The Pain of Neutral Sound

This is a story of the dangers of neutral sound.
I always wanted to have that studio monitor sound.
It would be authentic and totally hifi.

I don't think this is a good idea anymore. I've owned many
speakers that had an interesting but not neutral sound.
I was happy with large Magnepans. The Magnepans
are not studio monitors, but boy they have an airy sound and fantastic sound stage.

Now, when I have the neutral and revealing monitor sound, I can't go back to the interesting but flawed speakers.
At the same time I am fiddling with equipment forever in order to make the neutral sound more interesting.

So avoid monitor speakers, if you are not actually working with sound.

I have been using large ESS AMT Monitors for some time.
They sound like monitors.
I changed my digital setup and bought the Mercedes S-Class of German sound cards, RME Hammerfall HDSP9632.
The RME is great. It has rock solid drivers for all major operating systems.
I use it with J.River and Windows 7.
This sound card is known for it's absolute neutral sound. Well, it was made for professional monitoring.

So now I keep rotating different preamps trying to break out from neutrality. I don't know if the difference between preamps
is real or imaginary.

This is why I have to do a preamp shootout. I am going to play five songs using 5 different preamps.
First adjusting sound level with a db-meter and white noise.

The preamps are not super high end. Some of them are familiar to you:

1. Beresford 7510 / mod21 optical spdif/variable output
2. Quad 33 revised Dada
3. Velleman 8020 valve preamp
4. Eumig C-1000 from Luxman design and factory (late 70's)
5. Harman Kardon HK 3470, just the preamp (early 90's, looks like discrete transistors)

Results soon with pictures of preamps.

I found that when I had the ATC100A's, driven by a late AVI S2000 MP+P preamp, I all but stopped messing with the gear and just used the set to listen to music on..

I don't know the speakers I'm afraid, but one thing I've recently discovered is that many MODERN monitors are anything but neutral (yes, even current ATC's!), having a distinctly lifted upper mid over the average bass and treble level. Exaggerated, this equates to the yamaha NS10's, which were pretty well loathed on the domestic front, but which studios adopted as their little screecher by the thousand. On the other hand, the BBC's idea of neutrality is speakers that measure pretty flat in free space, giving a gentle (in the best examples) bass lift in a UK domestic setting (US and far eastern rooms may be built differently and climate differences have a definite effect too).

I know I'm different to many on here, but I've long given up chasing the ultimate in fidelity, with exceptional clinical clarity, since the ultimate can never be achieved with a multi-tracked, mixed and "produced" source recording, which has been aneasthsetised at the mixing and mastering stage into something "domestically acceptable..."

If your speakers are active with built in amps, I'd suggest a BMC2 buffer/volume control as a minimum. My love of croft preamps is well recorded, but I don't think they like long interconnects into sub 47K input impedances myself. Old UK preamps that are neutral, cheap and able to drive long leads are such as the later Quad preamps from the 44 onwards, AVI S2000MP (later ones with processor loop on the rear as they were completely redesigned with a rather sexy class A discrete driver stage), Musical Fidelity XP-100 from the late 90's and the first discrete Cyrus preamp (with balanced output option). Of course there are loads of others (late Linn Kairn is a veiled but pleasant sounding unit and the original Audiolab 8000Q is happy used this way too), but I know these and have used them with remote amps.

Hope this helps a bit. On your travels, try to get a listen to the "BBC Legacy" models such as the Stirling LS3/6, bigger Spendors (bigger A series and SP1/2R upwards) and also my beloved Harbeth brand (M30.1, SHL5 and 40.1's). These are balanced generally with a better midrange balance than the over-etched pro models can be and believe me, these won't have you messing around with partnering gear.... The Tannoy Prestige models have been given far less coloured voices than earlier models too and I rate these highly as a range, high new UK prices aside...

Lastly, the one big pro model of quality I really want to hear is the SP Acoustics active monitor. The designer did the original AE1 and relatives from the mid 80's and is using the Illuminator drivers, regarded as amongst the best out there these days, the mid unit covering most of it, with the bass and tweeter augmenting the mid, rather than crossing over where the ear is most sensitive..

Here is the results of my preamp shootout.

The test songs were:
1. Alberto Iglesias: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy soundtrack, George Smiley
2. k.d. lang: The Air That I Breathe
3. Steely Dan: Hey Nineteen
4. George Benson & Al Jarreau: Summer Breeze
5. Gregory Porter: On My Way to Harlem

The listening room is about 40 m2. Medieval building with thick stone walls and wooden floor.
Amplifier Quad 522. Flac files from J.River and Windows 7.

http://hoone.com/setup.jpg

Here is a library picture of ESS Amt Monitors:
http://hoone.com/amtmonitor.jpg

All preamps were adjusted with white noise at 82 db / 1 meter.
This was rather loud. The big speakers need a higher listening level.

My results:

1. First price goes to Velleman K8020 valve preamp (two ECC 82)
Overall best sound on all test music. Balanced, natural on acoustic instruments. Good sound stage.

http://hoone.com/velleman.jpg

2. Quad 33 revised Dada
Super clarity, but not neutral. Somehow modifies original sound.
Good sound stage on acoustic music. No muddiness when full orchestra plays on song number 1.

http://hoone.com/quad.jpg

3. Beresford 7510 / mod21 optical spdif/variable output
This with Beresford DAC (others RME HDSP9632).
Some muddiness when full orchestra on song 1. Song 2 vocal sound too nasal.
Song 3 too much treble.

http://hoone.com/beresford.jpg

4. Eumig C-1000 from Luxman design and factory (late 70's)
Sound thin, behind a curtain. Muddiness, distortion.
Maybe needs a recap. Its Luxmann Laboratory Series cousin is very expensive.
Could be worth upgrading.

http://hoone.com/eumig.jpg

5. Harman Kardon HK 3470, just the preamp (early 90's, looks like discrete transistors)
Not very good. Muddy, too much treble, thin sound.

I did the test about three weeks ago.
After this I have used just the Velleman. It has helped to cure the neutrality of monitor speakers.
Some days I add plus 2-3 db on 6 kHz "presence" on J.River equalizer.

Nice write up
Worth going to Windows 8 to get a even better sound from JRiver special deal till end of Jan

Juha, I fully understand what you are looking for in terms of sound. I crave neutrality, resolution and imaging/soundstage but if this means a sound without substance or a stark sound then I can't live with it. It can be a very fine balancing act. The preamps you tried look ok but I'm not convinced they are the answer. If your system is otherwise not stark sounding and you don't need gain you could try a TVC (eg Promitheus) or Lightspeed LDR attenuator. If you need added warmth you will need an active preamp, arguably loosing some resolution - this is trade-off you seem to have found with the Velleman, but is it really that good?

There are lots of options......

I seriously thought it was just me that didn't like the neutral, deemed as true hifi sound. Dont get me wrong, overtly trebly / sparkly and bright can be a bit much but I'd so much rather a little sparkle over neutral any day. If I feel myself hunting for some kind of adjust / tone control then the sound aint for me. I've had friends into hifi who went over to systems with literally just a volume button when they became the 'thing' and they eventually went back to tone controls. Now I know that's a different argument so to speak but I'm sure you get my jist ;) One man's meat ............

Juha,

One more thought about your neutral sound pain. If the rest of your room is as live sounding as the area in the photo then it could be that your pain is due to reflections from hard surfaces and what you are doing is deadening the sound with a particular preamp to reduce upper-mid frequencies. I have a very live room and have gone through this myself. I now have 7 carefully placed acoustic panels, this difference in SQ is massive.

There have been recent threads elsewhere about so called "neutral" speakers and I feel it best to sum it up like this...

NO SPEAKER ON THIS PLANET is really any good at all at reproducing live sounds, let alone the compressed and hideous mess that passes for recorded music. The best any loudspeaker can do is give a smaller facsimile of the original and, chosen correctly for the room and user tastes, will enable one to suspend disbelief to enable the music to move ones emotions and hopefully in a positive way.

So called professional monitors have a job to do, and that is usually to magnify distortions and noises in the programme so the engineer can deal with them. The ubiquitous Yamaha NS10M is the best example of this. Mixes that sound good on these screechers usually sound good on anything, but try using them for domestic use and your ears will fatigue very quickly I found -

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep0...yamahans10.htm

I maintain that modern speaker design, including cheaper far eastern manufacturing techniques, has brought the potential for decent sound quality down in price. Some of the better KEF Q series for example and I'm informed especially the current ones, despite their cheap labour roots, are actually very good on the whole for example and I'm sure that the Chinese Wharfedales and others aren't that bad either, especially with the likes of Peter Comeau (founder co-owner of Heybrook and designer of the WD speakers) doing good things over there. I also feel that companies like Harbeth, Stirling Broadcast and Spendor, both well rooted in decent sound quality engineering, have brought their shared "BBC Research" roots very firmly up to date with their current offerings, the former company I know well, having professional levels of clarity and definition, yet with a degree of "listening comfort" unkown in some of the other little screamers out there in speaker-land. Tannoy too, did some excellent work on the DC drivers as owners of the current Prestige range will attest to, as well as others such as Marco who have had the inportant parts of their older Tannoys updated (crossovers and all) to very good effect.

On the other hand though, there is a small but VERY LOUD UK contingent who insist that the "only" way to go for accurate reproduction of music is to drive the speakers actively and that all passively driven speakers boom unacceptably and have a smeary harshness at the crossover frequency, which is made worse when the passive crossover is altered by amplifiers with poor damping factor. Fair enough, but some people want BASS, not boom and a sub-woofer isn't always the best answer, especially as two are needed for proper reproduction of hall ambience in modern stereo recordings and also to drive the room best I understand. Both their models have a brightness to the sound of great clarity, but we're just this side of having the OP's tense "neutrality" again, doe to premature bass rolloff and lack of power in larger rooms with the 6" bass unit working too hard.....

I'm rambling again - does any of the above make sense? I think anyone who cares about reproduction of music at home needs to listen to a few things first, start small I reckon and then CAREFULLY build up to a setup that suits the room it's in (no two living rooms are the same) and gives great pleasure in listening *through* it for hours on end. For some, it may well be AVI ADM9's in better current form and for others it could well be valvey driven Tannoys or antique mid-sized systems like mine :)

P.S. Just to show you what I mean a touch more objectively -

Yamaha NS10's - plot from Sound on Sound and typical shape to Linn Kans, AVI Neutrons of various models and pro Nine too, all of which are "fast" and seemingly "detailed" but bass-light -

http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps3dc3bdea.jpg

This is a collection of plots of the BBC LS5/9 from a Harbeth-User-Group discussion on why the LS5/8 and its later smaller sibling the 5/9 had a gentler too-easy balance, again deviuating from strictly neutral -

http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps1c52a0ef.jpg

Note how the responses in what I call the "glare" frequencies differ?

I know I have the link somewhere in my "favourites," but there's a generally positive review on the Harbeth Monitor 30, which was designed to be a drop-in replacement for the LS5/9. It's responses as measured (Harbeth are quite happy for fair external measurements to be carried out, whereas AVI won't submit their current products to such scrutiny and subsequent discussion) show a gently downtilting response from mid bass to mid treble, which is hopefully less intrusive that peaks and dips in the response.

I'll post the link if I can find it.

If pretty response plots are also your "thing," there's another pdf available from Sound-on-Sound again discussing the NS10 and comparing it with the better smaller monitors from around ten years ago "NS10. Twenty years a reference monitor, why? Some fascinating measurements if you can make head nor tail of them :)

So no, most speakers are anything BUT neutral and pro models especially it seems!

I know I know, all this measurement malarky bores the pants off most of you, but as threatened, here's the link to the measurements on the Harbeth M30's (NOT the 30.1)

http://www.soundstagenetwork.com/mea...h_30_domestic/

and here's the main one -

http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps1d2b07b2.gif

These plots won't tell you how these speakers really sound, since distortion and other resonances aren't shown up here, but the general TONE of the speaker can probably be accurately predicted, along with the knowledge that a smooth response shape is far more listenable to than say a lumpy or resonant one. People like me, who like the Harbeth tonal balance (the SHL5 brings the mid over 500Hz and top up a bit to a more nominal "flat" level and the bass goes down a good bit further - check the Sterephile reviews for confirmation), find the leaner "brighter" balance of say, the AVI N5's and Pro Nines rather fatiguing, despite loads of perceived/enhanced "details" in the sound. The AVI ADM9 is similar in bass to mid balance but MUCH smoother further up I understand, in fairness and recent changes have noticeably lifted the bass further to the nominal "flat" level for a ported 9 litre box with 6" driver in it at long last...