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Thoughts?
An interesting point. I find that when people are presented with an essentially neutral system, even if not perfectly so, they tend to look for this or that, top end and/or bottom end, etc, which ultimately boils down to one form of coloration or another.
I don't mean to say that these were lifeless systems, with no ambience and emotion, I mean to say that the statistically most frequent event is looking for some form of coloration the listener percieves as natural.
DVV
My thoughts. We listen to our own systems. We congregate and listen to other's systems. We go to dealers. We all have different systems, we don't all agree on the final outcomes of systems. We also listen to different types of music -- some simple, some complex, some well recorded, some poorly recorded, some typically distant in a you are there mid-hall perspective, some close mic'ed as if there is a drummer at full size 10 feet from you. So based on our own preferences, listening habits, music, recording quality and everything, we have different expectations, and different goals. I find it rare to see folks fully agree.
So I don't really buy into seeking neutrality. If you like it you like it. I don't see music lovers pulling out scopes and equipment when they go to dealers, I usually see them listening with their ears.
I understand people what people mean when they say they want to be closer, more intimate with the music. I also understand what people mean when they say they want to get the absolute most off of a recording, and when people say they want to get the emotion of the music and couldn't care less for the other stuff -- they wouldn't mind, but that's not their focus.
So if every piece of equipment contributes to that end, and each piece is designed a certain way, and has a certain character, a set of sound attributes, whether intentional or not, let's assume that ideal system matching and neutrality is a goal for _most_ of your system, and also that it's actually _possible_ to create, to evaluate, and to compare against.
So we all need, want, or are used to some sort of coloration, or some sort of embellishment -- 'flesh things out more', 'accentuate this attribute more, 'accentuate this attribute less', 'I like a fuller bass', 'I like my presentation sweeter', 'bigger', 'more pinpoint', 'more diffuse', 'wetter', 'dryer'.....
So when I mention "tube lovers", they have a characteristic of sound. For the sake of argument, we can use the even order harmonics stereotype and the idea of warmth.
I guess I was just wondering if of all your components, if truly neutral components could exist, providing the embellishment in a single place could in theory provide the joys, the 'right sound' as matching a bunch of differently embellished components. And if so, would that be the ideal....limiting it to one place, somewhere at a low level, from the source, and then guaranteeing theoretically that the sound, that source was truly and faithfully passed through to the end.
Sure you could also extend it to the theoretical neutral source, but I think most people like a little of something. The fact that you like one cable over another is right in itself to think that.
Don't know if that makes any sense.
But we're all configuring our sound per se...would be interesting if the variables could be limited.
When I hear of 'system matching' and 'synergy', I hear it from two perspectives. One being the technical one, aka pay attention closely to the design and the interface between each component in the chain, and don't do things that are plain stupid. The second being the gray area, simply stating that component X, Y, Z work wonderfully together through a bit of technical wisdom, and a bit of artistry in mixing and matching.
Don't know where I was going with this....no sleeep.
