Nice to know we agree :) I assume your first comment was meant to AudioFeil. I didn't understand that at first.
Peace -:) |
Focalfan,
is it promotion to answer what Tidals view on neutrality is and how they implement that i their designs in a thread specificly about Tidal speakers where the issue of neutrality is discussed?
I think not. |
I would say that is wrong Audiofeil. Neutral is not subjective. Neutral is no coloration, no distortion and no compression. The degree of neutrality can be measured by comparing the input with the output. |
I am currently considering either Rockport Arrakis 2 or Tidal Audio T1. I am aware that by posting herecI might not get an entirely objective answer, but nontheless why do you think I should choose the Tidal Audio T1.
BTW, I might end up with both unless Magico comes up with a monster version of their Q5.
Roysen |
I have heard Tidal Contrivia with Wadia S7i, Pass Labs X-250.5 and Transparent Reference MM2 cables. The sound was very musical. It was warm and soft. Warmer than most tube setups that I have listened to. Yet it was still detailed and dynamic. I did however think that the warmth did compromise transparency somewhat. I have however heard other Accuton based speakers too like several of the Morten speakers including the Coltrane. Their sonic signature have been exactly the opposite - very transparent and borderline bright and hard. I suppose the Wadia, Pass Labs and Transparent Audio products might have colored the Tidal Audio Contrivia system I heard.
The same weekend I also heard the Magico Q5 with Krell S350 CD-player, darTZeel NHB-18NS preamplifier, darTZeel NHB-458 mono amplifiers and Nordost Odin cables. This system was very transparent, detailed, dynamic with tonal balance more towards light and bright than absolute neutral. Still I think this system was much closer to neutral than the Tidal system.
A few months before this I heard a friends system with the Rockport Technologies Altair speakers, Sim Audio Moon CD-player and amplifier (don't remember the models) and Kimber Black Pearl speaker cables. It was obvious the amplifier had not enough power to show the speakers true potential. Bass and dynamics were lacking and the stereo image did not free itself from the speakers. However the tonal balance was the most neutral of the three speakers. Trancparency and resolution was also very good but not quite as good as the
Magico Q5.
Please also notice that these three systems were playing in in different rooms.
My question to you guys here is if this overly warm sound from the Tidal system I listened to is a "house character" of the Tidal speakers or if this was just a system matched to sound like that by its owner by using electronics and cables with this character? |
Another challenge for me is that I don't intend to buy a complete set of amplifiers to drive the T1. I already own a pair of Tube Research Labs Platinum GTR-800 and a pair of Krell MRA which I intend to use to drive the tweeter/midrange and bass of the T1-Sunray. It is almost impossible to get three or even to sets of either of these amplifiers. My current plan would be to get a pair of Sovereign Audio THE SOVEREIGN amplifiers to drive the T1-Bass towers. These are very different amplifiers with different gain, rise time, damping factor, frequency response etc. How do I get a seamless coherent sound from three so totally different amplifiers? Does the T1-LPX crossover functions to correct/handle this? |
Thanks for that Geopolitis,
I too believe that particular setup was matched too much on the warm side. Interesting to know about your friends plans. I think it would have been fun to exchange knowledge with him. Maybe you could pass on his contact info to be or my contact info to him.
The question on how to get three so different amps to sound as one still will remain my biggest challenge.
BTW, my plans include a purposebuilt studio in my garden with a listening space of 80 square meters and 4 meter hight. It will built and treated internally by an acoustics specialist company.
Maybe the listening position can be in the middle of the room with the Tidal T1 system on one side, a Rockport Arrakis system on the other side and finally a Magico system in the living room of the main house :)
|
Argyro you are refering to the transparency of a system and not the speakers. This is like comparing apples to oranges.
A speaker can be perfectly netural even though its output differs from the source material because it could be the electronics preceding the speakers responsible for this differance.
No matter how much the electronics preceding the speaker in the system is polutes the neutrality of the source material, it is still possible that the speakers can be very neutral. So it is only the input to the speaker from the amplifier driving the speaker which is the measuring stick for the transparency of the the output from the speakers. If what comes out of the speaker is the same as what is sent into it, it is netural. That is all.
PERIOD! |
Fiddler,
Have you heard of something called measurements. They are not subjective and they are the only way to find out if a speaker is neutral by comparing the input with its output. |
Fiddler,
Have you heard of something called measurements. They are not subjective and they are the only way to fond out it a speaker is neutral by comparing the input with its output. |
Fiddler,
Are you trying to imply that measurements are not part of a speakermanufacturer's manufacturing process and that they rely on hearinng to find out if their speakers are neutral! How then would they know that all their production units of one model sound the same? By listening? Of course not! Measurements is the only tool to accurately understand why a speaker sounds the way it does or if its neutral.
Listening can reveal if the listener likes the way the speaker sounds. This has nothing to do with neutrality. Neutrality can only be proved by measurements.
Do you honesty think Atkinsons measurements in Stereophile are alll that can be measured on speakers? He is working for a magazine for the masses that are mostly interested in subjective listening descriptions. They wouldn't sell If they used mostly measurements in their magazine.
Measurements can not. og course tell you how something will sound overall, but it is the only accurate way to prove deviations from neutrality. |
Fiddler,
There certainly are no deviations between what JA is hearing and his measurements. If that was so there would be something wrong with his hearing.
What you probably mean is that how he perceives the overall sound may not be what he expects after having measured one characteristic of the speaker.
One non-neutral character of the speaker can mask out another non-neutral character of the speaker, the rest of the system including the rooms non-neutral character can mask out non-neutralities in the speaker and non-neutralities in the recording can mask out non- neutralities in the speaker so that when listening the speaker sounds neutral. Still the speaker would not be neutral and the only way to find out would be by measurements.
Neutrality in this context by definition means nothing is added or subtracted from the signal inside the speaker. How can that be subjective as if something is added or subtracted to the signal inside tbhe sound is a matter of opinion. Either something is changed or its not. A fact can't be subjective and has to be measured to be proved.
If someone likes the sound is of course a matter of taste and highly subjective, but that has nothing to do with neutrality. |
Tbg,
You are talking about what was considered best of two speakers. That would of course be subjective and as such a matter of taste.
Neutrality is different. Its an objective fact. Either the speaker is neutral or its not regardless of someones opinion.
I never wrote that there exist one universal neutrality measurement. A set of measurements much more comprehensive than what JA is using will each one show deviations from neutrality on each character the measurements show.
Technology has moved on. Todays best speakermanufacturers like Tidal, Rockport Technologies, Magico, Wilson, Anat Technologies etc rely more heavily on measurements than the top companies of the past and mostly only huse listening evaluations for confirmation purposes. In fact one of the companies most respected for top sound and neutrality is Goldmund. They have made a press release that they only do listening evaluatios to confirm single compnent choice inside their products. Everything else is done by measurements.
Listening is too unteliable because its subjective and situation related. |
Tbg,
You are talking about what was considered best of two speakers. That would of course be subjective and as such a matter of taste.
Neutrality is different. Its an objective fact. Either the speaker is neutral or its not regardless of someones opinion.
I never wrote that there exist one universal neutrality measurement. A set of measurements much more comprehensive than what JA is using will each one show deviations from neutrality on each character the measurements show.
Technology has moved on. Todays best speakermanufacturers like Tidal, Rockport Technologies, Magico, Wilson, Anat Technologies etc rely more heavily on measurements than the top companies of the past and mostly only huse listening evaluations for confirmation purposes. In fact one of the companies most respected for top sound and neutrality is Goldmund. They have made a press release that they only do listening evaluatios to confirm single compnent choice inside their products. Everything else is done by measurements.
Listening is too unteliable because its subjective and situation related. |
Thg,
This is getting tiresome. It really doesn't matter what you can accept. Can you define what you mean by neutrality? It obviously is something different than undistorted, uncolored and uncompressed. I have just written that there is not one neutrality measurement but that you have to use all the measurements and look for distortion, coloration or compression. If there are, the speaker is not neutral.
No speaker is truly neutral. There is no speaker which has absolute ruler-flat frequency- and phase-response without any hint of any kind of distortion. They all have deviations from perfectly neutral. The different manufacturers have different priorities though and use different technologies which result in the mix of deviations from neutral they are able to acheive and prefer most of cost and political reasons. Many brands have a "house"-sound which sells speakers. This doesn't mean that their speakers are neutral. I would for instance guess that a Magico Q5 is far more neutral than the Wilson Alexandria without having seen the measurements. Still many prefer the fun factor of the Wilson speakers. That is because they prefer the Alexandrias deviations from neutral more than the deviations of the Q5.
Still if there was such a thing as a perfectly neutral speaker, it would not be a guarantee that it would be the universally preferred choice. Many listeners actually prefer more than less coloration in certain areas. Also keep in mind that no electronic component or recording is perfectly neutral either. So a perfectly neutral speaker would reveal all the deviations from neutral in the electronics, cables, the room and the recording. Many would not prefer that. This is the reason matching is so important. We need to find combinations of equipment that mask out each othersdeviations from neutral to a degree we like. Still if this sounds neutral, measurements will show that its not. The ears can be unreliable and our taste misleading if the goal is neutrality. However most don't really prefer neutrality and that is where subjectivity comes in because it is of course different what kind of combination of mix of distortion, coloration and compression we prefer.
Neutral is never ever subjective. How can it be? Its like claiming that the length of one feet is subjective. |
Bryon,
When I hear/read the world netural, I associate that with something without a character of its own. No matter how we can and can not detect neutrality it can never be subjective. Either it is neutral or its not even if we can't measure it. There is of course a lot of ways to do measurements and the avaiable equipment and methods to measure attributes of the output of a speaker are morer than used by the hifi magazines. So to measure neutrality or to what really is done in practice, to measure one the absence of neutrality is fairly easy. One measurement of anything from frequency response to bandwidth will show deviations from neutral on all speakers.
Neutral is a world not really worthy for audio equipment because there is nothing in the chain from the output of the microphone during the recording to the output of the speakers during playback wich does not have a character of its own which is added to the signal which in the end is output from the speakers. Nothing is neutral in regards to audio playback. |
Thg,
Neutrality is what we are searching for. Its the ultimate goal. That is why we upgrade. To get sound played back closer in quality to the real thing. But we will never get there. We will never achieve a sound played back in our listening room equl to being present at the actual event. Since we can't the sound will never be truly neutral. |
Focalfan,
Lets keep taste out of the discussion. Some like warm, soft sound and others like bright, direct sound without either being neutral.
Even though there is no single neutrality measurement, it doesn't mean that neutral can be subjective. That is like stating that if we have no measuring tool to measure the length of one feet is subjective.
Its easy to measure that no speaker is neutral. Just measure distortion and you not find a single speaker without any measureable distortion of any kind and since its output is distorted it is not equal to being present at the actual event and by that not neutral.
Even if we didn't have any tools available to measure distortion, the speaker would be equally distorted and not neutral even if someone would claim otherwise. So neutral is not subjective, |
Focalfan,
Lets keep taste out of the discussion. Some like warm, soft sound and others like bright, direct sound without either being neutral.
Even though there is no single neutrality measurement, it doesn't mean that neutral can be subjective. That is like stating that if we have no measuring tool to measure the length of one feet is subjective.
Its easy to measure that no speaker is neutral. Just measure distortion and you not find a single speaker without any measureable distortion of any kind and since its output is distorted it is not equal to being present at the actual event and by that not neutral.
Even if we didn't have any tools available to measure distortion, the speaker would be equally distorted and not neutral even if someone would claim otherwise. So neutral is not subjective, |
Smudge the image Dadlyvj. I am seriously considering a pair of Tidal T1 myself. The neutrality discussion really is misplaced in this thread because it has not direct relation to the Tidal Audio products even though it is an interesting discussion. |
Thg,
Like Tidals designer have written there is no single measurement which measured neutrality alone, still there are measurements which can reveal every single characteristic of the speakers sound and all these measurements combined is the tool to measure degree of neutrality.
Sorry Thg, but it is time to admit you are wrong in every aspect. |
Thg,
I have read all your posts on this discussion again. You are 100% correct that it is not possible in any way to measure what is best because we all have different opinions about what is best. What is best is a matter of opinion and by that 100% subjective.
You do however make one mistake when you think neutrality is equal to what is perceived as best.
Please imagine a loudspeaker playing through a system without any listeners. Then we have removed taste and subjective opinions from the equation. Still the speaker will output the same as if there were listeners present. That is a fact and not subjective.
Please then imagine there existed a single measurement tool which shows neutrality. This measurement would undoubtably have shown the same degree of neutrality with or without listeners. That is a fact and not subjective.
It we then imagine one listener in the room. This listener doesn't like the sound. There is no doubt the neutrality measurement would show the same with or without the listener. That is a fact and not subjective.
Lets then imagine another listener in the room. This listener really likes the sound. There is no doubt the neutrality measurement would show the same with two, one and no listeners. That is a fact.
Haven't we then just established that the sound doesn't change no matter what any individuals opinion of the sound is and because of that the neutrality of the sound can't change either. The only thing which change is the listeners evaluation of the sound. So since we are talking about neutrality from the speaker, which sound doesn't change no matter how any listener might perceive it, the neutrality can not change either. It's only the peoples opinions which change and are subjective. |
I need to add that how can something that doesn't change be subjective. It can't. The only thing subjective about something that doesn't change is how we like it. Taste is subjective. However no matter how much we like or dislike the sound from a speaker its deviations between the input signal and its output will be constant. That is a fact even if we can't measure it.
The only way neutral could be subjective would be if individual taste would be part of how to detect neutrality, and that is not the case. Taste is only involved when you determine what is best.
Neutral and best certainly is not the same. |
Thank you Mr Janczak.
Your position on this issue is very convincing and makes me want your products even more.
I would actually say that to use hearing and listening evaluation as tools for manufacturing a speaker would be good for a DIYer who knows what he wants, but to do that when manufacturing a speaker for market with as many opinions as people would be very unprofessional and selfish. |
