Should a reference speaker be neutral, or just great sounding?


I was thinking about something as I was typing about how I've observed a magazine behave, and it occurred to me that I have a personal bias not everyone may agree to.  Here's what I think:
"To call a speaker a reference product it should at the very least be objectively neutral."

However, as that magazine points out, many great speakers are idiosyncratic ideas about what music should sound like in the home, regardless of being tonally neutral.

Do you agree?  If a speaker is a "reference" product, do you expect it to be neutral, or do you think it has to perform exceptionally well, but not necessarily this way?
erik_squires

Showing 2 responses by teo_audio

It is always good to remember, or understand, that objectivity arose out of an attempt to emotionally separate from a purely subjective framework context of all possible representations of reality.

That objectivity exists it 'is' via a purely subjective framework, that objectivity is a subset position of subjectivity.

Where objectivity is a lower or more advanced from of this mental position that all reality is subjective, well... I leave it up to you.

The bigger point is, that objectivity does not exist, that it is a conceptual and mental game, a tool, a viewpoint position only... in an entirely subjective existence. Objectivity, if properly weighted, is a logic tool, the same logic that explains to you that reality is inescapably subjective.

the next domino to fall, might be that: Thought process --- is all you've got. Whatever the heck a you is.

No one really knows what any of it is. People who don't practice a fully extended mental discipline might think they've got their 'hands' on something in this whole objectivity game...but really, no...just...no.