model of any particular sonic characteristic. I mention this because you wrote the following:

Surely if a system is very "neutral," "transparent," or "accurate," it would not need any EQ?

This makes it sound as though I have characterized my system as “very ‘neutral,’ ‘transparent,’ or ‘accurate.’” I have not.

This brings me to your comment about the incompatibility of (1) valuing system neutrality, accuracy, or transparency; and (2) the use of EQ in the context of room correction. You wrote:

It seems to me that by applying EQ, you are not faithful or truthful either to the recording or the musical event that it represents.

I disagree with this. The use of EQ for room correction is usually a matter of using notch filters to suppress room modes. As you no doubt know, room modes are frequencies that result in standing waves, the volume of which can easily be exaggerated by 10dB or more. If left uncorrected, standing waves make music sound bloated, uneven, and slow. Standing waves can be corrected either through room treatments or through EQ. For those who do not have a dedicated room (like me), the use of EQ for room correction can be a very effective option for controlling the destructive effects of room modes.

The use of EQ, in the way just described, is not a move away from system neutrality, accuracy, or transparency. In fact, it is the opposite, as anyone who has heard the effects can testify to. The result of suppressing the room modes in my system made the system more neutral, more accurate, and more transparent. The measure of this is not merely the flatter frequency response achieved under 200Hz. The measure of this is the perception of the listener.

Your comment that “Surely if a system is very ‘neutral,’ ‘transparent,’ or ‘accurate,’ it would not need any EQ?” seems to reveal an assumption that:

THE SYSTEM = THE EQUIPMENT

If we substitute “the equipment” for “system” in your question, then it would read: “Surely if the equipment is very ‘neutral,’ ‘transparent,’ or ‘accurate,’ it would not need any EQ?” I would agree with this rhetorical question IF I believed that the system = the equipment. But I believe that:

THE SYSTEM = THE EQUIPMENT + THE ROOM

That is why, in a previous post, I wrote:

…it is useful to conceptualize accuracy in terms of information, specifically, the information available at the source vs. the information presented at the ear. (I say “at the ear,” rather than “at the speaker,” since the room, and your listening position in it, are ultimately part of the system).

The alteration of the signal for the purposes of room correction seems like a deviation from system neutrality, transparency, and accuracy ONLY IF you believe that the system = the equipment. If the room is part of the audio system, then changes to the signal in the equipment do not necessarily result in less neutrality, transparency, or accuracy AT THE EAR. And that is where it counts.

Bryon: THE SYSTEM = THE EQUIPMENT + THE ROOM

Exactly, at least in the context in which we have been discussing it. I explicitly made the same point in my post yesterday:

Almarg: Perhaps that distinction can be further refined if we say that accuracy pertains exclusively to the system (including the room, of course), while transparency must encompass consideration of the source material as well as the system.

Learsfool: There is also the "flat frequency response" thing we have already discussed in this thread - no concert hall has a flat frequency response - this simply doesn't sound good for the live event, so to try to create it in your system seems pointless (and usually results in a very lifeless/soulless sound, IME).

Ideally the recording should capture the acoustic characteristics of the hall, as they exist at some presumably well chosen location within it. If that recording is then played back on a system that has flat frequency response (and that has good accuracy in other respects) then it will accurately reproduce those hall characteristics, including any deviations from frequency response flatness, as well as ambiance, reverberation, etc.

If a system is truly accurate yet still results in a lifeless/soulless sound, then it seems to me that there is a problem with the recording(s) being listened to. In that case, it seems to me to be perfectly legitimate to introduce some modest degree of inaccuracy into the system, such as non-flat frequency response, to compensate. The price that will be paid is that other recordings which are more accurate and transparent will then no longer be reproduced to their full potential.

That is a classic audiophile conundrum, and each listener must ultimately try to find the balance that is most satisfactory to him or her, between making great recordings sound their best and making average recordings sound as good as possible.

The "lower noise floor" is also a topic of much division among audiophiles - take my brother's Nottingham turntable, a line which is well known for it's "black background." To my ears, the sacrifice made here to attain this is the removal of too much of what some call "low level information," for example a loss of much of the sense of the sound of the actual musical event/space that was recorded. Live music does not exist in a vacuum, even in a very dead recording studio - the sound of the space is an integral part of the music.

It is pretty well established that low level high frequency hiss creates or enhances the subjective perception of space or hall ambiance. I suspect that is what is behind your observation. In the early days of the cd medium (and perhaps still today, to a lesser extent), that was undoubtedly a contributing factor to the frequent complaints of dry sound, lack of ambiance, etc., because the increase in perceived hall ambiance resulting from low level surface noise on lp's often seemed preferable in comparison. (In the early days of cd the problem was often exacerbated by improper dither or lack of dither in the recording process, and of course the a/d converters that were used in the recording process then were inferior to what is available today).

Can dynamics really be exaggerated above those of the recording by the kind of equipment available to the consumer? If so, how does the exaggeration of dynamics affect, for example, transient information? If you have other ideas and/or experiences of how sacrificing accuracy can sometimes increase transparency, I would love to hear about them.

On the specific question of what kinds of system inaccuracies might lead to an increase in perceived dynamic contrasts, I'm not really certain. Perhaps what is referred to as overshoot in the pulse response of an electronic component or speaker, which can somewhat simplistically be considered as being essentially an overemphasis in the treble region. Perhaps (I'm just speculating here) increases in higher-order harmonic distortion can also lead to a similar subjective perception.

In any event, as I indicated in my post last night, I was speaking more generally:

The inaccuracies I was referring to would not necessarily (or even typically) be "exaggerations." They would be either complementary colorations (a simple illustrative example being a frequency response inaccuracy in the system offsetting a complementary inaccuracy in the recording), or they would be inaccuracies in the system which smooth over, obscure, or homogenize inaccuracies in the recording.

And speaking still more generally, I must say that this has evolved into one of the more remarkable threads I've ever seen at Audiogon (in a positive sense). It would seem to be verging on forming a good basis for a master's thesis, if not a doctoral dissertation!

Best regards,
-- Al

Hi Bryon - obviously, the room has a big effect on how the system sounds, I am not arguing this at all, in fact I believe I said this in my post, and I also said that I agreed that room correction systems can make a huge difference. My point was that "changes to the signal in the equipment," even assuming they are only via room correction still do not necessarily result in either more or less "neutrality", "transparency", or "accuracy". I have heard "room correction" in an enthusiastic dealer's showroom that resulted in a very dead, lifeless sound as well -it depends on how it is applied, which depends on who is applying it. Unless I am very much mistaken, it is not possible to remove all of the effects of room nodes and other similar acoustic phenomena, no matter how good the room correction system is. These phenomena are a part of what gives all great concert halls their individual character, for instance.

Sorry for misunderstanding that your EQ comment only applied to room correction, by the way. I was also not speaking specifically of your system, the question was meant as a general one. Many audiophiles do use EQ for many other purposes besides room correction (I do not), as has been mentioned in this thread, with posted links about it, and I was asking your opinion on these uses as well. I would think that almost all of these other uses of EQ would be a violation of your "neutrality" principles, if I understand them correctly (for instance, wanting to make a violin's extreme high register sound less harsh), would they not?

Gee, I was only gone for a week or so and I come back to find this thread still active. But it does seem to have morf'd into something completely different from the original post where in, as I interpreted it, Bryon was informing us that he had discovered by increasing the quality of his components he was hearing far better replications of the recordings he was playing and he could hear differences that had previously lost. No problem there! Most anyone willing to be called an audiophile would agree with that - we've all been there/done that.

Then we argued at great length the meaning(s) of the words 'neutrality', 'transparency', 'resolution', and lastly (thanks to Al) a word, which for me is easier to grasp, 'accurate'. Despite noble attempts, perhaps even Herculean, by Bryon I doubt that any of us really agree on the subtle differences if any (I can tell by deeply gazing into my crystal ball).

Now we have moved on to discussing acceptable synergy, or attempts at synergy, which are consonant with recreating a feeling of being in the presence of live music or in the studio listening to the music over the studio monitors as heard by the recording engineers.

Sort of a fundamental objective of most audiophiles. One group wants to hear a replication of the sounds of live music, the other group wants to hear as closely as possible what is in the pits and grooves. And, I think, we agree that these are for the most part not mutually achievable and most audiophiles make a chose between these goals when setting up or, more likely, enhancing an extant system.

Some folks think you can only get there with tubes. The 'live' group I think.

Some folks think you can only get there thru SS stuff. The fidelity to the recording group I think.

Some folks think you can only get there thru Analog.
Some folks think you can only get there thru HiRes digital. The divergence seems endless. I'm a true heretic. I'm into playing with and fine tuning with tubes! I'm standing in line to be burned at the stake.

Which leads me to ask, assuming that we have discussed adequately all of the philosophical issues, how does the aspiring audiophile utilize anything in this post to help him achieve his goals?

Al, a degree perhaps, but in what. :-)

FWIW, amoungst my failings, please include a total lack of editing skills. Total! :-)

I think Bryon and Almarg addressed most of Learsfool's comments, but I'd like to add something on this point:

To be clear, I am not suggesting that room correction is worthless, indeed these systems can make a big difference; I just wonder - how do you know when it has been corrected? Again, only you can answer that for yourself, and your answer may be very different from any other given audiophile's.

Typically with room correction there is a fair amount of objectivity in the process. You play frequency sweeps through the system and then look at the response curve, with the goal of setting filters to reduce peaks caused by room modes. Some systems do this entirely automatically, though I believe that the manual approach is still better. But I don't think this is the same as setting the system so it sounds good to the individual. It is set to neutralize room modes, and as a byproduct the system sounds better.

This is really not all that different from voicing a system by moving speakers around and looking at the results on a real time analyzer. A properly treated room with well-placed speakers is an attempt to minimize the coloration caused by the room. But a lot of folks have limited options for treatments and speaker placement, and for them, room EQ is a viable alternative for achieving less system coloration.

Almarg wrote:

If a system is truly accurate yet still results in a lifeless/soulless sound, then it seems to me that there is a problem with the recording(s) being listened to. In that case, it seems to me to be perfectly legitimate to introduce some modest degree of inaccuracy into the system, such as non-flat frequency response, to compensate. The price that will be paid is that other recordings which are more accurate and transparent will then no longer be reproduced to their full potential.

I mentioned in an earlier post that it is now possible to provide different EQ for every song in your library. (The capability is a bit crude now, and would be difficult to implement for analog sources, but there are no technological hurdles to this capability.) This is the have your cake and eat it too scenario. You could fix up the recordings that need it, and leave the others alone. One could imagine adding other tools besides just EQ: volume graphing, dynamic range enhancement, etc.

On that same point, this capability appears to be one (less Rube Goldbergesque) way of achieving greater contrast within and among recordings, even to the point of exceeding the contrast in the source. Which would, by the definition given in the OP, increase neutrality. (While also being less accurate, and possibly more or less transparent.)

So, again, do we need to rein in neutrality with some counterinfluence beyond a simple monotonic relationship with contrast? There are a couple of approaches that one would ordinarily use:

1) Instead of a simple linear function, you would add a saturation term. Lets use "N" for neutrality and "C" for contrast. Lower case letters will be constants. We have something like N = a + b*C. But we could add a term to cause neutrality to saturate and even reverse: N = a + b*C - d*C^2 (where "C^2" is C squared). Here, d would be small, so that for small C the linear term dominates, but when we get to larger C, the C^2 term dominates. Thus, for increasing contrast, you get increasing neutrality to a point, then the function rolls over and neutrality starts to decrease.

2) You can leave the function alone, but introduce another function whose behavior is in the opposite direction. Say the parameter in question is X, then you have X = c + d*C, where d is negative. Note that it doesn't have to be C, contrast, but could be some other parameter tied to C. You then adjust the coefficients so that the intersection of the two lines is ideally neutral and ideally X. On one side of that point you want to increase contrast, on the other, you want to decrease contrast (or the related parameter).

The problem with both of these approaches is that you need a reference point of some sort. In #1 you need to know how much contrast is too much. In #2, you need to define ideal neutrality (and ideal X) so you can set your intersection. I confess I don't know how to do that, though I think the answer might be found in knowing what things actually sound like. But that gets back to my earlier question: If one could define that point, would it alone be a sufficient condition for neutrality? And if one can't define the point, how do we know when too much contrast is too much?

Al – I agree with everything in your last post. Also, I was happy to read that you are valuing the discussions on this thread. I am as well. As far as your remark that “It would seem to be verging on forming a good basis for a master's thesis, if not a doctoral dissertation!” I should mention that I actually did write a doctoral dissertation relevant to many of these topics. It was for a Ph.D. in philosophy, and my dissertation concentrated on topics in the philosophy of science. Audio was never mentioned, as it focused on technical issues concerning intertheoretic relations, objective vs. subjective knowledge, taxonomic categorization, interlevel reductionism, and mechanistic vs. complex systems. Yet it has occurred to me many times during this thread that there is a remarkable amount of overlap between those topics and topics that audiophiles commonly discuss.

Learsfool wrote:

I have heard "room correction" in an enthusiastic dealer's showroom that resulted in a very dead, lifeless sound as well -it depends on how it is applied, which depends on who is applying it.

I agree with this. I too have heard bad examples of room correction. The success of room correction relies on the technology involved and how it is implemented. But that is true of virtually everything in audio.

Learsfool wrote:

Unless I am very much mistaken, it is not possible to remove all of the effects of room nodes and other similar acoustic phenomena, no matter how good the room correction system is.

This is most certainly true, but just because we can’t control ALL room effects does not mean we can’t control ANY room effects, or that our efforts to do so aren’t worthwhile. Your reasoning here reminds me of your earlier comments about neutrality, when you seemed to suggest that, since we can’t achieve absolute neutrality, there was no point in trying to make a system sound as neutral as possible. To my mind, both these arguments suffer from the same mistake: They make THE PERFECT the enemy of THE GOOD.

Learsfool wrote:

These phenomena [i.e. room effects] are a part of what gives all great concert halls their individual character, for instance.

I understand that every concert hall, like every other room, has a unique sonic signature, and that it is important to be able to hear the sonic signature of the concert hall when listening to music that was recorded it. But the way to hear the sonic signature of the concert hall is not to RECREATE its sonic signature in your playback room. The way to hear the sonic signature of the concert hall is to MINIMIZE the sonic signature of your playback room. Al made the same point in his last post:

Ideally the recording should capture the acoustic characteristics of the hall, as they exist at some presumably well chosen location within it. If that recording is then played back on a system that has flat frequency response (and that has good accuracy in other respects) then it will accurately reproduce those hall characteristics, including any deviations from frequency response flatness, as well as ambiance, reverberation, etc.

And I made a corollary point earlier on this thread:

The more neutral an audio system, the less it colors the music with ITS OWN SIGNATURE. The less an audio system colors the music with its own signature, the more you will hear THE SIGNATURE OF THE MUSIC.

Learsfool – I believe that a recurring disagreement between us is whether the following two things are the same:

(1) The characteristics of GOOD MUSICAL PLAYBACK.
(2) The characteristics of A GOOD PLAYBACK SYSTEM.

I think that you believe that (1) and (2) are the same. I believe that (1) and (2) are often different, and sometimes opposite. Take neutrality, for example. You have said that neutrality is not a characteristic of GOOD MUSICAL PLAYBACK. As you have pointed out, musicians and recording engineers do not want their music to sound “neutral.” I completely agree with this.

But you seem to conclude from the fact that neutrality is not a characteristic of GOOD MUSICAL PLAYBACK that neutrality is not a characteristic of A GOOD PLAYBACK SYSTEM. I disagree with that conclusion. The assumption underlying your conclusion seems to be that, if a playback system is neutral, it will make the music played back on it sound neutral. I believe that assumption is false, as I said in an earlier post:

Neutrality (i.e. freedom from coloration) in an audio system does not lead to neutrality (i.e. SAMENESS) in the music played back on it, but rather the opposite. Neutrality in an audio system leads to DIVERSITY in the music played back on it.

Because of this, I believe that the characteristics of good musical playback and the characteristics of a good playback system are not the same, and sometimes opposite.

Learsfool wrote:

Many audiophiles do use EQ for many other purposes besides room correction…I would think that almost all of these other uses of EQ would be a violation of your "neutrality" principles, if I understand them correctly (for instance, wanting to make a violin's extreme high register sound less harsh), would they not?

I don’t use EQ for any other purpose than room correction, and the EQ I’m using precedes any D/A conversion. Like many audiophiles, I would be very hesitant to run an analog signal through a multiband equalizer for playback, mostly because of concerns about the loss of resolution.

But your question is whether the use of EQ is NECESSARILY a deviation from neutrality. The answer is: It depends on which level of organization you are talking about. By definition, the use of EQ is a deviation from neutrality AT THE LEVEL OF THE COMPONENT. But it is not necessarily a deviation from neutrality AT THE LEVEL OF THE SYSTEM, where "the system" includes the room and your listening position in it. That is because the judicious use of EQ could compensate for room effects that are themselves deviations from neutrality. For example, if the room contains a lot of hard surfaces and is bright, EQ’ing the treble could result in a SYSTEM that is more neutral, even though, at the component level, you have made the signal less neutral.

My own view is that both component-level neutrality and system-level neutrality are important. A neutral room will make it easier to achieve a neutral system. In this respect, it is probably the most important component in the system.

Newbee wrote:

But [this thread] does seem to have morf'd into something completely different from the original post where in, as I interpreted it, Bryon was informing us that he had discovered by increasing the quality of his components he was hearing far better replications of the recordings he was playing and he could hear differences that had previously lost. No problem there! Most anyone willing to be called an audiophile would agree with that - we've all been there/done that.

Newbee - Your interpretation of my original post, as described above, misses the central point of it: To propose an operationalization of the concept of ‘neutrality.’ I doubt that many audiophiles would say that they had “been there/done that” with respect to operationalizing the concept of ‘neutrality.’

Newbee wrote:

Despite noble attempts, perhaps even Herculean, by Bryon I doubt that any of us really agree on the subtle differences if any (I can tell by deeply gazing into my crystal ball).

There is no evidence in this thread to support that conclusion. So far, my proposals have received support from Shadorne, Almarg, Dgarretson, and Cbw723. Notable detractors have included you, Learsfool, Blindjim, Kijanski, and Hamburg. That is a fairly even split. I usually resist the temptation to keep score, since it lowers the tenor of the conversation, but your comment misrepresents the composition of views on this thread.

Newbee wrote:

…assuming that we have discussed adequately all of the philosophical issues, how does the aspiring audiophile utilize anything in this post to help him achieve his goals? Al, a degree perhaps, but in what. :-)

Newbee - It seems you don’t believe this discussion is valuable to audiophiles. This is apparently a change of heart, because until recently, you were among the thread’s most active contributors. It is unfortunate, and perhaps revealing, that you question the value of this thread on the same day that another poster expressed how much he values it.

As far as answering the question, “how does the aspiring audiophile utilize anything in this post [sic] to help him achieve his goals?” my answer is:

Expertise in any domain is involves both the development of concepts and the development of perception. (Some forms of expertise also involve the development of motor skills, but that is not relevant here.) The acquisition and refinement of concepts, which much of this thread has been devoted to, facilitates the development of expert perception. That is to say, improving the way you think about things improves the way you see and hear things.

The symphony conductor’s acquisition and refinement of musical concepts improves his expert perception of music. The psychologist’s acquisition and refinement of psychological concepts improves his expert perception of human behavior. And the audiophile’s acquisition and refinement of audio concepts improves his expert perception of the playback of recorded music. It seems to me that the value of an audiophile developing expert perception of the playback of recorded music is self-evident.

I find my system is most neutral at very high volume, at the beach on humid days. I like the changes that the Valhalla brings to my system.

A thought on the dilemma concerning increasing the degree of contrast between recordings via equalization, which Cbw723 attempted to address with some creative mathematics in his last post.

I believe it is really a non-issue. If the settings of an equalizer are changed from Setting A to Setting B, as I see it that amounts to a change in the system, which should be evaluated similarly to how substitution of one component for another component would be evaluated.

Meaning that Bryon's proposed test, assessing the degree to which a system makes different recordings sound different, would entail assessing whether Setting A makes different recordings sound more or less different than Setting B. The degree of difference or contrast between Setting A and Setting B is in itself irrelevant with respect to Bryon's test.

Obviously direct A vs. B comparisons would also be made on individual recordings, just as would be done if one amplifier were substituted for another, but that is a separate matter which I think is unrelated to Bryon's test, and to which Bryon's test is supplemental.

Best regards,
-- Al

If the settings of an equalizer are changed from Setting A to Setting B, as I see it that amounts to a change in the system, which should be evaluated similarly to how substitution of one component for another component would be evaluated.

I agree with this. But I was mixing two points. My main point was more about the use of equalization (or some other process) to enhance contrast beyond what actually exists in the source or even the live performance. If we assume that neutrality is a characteristic to be maximized, and increasing contrast increases neutrality then, barring some counterbalancing force, we will always work to increase contrast. So, for instance, if I'm listening to a violin concerto, and I happen to know that the timbre of violins is controlled within a certain range of frequencies, I could cleverly EQ the recording to make the different violins sound more different from one another than they actually do. (The same argument can be made for inter-recording contrast as I've just made here for intra-recording contrast by using recording-specific EQ.) By the rules introduced in this thread, I've achieved greater neutrality, which is something we're trying to maximize. But the result is not desirable. So, assuming that excess contrast is possible, what can we introduce to counterbalance the drive toward always increasing contrast?

The same argument can be made for inter-recording contrast as I've just made here for intra-recording contrast by using recording-specific EQ.

That's the point that I'm questioning. Let's say that you have two recordings, and you play them back with eq settings that are different for each of the two recordings. You are trying to judge how much contrast is introduced between the two recordings by "the system," using what amounts to two different systems (one system for one recording, and another system for the other recording). Which takes us out of the realm to which Bryon's test is applicable, as well as being an unhelpful methodology.

Best regards,
-- Al

Cbw’s EQ challenge to my operationalization of ‘neutrality’ is a good one. Here is my understanding of it:

If you were to give a unique EQ to every track in your music collection, then you would meet the conditions of my operationalization, namely:

(1) Individual pieces of music would sound more unique.
(2) Your music collection would sound more diverse.

By meeting the conditions of my operationalization, we would have to conclude that the system was moving in the direction of greater neutrality, in the sense of freedom from coloration. However, there is reason to doubt that, since the use of EQ can easily change recordings so that they are MORE colored (what Cbw is calling “excess contrast”). And MORE colored means LESS neutral. Hence the use of track-specific EQ seems like it defeats my operationalization, since it meets conditions (1) and (2) while resulting is less neutrality.

I think Al’s solution to Cbw’s EQ challenge is valid. My operationalization is not defeated by the EQ challenge IF you interpret the use of track-specific EQ as resulting in many different “virtual” systems. That is because my operationalization is a method for evaluating neutrality WITHIN A SINGLE SYSTEM, not across multiple systems. If this feels like my operationalization is being saved by a technicality, then I agree with you. To make matters worse for me, I think the following is a valid reply to Al’s solution…

The use of track-specific EQ results in NEW RECORDINGS, not MANY DIFFERENT "VIRTUAL" SYSTEMS.

An EQ setting A, when applied to all the tracks played through a system, is obviously a characteristic of THE SYSTEM. But if you have a unique EQ setting (A, B, C…n) for every track played back through the system, it is less clear what whether the EQ settings are characteristics of THE SYSTEM or characteristics of NEW RECORDINGS YOU HAVE CREATED. Here are the two interpretations of the use of track-specific EQ:

(1) Original recordings with many different “virtual” systems.
(2) New recordings with a single, constant system.

Under interpretation (1), my operationalization of neutrality is saved from Cbw’s EQ challenge by Al’s solution. Under interpretation (2), what happens to my operationalization?

It is saved by another technicality. Under interpretation (2), the coloration is part of the RECORDING, not of the SYSTEM. And coloration in the recording does not impugn the neutrality of the SYSTEM, however undesirable the resulting sound might be.

So, in my view, Cbw’s EQ challenge fails to defeat my operationalization of 'neutrality.' The problem is: I keep thinking there is something in the spirit of his challenge that remains valid, something having to do with the need for a LIMITING CONDITION in the operationalization. Now I will have to do more mulling…

Bryon - I'm under impression that you discuss mostly frequency response of the system hence word EQ is repeated often. What about whole bunch of other things like macro and micro dynamics? how do you measure "sweet sound" or "relaxed sound". It is difficult to discuss something that cannot be measured and is very subjective. How do you know how it supposed to sound? Sitar from Northern India sounds completely different than Sitar from southern India. How do you know. From the tone of discussion I got even impression that neutrality is considered a virtue. I'm not so sure of that.

Bryon - I'm under impression that you discuss mostly frequency response of the system hence word EQ is repeated often. What about whole bunch of other things like macro and micro dynamics?

Frequency response has been mentioned a few times on this thread, but not much by me. One or two posters have suggested that neutrality was reducible to frequency response. I do not agree with that idea, since, as Shadorne and Audioengr pointed out, FREQUENCY response does not include TRANSIENT response. And I quite agree with you that dynamics are an important consideration when evaluating an audio system.

As far as the phrase "EQ," its first appearance on this thread was just a few posts ago in the context of discussing room correction. Then it reappeared in Cbw's EQ challenge. So far as I can tell, it has not been a particular focus of mine or anyone else.

It is difficult to discuss something that cannot be measured and is very subjective.

This may be true, but that doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile to try. Art "cannot be measured and is very subjective," but people have found endless ways to talk about it, and some of them are useful.

How do you know how it supposed to sound? Sitar from Northern India sounds completely different than Sitar from southern India. How do you know?

By having heard one.

From the tone of discussion I got even impression that neutrality is considered a virtue. I'm not so sure of that.

Some of the posters seem to believe neutrality is a virtue, others clearly not. My own view is that it is a virtue, but not the only one.

Very interesting discussions, guys! Bryon, I think you do misunderstand my position after all. Basically, I do not believe that "neutrality" can possibly exist at all, whether we are talking about a single piece of equipment, the entire system as per your definition, or in live music; and, as Kijanki says, I seriously doubt anyone would think it a virtue if it did. I am not trying to make the perfect the enemy of the good - I don't believe there is a perfect.

Some other thoughts - Bryon wrote "The success of room correction relies on the technology involved and how it is implemented." This completely ignores the human ears setting up and/or listening to the result of the technology (not to mention the designer of the technology). The dealer who set up one room correction system I heard clearly thought he had done everything correctly, and he thought the result sounded just fine, yet the result sounded awful to most he played it for, worse than before the correction. I have heard others that made a huge positive difference.

As far as Bryon's characteristics of a good playback system vs. characteristics of good musical playback, I completely agree that these are not the same thing. Every playback system is different, and two completely different systems can both result in good musical playback. This seems obvious. Where we differ is I don't think either has anything to do with "neutrality."

Bryon wrote "A neutral room will make it easier to achieve a neutral system." There is no such thing as a neutral room. As I said in a previous post, the closest thing might be a recording studio. But the purpose of recording studios is NOT to make things somehow "neutral." In fact, as I said before, it is for the exact opposite purpose - removing as many characteristics of the room noise as possible allows the sound engineer as much leeway as possible to create the sound that he wants - to create the sound color of the engineer's personal choice. This also goes along with what I said before about designers of audio equipment - they are not striving for some sort of "neutrality." They are aiming at their personal ideal of what the sound should be.

Bryon wrote "It seems to me that the value of an audiophile developing expert perception of the playback of recorded music is self-evident." Again, I don't think there is any disagreement here. The disagreement is over whether "neutrality" has anything to do with it.

The bottom line here (going back to the OP) is that many of us feel that just because you change one piece of equipment in the system, making 1) individual pieces of music sound more unique, and 2) your music collection sound more diverse, this does not mean you have operationalized the term neutrality. It just means you have a better sounding system.

Let me give you an example, again going back to the OP. Assume a room with good qualities for music playback, and assume a very high quality music playback system (which this room is of course part of). Now, let us say you replace very high quality preamp A with very high quality preamp B, keeping everything else the same. How will you know which one is more "neutral"? I submit that you can't. But you can know which one makes the system sound better to you. And I would also guess that 100 audiophiles that listened to this comparison would probably split close to 50/50 on which one did sound better, and that there would be many different reasons why each made his choice. This is what Kijanki is driving at when he says "how do you know how it is supposed to sound?" There is no one answer to this question, which is where I think your "neutrality" concept/operationalization falls apart, despite your VERY good arguments - it requires that there is ultimately one answer. But thankfully, there is no black and white in music or music playback.

How do you know how it supposed to sound? Sitar from Northern India sounds completely different than Sitar from southern India. How do you know?

Bryon wrote: "By having heard one."

That's the problem - by having heard one where? In small humid room or big concert hall. What brand of Sitar?

As for neutrality being a virtue - Do you think that person who likes more bass than neutral should force himself to listen at home the way he doesn't like (neutral). If I cannot hear treble as well as when I was young - am I allowed to get brighter system. Overall result might be neutral but to who's standard (since I cannot hear treble in live performance). Whole issue is very foggy. I can only say what sounds good to me. As Learsfool mentioned sound of instrument in sound-dead studio is colored by recording engineer (therefore not neutral). Why do I have to adhere to this. Some instruments like cello have very complicated radiating pattern (only backwards at 300Hz I think). Can you imagine what mess recording engineer can make here. At the concert sound is far from perfect and different each time. Open air concert is way different than small auditorium etc.

I think you hit a homer there, Kijanki. Hearing is an issue. I know a reviewer who has a high frequency deficiency. Music that is loud and dynamic is a good thing. Accuracy is not. Amazingly, my hearing is very good. I want sound at it's proper levels still.

Learsfool wrote:

Basically, I do not believe that "neutrality" can possibly exist at all, whether we are talking about a single piece of equipment, the entire system as per your definition, or in live music...

Learsfool - What do you think of Al's comment:

Consider a system purchased at Walmart for a total system price of $300, in comparison with say a $50K system such as some Audiogoner's have. I don't think anyone here will disagree as to which one will provide better and more enjoyable sound, and I don't think that anyone here will disagree as to which one is more neutral/accurate/etc.

Do you not believe that a $50K system is more neutral than a $300 Walmart system? And conversely, do you not believe that the $300 system has more coloration?

It is important to note that the last two questions must be answered the same way. That is to say, if you do not believe in neutrality, then YOU DO NOT BELIEVE IN COLORATION. That is because neutrality has been defined on this thread as the (degree of) ABSENCE OF COLORATION.

Colorations are additions or subtractions to the playback chain that conceal or corrupt information about the music. If you believe that coloration does not exist, then what is intermodulation distortion? What is the resonance of a speaker cabinet? What is crosstalk? In my view, they are additions to the playback chain that conceal and corrupt information about the music. That is to say, they are colorations. And if colorations exist, then neutrality, defined as the (degree of) absence of coloration, exists.

Learsfool wrote:

There is no such thing as a neutral room.

If you believe this, then you believe that there is no such thing as ROOM COLORATION. Then what is a room mode? What is flutter echo? What is comb filtering? In my view, they are additions and subtractions to the playback chain that conceal and corrupt information about the music. That is to say, they are colorations. And if colorations exist, then neutrality exists.

Learsfool wrote:

Bryon wrote "The success of room correction relies on the technology involved and how it is implemented." This completely ignores the human ears setting up and/or listening to the result of the technology…

I was not ignoring the human element. I meant that to be part of “implementation.” ‘Implementation’ can refer to the PHYSICAL DEVICES that perform some function or the ACT of performing some function, presumably by a person. I meant for both to be included.

Learsfool wrote:

Now, let us say you replace very high quality preamp A with very high quality preamp B, keeping everything else the same. How will you know which one is more "neutral"? I submit that you can't. But you can know which one makes the system sound better to you. And I would also guess that 100 audiophiles that listened to this comparison would probably split close to 50/50 on which one did sound better, and that there would be many different reasons why each made his choice.

One of the advantages to my operationalization of ‘neutrality’ is that forming judgments about neutrality does not require us to be able to arrive at a consensus about which is the better component in an A/B test, which as you point out, is often difficult and sometimes impossible. It only requires us to arrive at a consensus about which component makes individual pieces of music sound more unique and a collection of music more diverse. Perhaps that would be a difficult consensus to achieve as well, but I suspect it is far more realizable than getting audiophiles to agree on which component is "better" in any given A/B test.

And if a consensus were reached about which component was more neutral in an A/B test, it does not follow that the more neutral component is the "better" component, since there are other sonic virtues that are, and should be, considered when evaluating components.

Learsfool wrote:

I think your "neutrality" concept/operationalization falls apart, despite your VERY good arguments - it requires that there is ultimately one answer.

Yes. That is what it means to be an Objectivist.

Kijanki wrote:

Do you think that person who likes more bass than neutral should force himself to listen at home the way he doesn't like (neutral). If I cannot hear treble as well as when I was young - am I allowed to get brighter system?

You are allowed to do as you like. It is not for me to tell anyone how to listen to music. I think if you were to read my posts on this thread you would not find a single comment suggesting that someone else SHOULD listen in a certain way. I have, however, made arguments about the value of neutrality. This may seem like a contradiction, but it is not. That is because, while I am an Objectivist about neutrality, resolution, and accuracy, I am a Subjectivist about audiophile values. I do not believe that there is one "right" way to listen, but I do believe that there are more neutral, resolving, and accurate ways to listen.

As far as your comment about compensating for your high frequency hearing loss with a brighter system, the issue there is exactly analogous to the use of EQ in a system to compensate for room effects. In a previous post, I wrote:

[The] question is whether the use of EQ is NECESSARILY a deviation from neutrality. The answer is: It depends on which level of organization you are talking about. By definition, the use of EQ is a deviation from neutrality AT THE LEVEL OF THE COMPONENT. But it is not necessarily a deviation from neutrality AT THE LEVEL OF THE SYSTEM, where "the system" includes the room and your listening position in it. That is because the judicious use of EQ could compensate for room effects that are themselves deviations from neutrality. For example, if the room contains a lot of hard surfaces and is bright, EQ’ing the treble could result in a SYSTEM that is more neutral, even though, at the component level, you have made the signal less neutral.

Analogously, in the case of compensating for your high frequency hearing loss with a brighter system, I would say: That "compensation" is itself an attempt to achieve a measure of neutrality in the system, by removing the midrange and bass "coloration" created by your loss of high frequencies. But in your case, "the system" no longer stops at your ears - it INCLUDES your ears, along with the details of your hearing loss.

Bryon wrote: "I do not believe that there is one "right" way to listen, but I do believe that there are more neutral, resolving, and accurate ways to listen."

And I do believe that there is "perfect" woman out there but I'm not interested.

It is very subjective. I can always find somebody who will like sound of your Walmart system more (and call it more neutral/natural sounding). There is a few reasons for that. Some say clear=sterile and resolution=analytic. I read opinion that instruments should not sound separately but together. Some people don't like strong dynamics. There is no right or wrong here. Listener is a part of the system as room is and there is no escape from that. Who will be the judge? The proper question is not whether it sounds neutral (how to know that?) but rather if sound is pleasant, involving etc.
Can musical presentation that is "uninvolving" be more neutral? Presentation can often be converted to involving one by spicing frequency extremes or adding a little bit of distortion. My Benchmark DAC1 was praised by studio engineers and often called by people sterile and uninvolving. Studio engineers made once experiment in the studio recording guitar live and playing thru different DACs (similar price range). Benchmark was the most accurate but people liked other DACs more.

Defining neutrality reminds me TV discussion on the subject of "good taste" where serious people tried to define it (it does not exist).

Bryon, I have some more thoughts on the "excess contrast" issue, but in thinking about it, I realized there were some holes in my understanding of the operationalization (is that a word?) itself:

1) In the original post, you mention instrument timbres specifically sounding more distinct from one another, and then go on to say whole songs and albums sounded more unique and your collection, more diverse. Is that all a consequence of the change in timbres, or were there other characteristics that contributed to the uniqueness/diversity? (If it is reducible to timbre, then wouldn't the operationalization of neutrality be, "Instrument timbres sound more distinct?" And then wouldn't criteria #1 and #2 be consequences of increased neutrality rather than standards by which we identify it?)

2) Is criterion #2 a consequence of, in whole or in part, criterion #1? If so, and in whole, then a similar reduction might be possible. If not, or only in part, what are the additional characteristics that contribute to #2?

Kijanki wrote:

Defining neutrality reminds me TV discussion on the subject of "good taste" where serious people tried to define it (it does not exist).

Again, I would ask: Does coloration exist? Colorations are additions or subtractions to the playback chain that conceal or corrupt information about the music. I have given at least six examples from both equipment and listening rooms: intermodulation distortion, speaker cabinet resonance, crosstalk, room modes, flutter echo, and comb filtering. There are undoubtedly many more. Do these phenomena exist? If they do, then neutrality exists, as it has been defined on this thread, namely, THE (DEGREE OF) ABSENCE OF COLORATION.

Kijanki wrote:

My Benchmark DAC1 was praised by studio engineers and often called by people sterile and uninvolving. Studio engineers made once experiment in the studio recording guitar live and playing thru different DACs (similar price range). Benchmark was the most accurate but people liked other DACs more.

I have addressed this issue many times on this thread, including in my very last post, where I wrote:

...if a consensus were reached about which component was more neutral in an A/B test, it does not follow that the more neutral component is the "better" component, since there are other sonic virtues that are, and should be, considered when evaluating components.

Cbw – Excellent post. And yes, “operationalization” is a word.

Cbw wrote:

In the original post, you mention instrument timbres specifically sounding more distinct from one another, and then go on to say whole songs and albums sounded more unique and your collection, more diverse. Is that all a consequence of the change in timbres, or were there other characteristics that contributed to the uniqueness/diversity?

The changes in uniqueness/diversity that I noticed were not limited to timbre. They included nearly every aspect of the recordings. Some of those changes are, no doubt, attributable to improved RESOLUTION, but I believe that others are the result of improved NEUTRALITY.

Cbw wrote:

Is criterion #2 a consequence of, in whole or in part, criterion #1?

No, criterion #2 is not a “consequence” of criterion #1, because the relation between criterion #1 and criterion #2 is not CAUSAL. That is to say, criterion #1 is not the CAUSE of criterion #2. Criterion #1 and criterion #2 are really just two different ways of identifying the same thing: INCREASED DIFFERENTIATION.

If there is a causal relationship relevant here, it is that increasing neutrality is the cause and criteria #1 and #2 are the effects.

Cbw wrote:

…wouldn't criteria #1 and #2 be consequences of increased neutrality rather than standards by which we identify it?

This is a false contrast. That is to say, X can be BOTH a consequence of Y AND the standard by which we identify it. In science, this is the relation between observables and theoretical entities – observables are both a consequence of theoretical entities and the standard by which we identify them. If you have concerns about the circularity of that relationship, then you are not alone. Philosophers and scientists have worried about that for quite a while. One way to mitigate the circularity is to find corroboration of the existence and nature of theoretical entities through an interrelated set of other theoretical entities and observables. To apply this to our discussion: Neutrality is the theoretical entity and criteria #1 and #2 are its observables. But this does not throw doubt on the existence of neutrality, since it is corroborated by an interrelated set of other theoretical entities and observables.

Learfool 12/24: The bottom line here (going back to the OP) is that many of us feel that just because you change one piece of equipment in the system, making 1) individual pieces of music sound more unique, and 2) your music collection sound more diverse, this does not mean you have operationalized the term neutrality. It just means you have a better sounding system.

I think that this statement gives increased credence to what was implicit in my post in this thread dated 11/26, that perhaps the most fundamental reason for the disagreements we have seen in this thread is simply disagreement about semantics.

I proposed at that time substituting the word "accuracy" for the word "neutrality," meaning that Bryon's proposed methodology be viewed as a tool that can facilitate evolution of the system + room such that they can accurately reproduce what is on the recording. Which of course does not by any means necessarily constitute the end-point in the evolution of any particular system, but narrowing system inaccuracy to some degree is certainly an important part of that process. At least until the tolerance has become small enough to be overshadowed by other factors and preferences, whether subjective or objective.

Bryon then guided that thought to the point where it was agreed by at least some of us that neutrality represents the degree to which coloration is absent. With accuracy referring to the degree to which a component or system is both resolving and neutral, resolution referring to the amount of information presented by a component or system.

There was further discussion of the distinctions between accuracy, which focuses on minimizing differences between what is on the recording and what is presented to the listener's ears, and transparency, which focuses on minimizing differences between what is presented to the listener's ears and the original musical event, thereby encompassing issues with the recording as well as with the system and the room. And in turn it was recognized that inaccuracy in the system + room might in some cases be complementary to inaccuracy in the recording, with the two sets of inaccuracies tending to negate one another.

Given all of this, I would ask those who have opposed Bryon's proposal, as expressed in post 1 of this thread, to consider whether there is any wording change, or any change in their initial interpretation of the existing words, that would allow everyone's position to converge.

My basic feeling about all this is that Bryon has proposed a methodology or tool which can be helpful in working towards the goal of optimizing a system, and by "optimizing" I mean subjectively maximizing the degree of enjoyment that system will provide to its owner. Is there a way that Bryon's proposal/tool can be accepted in that spirit? Learsfool's paragraph that I quoted at the beginning of this post gives me some degree of optimism that it can be, and I think it certainly should be.

Regarding the last sentence in that quoted paragraph, my response is QED!

Regards,
-- Al

Al, I for one, have no reason why I couldn't agree with your proposal as suggested in the 1st sentence of your last paragraph.

Loosly interperted I see that proposal as agreeing that one can improve the quality of his audio system by the addition of components which have better audio characteristics that those that were replaced, without regard to whether it was because of any specific attribute or symply because of better synergy. Bryon attributes the improvements to 'neutrality' and I think that is where we start to go different paths.

Unfortunately I get lost in the symantics, i.e. the differences between transparency, resolution, neutrality and accuracy, as well as their utilization by folks who consider themselves to be either objectivists or subjectivists. I think we all use them differently even though our use may be considered inaccurate or inconsistent.

It appears that Bryon considers himself an 'objectivist' and his goal of 'neutrality' is the correct one, for him at least. And I say good for him! He has a defined a goal.

Unfortunately, there are often underlying issues inherrent in this type of thread which are often decried loudly and crudely. I do not know that this is the case here, but frankly I concluded long ago that this thread was an artful construct to further an unattractive goal. But, that is just me, my cynicism may be misplaced. The poster is relatively new to the forum. Time will tell.

Bryon attributes the improvements to 'neutrality' and I think that is where we start to go different paths.

I think it would be more accurate to characterize Bryon as attributing certain kinds of improvements to neutrality, and that those improvements should be weighed with other system characteristics in tuning playback to maximize listener enjoyment.

Unfortunately, there are often underlying issues inherrent in this type of thread which are often decried loudly and crudely. I do not know that this is the case here, but frankly I concluded long ago that this thread was an artful construct to further an unattractive goal.

What does "artful construct to further an unattractive goal" mean? Is there some nefarious plot going on here of which I was previously unaware? I thought we were discussing ways of identifying the relative impact of a particular system characteristic.

The changes in uniqueness/diversity that I noticed were not limited to timbre. They included nearly every aspect of the recordings. Some of those changes are, no doubt, attributable to improved RESOLUTION, but I believe that others are the result of improved NEUTRALITY.

Which still leaves me with the question about timbre. It’s something I’ve noticed before with my system, and it’s specifically mentioned as the first thing you noticed with your new, more neutral system:

This theory occurred to me one day when I changed amps and noticed that the timbres of instruments were suddenly more distinct from one another. With the old amp, all instruments seemed to have a common harmonic element (the signature of the amp?!). With the new amp, individual instrument timbres sounded more unique and the range of instrument timbres sounded more diverse. I went on to notice that whole songs (and even whole albums) sounded more unique, and that my music collection, taken as a whole, sounded more diverse.

So why isn’t there a rule:

0a) Instrument timbres sound more distinct from one another (or “unique”).
0b) The range of instrument timbres sounds more diverse.

In other words, is relative timbre distinctness a sufficient criterion for judging relative neutrality? If not, why not? Your argument, as presented above, almost makes it seem as if song/album uniqueness and collection diversity were the consequences of timbre distinctness, though I think that was not your intent. But it does lead me to wonder whether relative timbre distinctness might also be a necessary criterion.

But that brings me to:

…wouldn't criteria #1 and #2 be consequences of increased neutrality rather than standards by which we identify it?

This is a false contrast.

True, when taken out of context. But what I wrote was:

If [detecting the degree of neutrality] is reducible to timbre, then wouldn't the operationalization of neutrality be, "Instrument timbres sound more distinct?" And then wouldn't criteria #1 and #2 be consequences of increased neutrality rather than standards by which we identify it?

In which case it is the distinction between the primary observable and the byproducts of that observable. You could, for example, study the solar spectrum by observing its reflection from the moon but, when direct observation is available, simpler, and more accurate, why would you? Now, you have suggested that there are other aspects, besides timbre, that contribute to uniqueness/diversity, so there may be reasons to consider the other criteria. And you may argue above that timbre distinctness is not sufficient for detecting any degree of neutrality, so then #1 and #2 would be back to being the primary observables.

But I hope they don’t turn out to be because they are harder to apply and therefore inferior to rule #0. Generating absolute uniqueness in a complex system is easier than doing so in a simple system because it requires only a single change in a larger number of characteristics. But judging relative uniqueness becomes harder with a complex system because you must consider, and weigh, all of characteristics, many of which may be different. Judging (relative) timbre uniqueness is easier than judging (relative) song uniqueness, which is easier than judging collection (relative) diversity.

Is criterion #2 a consequence of, in whole or in part, criterion #1?

No, criterion #2 is not a “consequence” of criterion #1, because the relation between criterion #1 and criterion #2 is not CAUSAL.

I don’t understand how increasing the uniqueness of the songs in a collection would not automatically increase the diversity of that collection. That is not to say that there are not other ways of increasing collection diversity, but increased song uniqueness certainly seems like one. Can you elaborate?

Bryon, for the first time, I am truly puzzled by your reasoning. You posed two questions about Al's example, "Do you not believe a 50K system is more neutral than a $300 Walmart system," and "do you not believe the $300 system has more coloration," and then proceeded to state "It is important to note that the two questions MUST be answered in the same way." My emphasis. Huh? It most certainly does NOT follow that just because I don't believe in neutrality, that therefore I don't believe in coloration! (The same goes for the "neutral room"/ "room coloration" thing). The only way this could possibly be true is within the context of your own personal definition, which is precisely what is under debate here. This is certainly a fallacy, as I said I think it is a form of question begging - I will have to ask my uncle, who used to teach philosophy/logic (and is also an audiophile, by the way). By the way, please do not take this as a personal criticism - I am often disappointed by my own arguments, and I am sure they also contain some fallacies. So far, the only way you have defined your "neutrality" characteristic is by saying that it is an absence of some other characteristic, which you are calling "coloration." Frankly, I am not certain that this would pass muster as a scientific definition in the first place - I don't think it is accepted to define one thing solely as an absence of some other thing?

I have spoken at length on the "neutrality" part of this. As for the "coloration" part: you are using this term in an extremely narrow sense. One could argue that everything is a coloration. Just as painting is the art of visual coloring, music is the art of aural coloring, if we can accept this crude analogy. There is certainly no such thing as a "neutral" violin. A Strad, which costs millions, is not more "neutral" than a $500 school instrument, though of course all would agree it sounds far better, and has a very different "coloration." Just so, just about all would agree the $50K system will sound far better than the $300 Walmart one - again with a very different "coloration." One Strad is not more neutral than another, either, though all sound different. Same with the two preamps in my example in my previous post - both may sound very different, but this does not mean one is either "better" (as Bryon correctly pointed out, even if chosen by a majority), or that it is more "neutral." They are "colored" differently, and deliberately, by their designers, according to the designer's artistic ideal of sound coloration. There is no such thing as the absence of color in sound (and therefore, it logically follows, in sound reproduction). Otherwise music could not exist. The things you are specifically describing as "colorations" (intermodulation distortion, etc.) of course exist. But they are not the only "colorations" that exist in sound or it's reproduction; their absence does not prove the existence of "neutrality." Again, as Kijanki and I keep asking, how do you know what anything is "supposed" to sound like? There is no one answer to that question, and your assertion that there is is dumbfounding. A great many audiophiles calling themselves "objectivists" would stop far short of such an assertion. I fail to see how anyone could think of music or it's reproduction in such black and white terms. It reminded Kijanki of a discussion of "good taste." It reminds me more of a devout and very learned theologian attempting to argue the existence of God (the textbook question begging argument, by the way), though I do not say that this is analogous, and I hope no one takes offense. I have greatly enjoyed the discussion, as I said. Cbw723, I think Newbee's description is very apt - "an artful construct to further an unattractive goal." Seeing the art of musical reproduction as black and white as this is certainly unattractive IMO, though there is no doubt that Bryon's argument in general is artfully done. Much more artfully done than mine, LOL! It's a darn good thing I make my living as a musician, not a writer!

Learsfool writes:

It most certainly does NOT follow that just because I don't believe in neutrality, that therefore I don't believe in coloration! (The same goes for the "neutral room"/ "room coloration" thing). The only way this could possibly be true is within the context of your own personal definition, which is precisely what is under debate here.

No, the thing being debated is how one judges the relative neutrality of one's playback system. The neutrality of a playback system has been defined as the degree of the absence of coloration added by that playback system. If "DoN" is the degree of neutrality of a playback system, and "DoC" is the degree of coloration of a playback system, then (DoN = 1 / DoC) is the assumption of this thread as stated by Bryon. If you believe that playback systems can add more or less coloration to a system, then you implicitly believe that a system can be more or less neutral, as defined here, whether you believe you believe that or not. You can't believe in speed (distance/time) and not believe in slowness (time/distance) and remain logically consistent. If you want to change the definition of playback system coloration or playback system neutrality so that the above equation doesn't hold, feel free to do so, but please do so explicitly and be aware that your definition isn't the thing under discussion here.

As for the "coloration" part: you are using this term in an extremely narrow sense.

Yes, he is. He has stated numerous times that his is talking about certain types of alteration of source information by a playback system.

There is certainly no such thing as a "neutral" violin. A Strad, which costs millions, is not more "neutral" than a $500 school instrument, though of course all would agree it sounds far better, and has a very different "coloration."

A violin is not a playback system, it is a musical instrument. It therefore falls outside the scope of coloration and neutrality as discussed here. The sound of the musical instrument in its recording environment is the subject of our playback systems, not the object. Throughout this thread you have consistently equated playback system neutrality with musical neutrality, but that has never been the suggestion of the thread.

Again, as Kijanki and I keep asking, how do you know what anything is "supposed" to sound like?

I believe he has stated that aural memory is at least one route to this goal. But I don't even think that is necessary. If my system adds a 60Hz hum (a form of coloration) to everything it plays back, there is no guarantee that the removal of the hum will make what comes out of my speakers sound more like the things they are, but they're not going to sound less like them. So, objectively, by removing coloration (i.e., increasing neutrality), my playback system stands a better chance of accurately reproducing the source. Will it "sound better?" That's for me to decide. But it will be more neutral by the terms of this thread.

Cbw723 - Aural memory of what? I've never been to recording studio much less particular session. Maybe concert that I just attended and they made CD recordings 2 days later when my memory is still fresh?

What If I had bad seat at the concert and system plays the way it sounded at the best seat. Should I assume that system is coloring or just be happy with good sound I got.