[downsize]

Oh damn it .... Neutral -   When the reproduced sound, sounds EXACTLY like the real, live instrument in the SAME listening space, be it voice or musical instrument.  Neither leaning away from the EXACT sound in any discernible direction.
 
PS: What I did when choosing equipment in my listening room with LIVE instruments.
 
Now can we puhleeze move on ! 

 

[Anaxilus]

x2  
 
I would have to include 'live'  instruments to include electric guitars and keyboards for example that are AMPLIFIED. 

 

[Cankin]

 
Quote:

Right, but that doesn't answer my point that what you think is neutral to your ears is actually inaccurate to the source.  Have you considered that possibility?  If I can hear a proper cymbal crash in a 'colored' speaker but not in a 'neutral' speaker.  I question what many refer to as neutral.  You can't really color the cymbal crash into a speaker if it isn't there in the source.  The speaker is simply resolving the source more accurately than the 'neutral' one IMO.  As for poor mastering, why anyone would use lifeless recordings to AB the accuracy of one speaker versus another is beyond me.  I actually had an 'audiophile' who owns an unnamed 'audiophile' store demo exactly that to me.  A lifeless, flat poorly mastered recording on a lifeless flat speaker system and said "this is what neutrality sounds like".  He claimed thats his preference for how music should sound.  Pass, thx.
 
Rerail plse.

That's why I made the point that music which you referred to source and musical recordings are two different things. Neutral speakers only are true to musical recordings not music/source.
 
Whether or not your musical recordings are true to music/source is another issue and it is affected by other factors like skills of production personnel.
 
Why do you think some recordings sound lifeless on speakers which (in your opinion) are more resolving? It is because your definition and approach to neutral are different than those who produce the recordings and they who design the speakers. Everyone's definition or preference is different.
 
If my points are still confusing, please move on, these are just one man's (me) opinions.

 

[Anaxilus]

I never had any problem with what you said.  I only took issue in your statement that neutral is contrary to life, energy and sparkle.  

 

[Cankin]

Quote:

I never had any problem with what you said.  I only took issue in your statement that neutral is contrary to life, energy and sparkle.  

As a guitar player myself (a mediocre one), I understand the importance of life, energy, emotion and tone

 

[Anaxilus]

Cheers!  

 

[wink]

WOT...???? a concensus of opinion?
Heresy.
Lock the thread before the concept escapes and ruins the rest of the forum.....
 
Back to topic.
 
Years ago I had the misfortune to listen to some Philips flat panel speakers which were on exhibit at a HIFI show here in Sydney.
 
They were absolutely atrocious.
Cardboard cutouts of speakers sound better only because they don't make a sound unless you buckle, bend or tear them - and even then they sound better.

 

[downsize]

Well ... Live actually can include amplified instruments .... The only problem with that, is to absolutely KNOW if your playback system is playing it true to the original ( neutral ), you have to have that instrument being played through the amp IN your listening room, make a recording as it is being played, then play it back on your system for comparison. 
 
In the end, what you are referencing for neutral is that particular amp's sound, with it's particular settings set a certain way, with your room interactions, in YOUR room at that time.
 
Referencing an amp's sound in any other venue is VERY hard to do, because of the way it interacts in said venue, the amount of people in the crowd, and your own memory's ability to properly remember what exactly it sounded like once you get home to play it on your system.
 
This is exactly why I listened and recorded musicians/vocalists in my own listening room when I was choosing my home system. I can not tell you what gear you will like the best, but i CAN tell you what is going to play it truest to the way it sounds in real life IN MY ROOM. 

 

[tvrboy]

Edition 8 .... listened to it from a 808.2 and Apache. Still sucked!

 

[Spasticteapot]

Quote:

 
This is a perfect example of why you should never make purchases solely based on what you read on a forum. The amount of sewage you need to wade through is thick. I mean, one poster here said he hates ALL Grado headphones, but has never heard anything higher than the SR-80. That speaks for itself, doesn't it?

 
"Not going to name anyone," eh?

Yes, I have not listened to any other Grado products, and for good reason. However, I *have* looked at the measurements for a variety of their headphones - the frequency response spike that gets on my nerves is there in all of 'em. This is what edumacated people call "extrapolation."  I'm also  not willing to give grado the benefit of the doubt as a result of seeing the contents of their "high-end headphone amplifier," which is just a Cmoy in a block of wood.   Release a hack product like that, and folks won't take you quite so seriously anymore.
 
Furthermore, while an individual opinion is meaningless, in sufficiently large numbers it is possible to extract meaningful data. For example, I've heard nothing but vitriol towards Ultrasone's Edition 8s - therefore, I can reasonably conclude that I very likely won't like them either.
 

 
Quote:

And how do you know your 'neutral' speakers aren't veiling the actual source.  Most 'neutral' speakers or signatures I have heard extolled do exactly that.

Step 1: Measure output from source.
Step 2: Measure output from headphones. (For speakers, you need a whole array of microphones, as off-axis response is just as important as on-axis response in most situations.)
Step 3: Compare.
 
Not all differences between the input are meaningful - for example, small phase shifts, such as those introduced by a speaker crossover, will completely garble a square wave on an oscilloscope screen but have been found mostly inaudible in very large double-blind tests. However, with even a hobbyist's background in psychoacoustics and the data (which is surprisingly comprehensive) at the end of Stereophile articles, it's possible to see why some speakers sound like ass and others do not.

 

[Clarkmc2]

Great name, Spasticteapot. But not so great a concept. Julian Hirsch believed that if two pieces of audio equipment measured the same, they sounded the same. Despite writing this crap for years and years in a very popular audio magazine, he will be remembered as a very foolish engineer. He didn't even take into account that his converted garage lab made everything sound so bad, everything DID tend to sound the same. The generic name for a measure and read guy is a meter man, and they have proved nothing through the years except that actually listening should take precedence over any data. Trust but verify, if you will, and the verification is how it actually sounds, not the other way around.
 
When good speaker or headphone designers work, they will use measurements to get in the ballpark. The real design work is verified by extensive listening, not more measuring. Same for designing electronics. Greg Timbers, Nelson Pass and Alan Kimmel all listen a lot, then listen some more. And their yardstick is live music, not what other equipment sounds like.
 
Clark

 

[upstateguy]

 
Quote:

Great name, Spasticteapot. But not so great a concept. Julian Hirsch believed that if two pieces of audio equipment measured the same, they sounded the same. Despite writing this crap for years and years in a very popular audio magazine, he will be remembered as a very foolish engineer. He didn't even take into account that his converted garage lab made everything sound so bad, everything DID tend to sound the same. The generic name for a measure and read guy is a meter man, and they have proved nothing through the years except that actually listening should take precedence over any data. Trust but verify, if you will, and the verification is how it actually sounds, not the other way around.
 
When good speaker or headphone designers work, they will use measurements to get in the ballpark. The real design work is verified by extensive listening, not more measuring. Same for designing electronics. Greg Timbers, Nelson Pass and Alan Kimmel all listen a lot, then listen some more. And their yardstick is live music, not what other equipment sounds like.
 
Clark

The problem with "how it actually sounds" is that, if you're honest, it doesn't sound the same all the time.  There are too many external factors that influence how its going to sound at any given time.
 
Measurements, for what ever they're worth, are extremely consistent.
 
Anyway, you sound like you must have some pretty impressive credentials.  
 
USG

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

When good speaker or headphone designers work, they will use measurements to get in the ballpark. The real design work is verified by extensive listening, not more measuring. Same for designing electronics. Greg Timbers, Nelson Pass and Alan Kimmel all listen a lot, then listen some more. And their yardstick is live music, not what other equipment sounds like.

^ This. Equipment and especially speakers or headphones designed purely on measurements would sound absolutely terrible. There may be replacement for displacement, but there is no substitute for critical listening. Measurements do have their place. Stereophile's review of the Edge NL-12 is a prime example of how measurements can illuminate something very wrong with a design while listening tests only scratch the surface of the problem. When you have two well designed and engineered components with excellent measurements and very different sound signatures though, that's when it comes down to listening to determine which one is better.

 

[Spasticteapot]

Quote:

Great name, Spasticteapot. But not so great a concept. Julian Hirsch believed that if two pieces of audio equipment measured the same, they sounded the same.

 
I'm not too familiar with Hirsch, but I might point out that until fairly recently, the only two parameters measured were on-axis frequency response and distortion.
 
To get an accurate picture of a speaker, you need to measure:
-Off-axis response in both the horizontal and vertical axes.
-Phase and group delay both on and off axis.
-Energy storage ("CSD")
-Power compression
-Floor bounce
-Enclosure resonances
 
And the list goes on.
 
In any event, it *can* be proven that speakers that measure well in ALL of these parameters do, in fact, sound better than those that don't. In fact, a very large amount of work has been done find which imperfections are least noticeable, and which are most odious. Weighing the entire compiled knowledge of the AES against the advice of someone who has never designed a speaker...well, I'm going to weigh in favor of the guys with the strings of letters after their names.
 
On the subject of "designing by measurements", I might consider the following measurement-based designers:
John Krutke (who has designed pretty much every kit Madisound sells today - all of them excellent)
Dennis Murphy (who designed the SongTowers, which have won a small pile of awards)
John Marsh (who designed the ModulaMT 2-ways that keep winning DIY competitions, the Lineup 3-ways, and a billion other speakers)
and, last but not least:
Sigfried Linkwitz. You know who he is, you know what he does, and you know his Orion speakers have won a huge number of awards.
 
All of these designers do a complete computer simulation before taking a single driver out of the box. While the designs are often tweaked slightly for optimum sound quality, they rely very heavily on computer simulations to provide a workable design. You'll see similar results in a variety of commercial products, notably including the Yg Acoustics line that keep winning big piles of awards and those lumpy peapod things that Stereophile reviewed so well.
 
Amplifiers aren't exactly perfect, either. While all amplifiers are more or less the same into a nice neat resistive load, the only thing that actually provides this is a simple resistor which, last I checked, doesn't allow you to listen to music. Speakers (especially those with passive crossover) are a nightmare requiring tremendous stability, a low output impedance, and a large number of other fiddly parameters. Furthermore, some people very much like the 2nd harmonic distortion offered by tube amplifiers and some "class A" solid state gear.
 
In any event, my favorite speakers to date are a pair of Cliffhanger Bulldog 3-ways, a speaker noted for very flat frequency response both on and off axis. Before that, I had a pair of KRK 6000s - studio monitors. I've also heard a huge heap of very expensive speakers I wouldn't use for anything but a boat anchor.

 

[Clarkmc2]

Quote:

Anyway, you sound like you must have some pretty impressive credentials.  
 
USG

Not really, I just listen when designers with impressive credentials and great results talk. I know Alan, and people I talk to speak with Nelson or Greg.
 
Clark