All Acoustic System or let say playbacks has signature or some kind of own character of sound. That is normal we all accept it and live with it. It is important to differentiate a character of playback from major mistakes of playback, but it is a whole another subject. A character of playback is idiosyncratic temperament of sound made by the playback and it might manifest as tonal, dynamic or any other inflictions.

In some cases various playback characters work alone with specific played material and sometimes it does not. Here is where interesting moment: some playbacks are able to expose and to hide own character with respect to played material. Why some of them do and some of them do not?

Thinking on this subject and observing how different playbacks act in this respect I come to a conclusion that it is all about a playback being initially set to operate at a certain proximity to boundaries of neutrality. I feel that any personal character of playback is fine as long as it could be overridden by contra-character of played music. If, however, a playback character had too much amplitude and musical character can’t balance if out or change the polarity of the character then this type of character I recognize as a defect of playback.

So, a playback character is good but the character shall be of a very manageable amount. I think it is important for an advance playback organizer to cognitively recognize the character and be able to mitigate the depth of given character.  Then a person can tune the playback’s character to operate right on the threshold of neutrality, using this audio character as an expressive tool instead as an audio surrogatetive crutch.

It is difficult to accomplish, it takes time, it requires an understanding what we hear and a certain level of honesty with yourself. The playback characters might be positive, effective and addictive but it requires different effectiveness for Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld and for Beethoven’s funeral march. Listen your playback and try to bring out of the parenthesis of your listening awareness a character of your playback that you deal with. Then find a mechanism how the depth of this character might be mitigated. Then if you fell that the character is valuable for you them let it to be but set the amplitude of that character as much as it necessary to benefit but do not violate your listening musical objectives.