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Posted by Romy the Cat on
03-31-2007
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 Stringreen wrote: | | I am a professional violinist. When I play in Avery Fischer Hall my instrument sounds quit different than when I play it at home and again different still when I play it in Carnegie Hall. Instead of neutrality, perhaps one should think of its musicality. |
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I subtracted the subject in a separate thread because I feel it is well deserved further explanations.
Unfortunately Stringreen as well and many people in audio have very narrow and very unfortunately-simplistic perspective about audio neutrality. Musical neutrality is surely very different then audio neutrality as the audio neutrality is a very complex and very much multifaceted subject that included musicality among many other things. There is nothing, absolutely nothing in live sound that would be an equivalent of audio neutrality - audio neutrality is a sole subject of sound reproduction. The audio neutrality is way more sophisticated and complex then linear frequency response and low harmonic distortions…
Anyhow, here is the thread, if you care, that is purely dedicated to the Audio Neutrality. When I have time and mood I will upload some thoughts about the properties, methods and events about the Real Audio Neutrality. Feel free to do the same…
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Posted by drdna on
03-31-2007
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To me, audio neutrality is a very difficult idea to express. Fundamentally, all audio recording and reproduction is a terribly compromised and flawed system. An analogy might be to record the sound of children laughing and playing, splashing in the water of a outdoor stream with birds chirping in the background, to record the pitch and amplitude meticulously, and then play it back on a chruch organ.
The goal for every listener I think is to reproduce a connection with certain elements of the original musical event, but which elements will vary from listener to listener. Likewise, we can manufacture a system of sound reproduction that does reproduce certain elements better than others.
The difficulty arises because these systems are not perfect; they are both additive and subtractive in their distortions of the original source material. Colloquially, when a system has very little additive distortion, that is to say it mostly has subtractive flaws, it is referred to as "neutral" and the music made tends to be accurate or true to the source in many parameters but sacrifices many other elements, leaving it drained of a bit of musical and emotional juice.
Likewise, when a system has few subtractive flaws and mostly additive distortions, it is referred to as "musical" and when one hears it, it has closer connection to the emotional involvement perhaps but at the cost of added distortions like sibilance, etc.
The true neutral reproduction would be like a direct connection to the original event. The system would impart no additive or subtractive distortions whatsoever. This is impossible. Thus, the listener comes into play. Evey listener has diffferent focuses in audio reproduction of music. This is quite true for musicians especially, who are not necessarily better listeners than non-musicians; they are a bit handicapped because they are specifically trained to listen for very specific things when they are practicing and learning. It is more important to discover the things that are important and the things that are intolerable to you in audio reproduction of music to build your system.
This is important in a discussion of neutrality, because I think when a lot of people describe something as neutral it has a lot of subtractive flaws to my ears. Thus, I don't enjoy a lot of "neutral" audio systems because they are so empty of music. To me this kind of "neutral" system is like a comprehensive black-and-white book on the female anatomy, with exact measurements of femur length and diameter of eyebrow hairs, etc. It is just not as enjoyable to me as seeing a live woman in the room with me, where I can smell her perfume, see her smile, etc. even if it is in a room of 100 meowing cats as an additive distortion.
But that's just me.
Adrian
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
04-02-2007
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It is absolutely amassing how many audio people misunderstand Audio Neutrality. The Audio Neutrality is one of the most import moments of audio reproduction and still it is misunderstood. Not good!
The very first step to begin understanding of real and the only true meaning of Audio Neutrality is to begin understanding that Live Music and Reproduced Music are absolutely the same music. It is very hard for many people or even imposable for many to “get” it but it is OK – there are a lot of clueless people in audio. Music is not what Sound produces but what awareness consumes and that amplitude of music consumptions for any properly organized listeners is identical during live concert or during playback. (In fact some trains musicians could do it just by reading the notes score)
Hold on: do I say that there is no difference between Live musical event and Reproduced event? Of course not! The difference is huge but the difference is not in Music domain but in Sound. Live Sound and Reproduced Sound are absolutely different animals and even they live according some different principles. So, what in context of above said would be the Audio Neutrality?
Well, to undusted Audio Neutrality it is very imperative to understand that Audio Neutrality does not exist “as is” and the Audio Neutrality might be applied ONLY as Neutrality toward to something. So, the Audio Neutrality is an impartiality of Reproduced (???) relative to (???). By addressing the question marks you will discover what the real Audio Neutrality is. Here are a few further pointers that I would like to drop in order to lead you to the answer.
“Neutrality” might be applied to a whole event or to the collection of the properties. Music, as a subject, is more atomic and none-dissectible entity, in contrary to Sound that most likely in our awareness would be identified by multitude of properties. If you are wiling to approach the Audio Neutrality form a fruitful direction then try to “get” that Neutrality as a reference to “total” auditable experience. A “neutrality does not deal with individuals properties (it is what transparency does) but Audio Neutrality applied only toward an undividable-whole, complex and composite entities…
Well, I have said enough, even slightly more then I intended, and an able person might take his/her own thinking further up…
Rgs, Romy the Cat
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Posted by drdna on
04-02-2007
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| Romy the Cat wrote: | | ...Live Music and Reproduced Music are absolutely the same music... [but] ...Live Sound and Reproduced Sound are absolutely different animals... “Neutrality” might be applied to a whole event or to the collection of the properties. Music, as a subject, is more atomic and none-dissectible entity, in contrary to Sound that most likely in our awareness would be identified by multitude of properties. If you are wiling to approach the Audio Neutrality form a fruitful direction then try to “get” that Neutrality as a reference to “total” auditable experience. A “neutrality does not deal with individuals properties (it is what transparency does) but Audio Neutrality applied only toward an undividable-whole, complex and composite entities… Rgs, Romy the Cat |
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It sounds as if you are are relating neutrality to music in a roughly analogous way that people use the term transparency in relation to sound. In my mind a system can be transparent without being neutral, however, as transparency to small signal details, etc. can bring one further from the music. It is the certain indefinable things that happen to a system that allow the listener to cease to care about detail, transparency, distortion, etc (to me) that occur as the reproduced sound comes closer to the Music that I would define as absolute neutrality. The tricky thing is trying to describe what occurs in systems that are not perfectly neutral in this respect?
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
04-04-2007
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| drdna wrote: | | It sounds as if you are are relating neutrality to music in a roughly analogous way that people use the term transparency in relation to sound. In my mind a system can be transparent without being neutral, however, as transparency to small signal details, etc. can bring one further from the music. It is the certain indefinable things that happen to a system that allow the listener to cease to care about detail, transparency, distortion, etc (to me) that occur as the reproduced sound comes closer to the Music that I would define as absolute neutrality. The tricky thing is trying to describe what occurs in systems that are not perfectly neutral in this respect? |
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Yep, a system might be transparent without being neutral. Transparency is fidelity of the quantifiable properties recognized by intellect. Neutrality is fidelity to musically recognized by awareness. Neutrality might or might not be affected by transparency as neutrally reproduced sound might not be necessary a transparent sound. Neutrality it is not what is auditable but rather what is delivered. Neutrality does not operate by the language of the communication channel; in fact it is blind to the language of communication. Let me a give you an association about transparency vs. neutrality. Pretend you have written a book in English and in your book, at the page number 146, you unintentionally misspell a name of one of your character. The book was published as is. Then someone translated your book into Greek language for instance. You opened up the Greek version of your book at the page 146 and you see that that your mistake was corrected by the translator. In this case the translation was not “transparent” but “neutral”.
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Posted by drdna on
04-05-2007
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| Romy the Cat wrote: | | Neutrality is fidelity to musically recognized by awareness. Neutrality it is not what is auditable but rather what is delivered. Neutrality does not operate by the language of the communication channel; in fact it is blind to the language of communication. |
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Yes, we are saying the same thing. The problem as I have found it is that transparency is easily recognized and so there is a tendency for audiophiles to focus on this when they try to improve their systems, and this can make for very bad sounding results.
I strive to make a neutral system instead, which sometimes means ignoring transparency. The most recent example was the difference between the old London Decca Jubilee and the new London Decca Reference, which is easily the most transparent cartridge I have heard, but it loses some sense of neutrality, and I just don't connect to the music in the same way.
The problem I have is finding ways to guide how to make a system neutral since it is described not fully or well by language or intellectual parameters. How can something so important be so difficult to manage? Perhaps Romy and others have some suggestions?
Adrian
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
04-05-2007
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| drdna wrote: | | Yes, we are saying the same thing. The problem as I have found it is that transparency is easily recognized and so there is a tendency for audiophiles to focus on this when they try to improve their systems, and this can make for very bad sounding results. |
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Actually, it is not exactly accurate. Most audiophiles do not focus on transparency but rather they preoccupied how make up this playback to be in compliance with artificial sonic template that was given to them. This is what the entire stupid audio hi-fi industry is built upon – inventing and selling bogus sonic templates and then to facilitate products that satisfies the demands of those templates.
| drdna wrote: | | I strive to make a neutral system instead, which sometimes means ignoring transparency. The most recent example was the difference between the old London Decca Jubilee and the new London Decca Reference, which is easily the most transparent cartridge I have heard, but it loses some sense of neutrality, and I just don't connect to the music in the same way. |
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Well, I do understand what you mean when you said “sometimes ignoring transparency”. However, if to dig deeper then there is more to it. Transparency has own hierarchy: static transparency and dynamic transparency. The dynamic (active or vibrant) transparency is quite complicated subject that has a lot connection with Audio Neutrality. I am sure what when you propose to undermine the transparency then you meant the static transparency.
| drdna wrote: | | The problem I have is finding ways to guide how to make a system neutral since it is described not fully or well by language or intellectual parameters. How can something so important be so difficult to manage? Perhaps Romy and others have some suggestions? |
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Adrian, they are complicated things. The Audio Neutrality is not only the subject of audio but also a subject of general artistic evolvement of a listener. Audio Neutrality is associated with depth of musical messages and with adequacy of musical “consumption” via playback. Better music (better painting, better stage acting, better literature as so on) are filled with micro-rendering of human intentions in a language of the given art-form. In music those human intentions manifest themselves as very minute deviations of pace, tiny accents, micro-offset of tone and many other things that better musicians have at their disposal. A good actor can say a simple phase “It is my Cat” with a dozens different intonations and the meaning of that phase would be wary very considerable upon that way it which it was expressed. In music, since Sound is interpretive messenger, the capacities for “shadowing of the intentions” are the most powerful among many other art forms. In a good, intentions and expressions loaded musical piece, in hands of a capable and artistically advanced musician with a musical instilment, being interrupted but the musician consciousness the piece might become a very complex communicative bridge; the piece filled with many “pregnant” messages and with many potential sensations. Under better listening and social conditions a listener, being ethically, culturally and spiritually developed to the level where she or he is able to consume the sensations, might participate on the harvesting of those sensations….
So, we have expressed intentions and we have consumed intentions and this communication is built upon the equity and unanimity of human reactions to sonic irritations and equity and unanimity of human experiences. While there is not playback in the picture everything is fine but then when playback begins to reproduce Sound then playback modifies or even rearranges those in music imbedded “pregnant” messages as a result alters the content and value of the messages. There is nothing wrong with rearrangement of the messages if it was done by human awareness as human awareness would demonstrate own reasoning for the intrusion. However, a playback, being a machine has no reasoning but has only algorithms of exchange …
So, what in context of the said above what lay the Audio Neutrality? The Audio Neutrality is value responsible for perceptional transparency of the original messages and for the preservation of the messages’ potency
Well, the next question would be “how to make a system audio neutral”. There is no direct answer known to me as least in a format that I am wiling to share. However, I might drop some tips that might be useful for someone who is in a search for Audio Neutrality.
1) Evolve yourself in ordered to increased you own reference points.
2) Deal with better musical material, meaning with music that has more “pregnant” messages or with something that I usually call “content-loaded music”.
3) Audio Neutrality is mostly a subject of Audio Topologies instead of Transparency that is mostly a subject of implementations.
4) Do not forget that High-End Audio as a concept never dealt with Audio Neutrality and never developed any awareness or assessment patterns for Audio Neutrality. Therefore most of the “accomplished” High-End Audio “achievers” are absolutely impotent in the realms of Audio Neutrality
5) As much as most of the musicians are worthless in assessment of Audio Transparency (there are many reasons why) the musicians are indispensable in assessment of Audio Neutrality.
6) If you are not fluent in musical language than at your search for Audio Neutrality begin with use of Opera for your Audio Neutrality evaluations. Use the librettos with the language that you know well.
7) Do not look for Audio Neutrality juts in High-End Audio. Audio Neutrality might be fond in insultingly primitive audio.
8) Try slowly removing from your perception of concept of Audio Neutrality, substituting it with Event Recreation Neutrality. You might discover eventually that a Recreative Really has a very strong cross-expressive bound and not only might be applied in music
9) ….
10) Try thinks about Musicality not from a perspective of performing or reproduction but from a perspective of re-composition
11)...
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Posted by drdna on
04-08-2007
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| Romy the Cat wrote: | | Try slowly removing from your perception of concept of Audio Neutrality, substituting it with Event Recreation Neutrality. You might discover eventually that a Recreative Really has a very strong cross-expressive bound and not only might be applied in music. |
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Yes, and to give a very crude example, I went to see the new Panasonic “9th Series” HDTV (TH-42PH9UK) in the showroom. As it happens they had the older 8th Series HDTV still there on display trying to sell as a demo. So both TV’s were set up sided by side from an identical source feed. The new 9th Series clearly had a sharper picture and the motion was handled much more clearly than on the older model. But for some reason the 9th series TV was not as realistic a image on the screen. I had the same feeling in fact when I went to Andy Singer’s store in Manhattan and listen to their top of the line (i.e., most profitable) system, which is like I was an animal caught in a trap and wanting to gnaw off my own leg to escape from the listening room. The TV picture was to me very irritating and not realistic (less neutral) even though it was much sharper (more static transparency) when compared side by side.| Romy the Cat wrote: | | Audio Neutrality is not only the subject of audio but also a subject of general artistic evolvement of a listener. Audio Neutrality is associated with depth of musical messages and with adequacy of musical “consumption” via playback. Under better listening and social conditions a listener, being ethically, culturally and spiritually developed to the level where she or he is able to consume the sensations, might participate on the harvesting of those sensations…. |
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Yes, and I would say that it is all about getting from the original musical event to the contact with the brain or soul of the listener. Many things can get in the way, for example if the listener has a bad ear infection, the reduction in the ability to hear the sounds may limit the music. Or if he is worried about his taxes and cannot concentrate on the music as well. The audio neutrality is about the interaction of the music and the listener, of which audio systems are only a small part. Having seen a documentary about Richter made it more involving to listen to the recording of the concert. The smell of ozone in the air after the rain was calming to me and allowed me to listen deeper to the music.| Romy the Cat wrote: | | Audio Neutrality is mostly a subject of Audio Topologies instead of Transparency that is mostly a subject of implementations. |
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So the question arises about topology. Why is there resistance to the transformer preamplifiers then? It is very clear it will act as a variable band pass filter, which is very bad for the static transparency, but isn’t it possible that the topological change may result in improved audio neutrality? I don’t know, never having heard one, but the reports are intriguing that if I get the money perhaps I will try one some day. What do you think, Romy, is it worth a try?
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Posted by Paul S on
04-08-2007
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I am not sure I follow the TV analogy...
I think that the best course where any sort of voltage divider/attenuator is concerned is to do it without messing up the audible results, of course, but also to keep it as "neutral", "transparant" and "simple" as possible, following Romy's (and Ockham's) line of thinking. Why add any more [variables] than necessary? In the case of a TVC/step-down one certainly ought to plan around and implement an adequate [passive] mitigation strategy against possible band pass attrition at likely settings, and also consider the resultant numbers based on un-buffered lines. However the same must be said for simple resitance, and in that case it appears to make sense to add a buffer to a resistance-type attenuator in order to get around possible attrition loses resulting from the R method, which means adding an active device to the circuit. I have tried various tubed and SS driven buffers with mixed results. Also, I can hear that different resistors "sound different" in various circuits, including attenuators. I have not fiddled around much with step-down transformers, per se, apart from the TAP, in its role as a voltage divider. In my bid for "neutrality"/"transparancy" I decided to try the one [passive] method I had not tried before, and reports have been posted. Since I have not yet tried/compared an op-amp-buffered R-type passive (so-called "active"), I will try that next. One way or the other, I need a master volume control.
IMO, the idea that there is some sort of mysterious additive that will stabilize the mix is not so much wrong in practice as is in this context ("neutrality") just another unknown and baffling (to me) variable, like Flogiston or Orgone.
Best regards,
Paul S
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Posted by drdna on
04-08-2007
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Well Paul,
I want to thank you very much for your comments. I appreciate what you mentioned about Occam's Razor, but I do feel that here I am not trying to make a new theory of electronics necessarily. Rather I am just trying to develop the vocabulary to describe what I observe when I listen to music. Nevertheless, your commentary is very comforting to me because hearing your comments about different resistors and circuitry designs helps me to understand better where you are coming from and then I feel less concerned about the possibility that I may be missing out on something fundamental with the whole transformer attenuator craze.
Happy listening!
Adrian
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
04-09-2007
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Adrian,
I do not fancy myself as a person who is capable talk with authority about topological advances. I invested some time and some interest into “slim” understanding of loudspeakers but it pretty much all where I am able to make any generalizing comments about topologies. In more narrow scope: I do not think that my “resistance” to transformer preamplifiers” has to do with audio neutrality and particularly in context of “improved audio neutrality” as I do not think that neutrality might be “improved” (though it might be “conditionally” reinstated).
The Cat
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Posted by drdna on
04-10-2007
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| Romy the Cat wrote: | I do not think that my “resistance” to transformer preamplifiers” has to do with audio neutrality and particularly in context of “improved audio neutrality” as I do not think that neutrality might be “improved” (though it might be “conditionally” reinstated)...
then in regard to the new mini Hi-Fi:
I relay do not recognize music with this unit – it makes everything to sound absolutely different and very muchwrong. It hard to explain: the notes are there but they have absolutely wrong meaning ... Even when the Denon plays the BBC announcements then it is clearly audible that this unit does something incorrect with sound. Not in term of Hi-Fi but rather in tern of meaning… the meaning and… pleasure. The phrases and sentences with Denon are the same and it looks like nothing else is requires (for news programs) … but substituting the Denon with Melquiades/Reds it is clearly auditable that suddenly the regular BBC newscast might sound pleasant and elegant and those BBS folks with their magnificent Brits’ accent sound more like music.. With Denon is it juts radio. |
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Yes, this is exactly what I am talking about when I refer to musical neutrality. With transparency, the audio allows all the details to come through, but with neutrality, the audio must allow the emotive meaning and understanding to come through. You must be able NOT necessarily to hear the type of violin being played (this is static transparency) but you know what the musician is meaning, as surely as if he is there playing and you can see his body language and the expression on his face as he plays.
After many years of poring over MJ magazine, this is the reason I am very excited about the Melquiades topology, and why I also have hope for the TAP transformer attenuator, which in some way you can make the analogy that TAP: passive preamplifier :: SET: balanced amplifier.
Adrian
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Posted by Paul S on
04-10-2007
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The TAP TVC does happen support a fully balanced topology, for whatever that's worth. I have not discovered anything difinitive about this for myself, however. I can say that I do not consider the unit's situational neutrality as anything other than that. I happen to agree with Romy about the TAP's theoretical limitations (what's to argue?), and I have tried to consider these theories in my own installation in order to avoid and/or mitigate theoretical/potentially-audible problems. OTOH, there is a reason that RIAA networks are principally done with resistors and caps, and this is because these can shape a signal just like a transformer may, under given conditions. No free lunch.
It seems to me ironic that it is hard to find and implement a neutral device that "gets out of the way" to allow other, presumably active, devices to work what magic they can. In the back of the mind lurks the realization that if we can hear how wire itself affects a circuit/system, then transformers in a circuit are bound to be doing something, just as resistors, capacitors, diodes, op amps, etc. might do. The idea of passive versus active circuits in any given situation has spawned heated debate in some circles, on theoretical grounds and based on the experiences and preferences of the parties in question. To be honest, I can both "see" and hear good reasons for either approach, situationally.
I am presently wrestling with a fading cartridge and new phono stage, and I do not expect nor even desire to find a truly "neutral" cartridge or phono stage, even though my present (fading!) cartridge is/was more-or-less neutral in terms of "presentation" and it does a pretty good imitation of master tape. But I think that in the case of transducers one is pretty much stuck with an outright and basically obvious "rendering", for better or for worse. I do want to keep any audible additions or subtractions from any TT, arm, or wire, etc. to a minimum; basically, I want to keep additions and subtractions from other than transducers to a minimum at this time, except...
I spent years trying to find/install a "straight wire with gain" for an amp and then the ML2s totally turned my thinking around on this. I still can't tell you what they are doing, but they are not entirely "neutral", by any means, at least not as I understand this concept.
Of course, speakers are never going to be completely "neutral", although the best of them seem to allow or even create a particular sense of a given performance or type of performance. Here I find that given speakers do more-or-less "better" with one type of music or another, including the revelation of intent/expression. For example, for all the problems with planars, I have certainly been quite moved by solos rendered by well-implemented planars.
Still, generally speaking, I have found over the years that components that most wow me at first usually let me down the most over time. The first time I heard the ML2s I was just confused!
Best regards,
Paul S
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