[Alphonse]

One of the things I appreciate about Bryston gear is the "low noise, neutral" design philosophy.  If that means that a poorly engineered source or medium will sounds as such, then so be it. The other side is that really well engineered sources can sound awesome.  I know that you can measure noise, but how about neutral?  How do you go about operationally defining it and or objectively measuring it?  For example, some claim that different resistors have different sonic signatures.

Just curious.

Al   

[robb]

Good question.

[Mag]

I was hoping someone else would chime in here.

My $.02 cents

Operationally neutral equipment imparts no sound signature of its own. Bryston amps and my Paradigm speakers are supposedly neutral.

IME if the whole system chain is neutral, then you are hearing exactly what's recorded. If there is a weak link in the chain on a neutral system, then it is that unit or equipment that you are hearing.

Some of my earlier cd players where the weak link. That is what I was hearing that piece of equipment. Later when I introduced an equalizer in the chain, that unit masked the sound because it didn't have as low distortion levels as the Bryston amps. I wasn't hearing the full potential of the BCD-1 with this unit in the chain.

That's it in a nutshell.