To Neutral Speaker, or Not to Neutral Speaker...

Just thinking out loud here... maybe neutral in and of itself isn't boring. Maybe a component can be 'neutral' in tonality, but falls down on the job in other areas, such as dynamics, bass, transparency, etc. etc., and then THAT is what makes it boring.

But, I dunno... could be wrong.

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That's my plan as well . I recommend you not to go below SCM19v2. That's the cheapest in their lineup with their monster (9kg) super-linear midbass, a truly high-end driver.

If you have more money go for active version of SCM40v2. For standmounts - active version of SCM20 is cracking, but make sure to know which version it is and which are the drivers in it.

Anyways, with 19 and 40 make sure it's version 2, because they have a much better tweeter (ATCs own first tweeter) than the v1.

My plan is also to live with SCM19v2 in an optimized system until i have money for something like active SCM50. And I'll live very happily until then .

 

That thing looks like some sorta battle-droid that could come after you.

Hopefully it operates under the Three Laws of Robotics.
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Then that's not neutral. Speaker isn't neutral if the bass and dynamics aren't right. And transparancy - that's one of near-synonims for neutralness as far as I'm concerned. Transparent so that the source material itself can be heard or neutral to the source material.

 

Those are my thoughts. Though I do find if the mastering is done right, then you get a good experience (generally speaking). I have found that the balance and transparency falls into place then.

While no speaker design is perfect, the ones that have the edge on transparency/clarity have been my favourites over the years.

 

Many of us on the Forum have discovered after decades of listening--- we simply are not happy in the long run if our speakers are all Jazzed up.
We don't LIKE "special sauce" or "romantic speakers" or whatever you called it.
We want to hear the "flavor" embedded in the recording, NOT add our own re-mastering to the offering.
Once you've listened to stereo systems for several decades your taste may fall in one camp or the other.
If you feel a "neutral" approach suits your "style"---you can find help here on the Forum to achieve such a system performance.
It takes fairly FLAT frequency response to achieve this level of performance.
Most of us describe this effect as being "neutral."
Not everyone knows how to set up a room to produce this result.
It takes some study and a LOT of experimentation AND only a few speakers will deliver the results even after you bust your hump getting there, so choose wisely.

If you really have other ideas of what floats your boat then there are plenty of guys and gals here that have all kinds of different styles.
Maybe deep thumping bass is your deal.
Or piercing treble sharpness to add a ton of "detail."
There are lots of speaker manufacturers that offer such stuff.
After 55 years of dealing in gear I have some pretty hard rules at this point.
I would AVOID such speakers, but that's just ME.

 

LOL.
When notes with heavy bass impact struck it was like a punch in the stomach.

 

There's no 'NEUTRAL' speaker. Period.

Unless you build your own and tune it in and to the room AND to the way YOU think music should sound.

Every speaker/transducer has a voice - some you may like and others not, BUT all the associated equipment needs to be added to the equation ALSO.

My speakers are flat in my room, except for room resonances in the bass region. And yet they sound completely different than my Revel Ultima Studios.

And my 2 way speakers sound different than the 3 ways even though the tweeter/midrange transducer is the same and the woofers also except for size in both cases.

 

ATC most definitely neutral, but Linn?!

Also, there's neutral by design, and neutral in your room ... the speaker that does that, may be not terribly neutral or 'flat' in the anechoic test chamber.

I'd choose the speaker that makes me want to play album after album, and really reveals the differences between recordings.

 

I myself have no idea how Linn speakers sound (never ever heard one), and, strangely, no one in the thread has said anything about their sound either, ‘til now.

All I know is, I don’t like how they look. Who there thought that putting a Bane facemask on most of the lineup, or a top-to-bottom red velvet cake stocking on your speakers was a good aesthetic choice?
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Okay ... I don't get the Bane(?) or red velvet cake references, time for me to visit the Linn website.

 

Bane is a Batman villain. He was in The Dark Knight Rises, the 2012 Christopher Nolan film.

Just how do Linns sound, btw?
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Depends. I don't really think Linn has so much a 'house sound' in their speaker lineup, these days. Complicating the picture is the relationship of Linn speakers to their electronics, which often use room-correction software to equalise the sound. But based on my limited auditions of the current lineup, I'd describe the sound as bit on the polite side. But I'm not really au courant with the more expensive floorstanders in the line; perhaps a Forum Linnie might weigh in? ...

 

Did you miss this...

 

Oopsie. Yes, I did.

But not anymore, thanks for the re-post.
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No problem, glad I could help at least a little. And sorry it's a little vague. It was a long demo, maybe 90 minutes. But like I said, it was a whole system so it's hard to put a strong reference against it with the whole system being a variable.

 

of course you are right on. "neutral" is nothing more than a flavor of voicing. there are several other attributes of a speaker that determine how it will sound and whether it is exciting or not.
a spendor D7 for example is extremely neutral (to a fault IMHO which is why I no longer have them) but is one of the fastest, most exciting speakers to listen to.

 

I went to audition a pair of ATC SCM19's last winter with every intention of leaving with them, but left empty handed and under-whelmed...
They were powered with an ATC amp (forget which one) and connected with top-notch cabling but for whatever reason the spark I expected never materialized.
Maybe I'm not a "neutral" fan ;>)

 

Reading these comments it seems that the definition of the word "Neutral" is all over the place.

If your system is built right and tuned perfectly into the room, the music you hear should be dripping with flavor---but it is the actual flavor on the recording.
Real live instruments are dripping with flavor live.
Guys spend their entire lives getting their own "sound."
On any half decent recording, your set should drip with their sound.
It should intoxicate you.

A non-neutral setup will alter the tones slightly or perhaps, drastically.
A musician OR a true music lover will hear these flaws immediately.
It sort of ruins the "shut your eyes---it's REAL" effect.

A super piercing tweeter will make everything you play sound piercing.
A boomy woofer will make everything you play sound boomy.
A nasty sounding horn will make everything sound like it is coming out of a nasty horn.
A hollow sounding speaker will make everything you play sound hollow.
Etc.

Neutral does NOT mean your set is expensive.
Your set and your room may not be expansive enough to handle super deep bass, for instance.
Or you may be missing that last drop of "detail" that comes with expensive tweeter setups.
So what?

No matter how inexpensive, if your set can manage being neutral, your set must sound pretty wonderful because the instruments and voices are wonderful when you hear them "live."
And just about EVERY recording should sound wonderful because folks don't produce records with lousy sounding voices and instruments all that often.
And a lousy recorded instrument sound done on a budget can be a cool thing, for example, if you are talking about some AfroBeat music recorded in a smoky jazz club a couple hundred miles from nowhere someplace in a far-away exotic location for instance.
The sound of low rent low budget TALENT can come shining through on a neutral set.
It might even be nice to hear crummy guitar played brilliantly or a sax played with exciting talent---but poorly recorded.
Hearing all this stuff on a neutral set just might make you understand the value of good music versus just having high production values.

I know some on here will disagree.
But others know exactly what I am talking about.
Carry on.

 

Neutrality like beauty is in the ear of the beholder.

You said this "dealers sell ppl neutral speakers so that they can also sell them ‘romantic’ speakers later."

I don't think that is off. I would often see the back room of Soundhounds - the second hand stuff - the branbds that were "traded in" and the brands that were never in the "traded in" section. And that over a decade told me some things.

The speaker that works in a recording studio may not be enjoyable in your home. Steve Hoffman has worked for decades with ATC speakers in the recording studio - he doesn't have ATC in his home. I have listened to ATC for years myself - bought my Line Magnetic 219IA amplifier based on auditions with the SCM 100 so I know them well. They're impressive sounding speakers. Whether you will "like" them is another matter altogether.

 

Haven't heard neither Linn, nor ATC. What I have heard though, and it's really neutral, is PSB. The Imagine X2T is supposed to be a lot of speaker for the price, and a bargain to boot.

 

If you're looking for 'spark', you're not looking for neutral . But, what you're saying is perfectly normal to me. These speakers are not "impressive". The exact reason why they're good in the long run.

 

This. It starts with the recording. A artist has a sound, is searching for a sound during their set up to record. A sound is made during the recording and later the mix. I personally love "live" recordings. Good soundstage, no overdubs etc. For me neutral speakers means trying to be close as possible to the original recording.

I haven't listened to a lot of speakers to be honest. A friend of mine auditioned a pair of B&W's. The sales guy turned on a pair of Dali's. They had a totally different sound which i would describe as more colored. Anyway, at the end it's taste and we are all luckily searching for something else.

 

I have a pair of ATC smc 35. They are very neutral speaker and I like them a lot. The downside is that they need careful setup. If anything is wrong in amp/source/positioning it will be exposed. And they need a fair amount of power to sing. But when it's done right they have a dynamic and open sound that's hard too beat. The midrange is something extra.

 

It's worth noting that measurements are nearly useless for determining which speakers will sound neutral to your ears. Pink noise only approximates the amplitudes of how humans hear the various octaves (Equal Loudness Contour). Contrary to what some like to believe, we don't all hear similarly. Different ear shapes and canal sizes result in very different results. Your ear drums are transducers and different sizes/shapes result in different responses, not unlike speaker drivers.

You might be surprised by how your hearing differs even between your two ears. Bring a spouse/friend to your nearest Sam's Club for a free exam and you'll see the proof of this on paper. There is no universal "neutral." It's just a notion.