I respect the attempts to "objectify" home audio playback, but there are a couple things going on here: one, an attempt to rationalize everything into the same terms, when much of it is art. Every recording sounds different. And each listener has a preference. Saying that a system is accurate, or linear or well designed from an engineering standpoint tells me something, but it doesn't tell me how it will play or whether I will like the results. I've listened to archival restorations of acetates and old pre-war transcriptions that were brought to life through digital manipulation, played back over big studio monitors driven by big solid state amps. They were vivid and amazingly visceral, despite the limitations of the original recording and all the tweaking that was done to restore them. I have listened to big, state of the art systems that I didn't like because they sounded "too hi-fi" to me. To someone else, the same system may press their buttons.
For me, and I know my biases pretty well, I need to have a very clear, but not harsh, and grainless midrange. I can live with sins of omission, like no super deep bass (I'd rather a roll off than forceful but discontinuous bass). Many systems fail on this level because of the recordings or masterings, and replace it with 'WoW' stuff- audiophile spectaculars that may demonstrate how "fantastic" a system sounds, but leave me hungry for something of more musical interest. That, in turn, leads to another subjective area- the music that turns you on.
I think once you get a system to a certain level of quality, much has to do with the source material, how it was recorded, mastered and manufactured. Whether you can force-fit all of these variables into one rational scheme labelled 'natural' is pretty difficult. I suppose that's why most "audiophiles" like jazz and classical recordings- the potential for less gimmickry. Unfortunately, I like a lot of music beyond those genres, so I'm forced to search out good pressings of music I like. Some don't really exist- the recording just isn't that good, no matter how you splice or dice it, remaster or remix it. I live with it. But, to me, the midrange is the starting point. If it isn't "right" to my ears, all the rest is beside the point. What's right? To me, it is an in the room quality without cues that a machine is playing the thing. How often does that happen? Sometimes, on good recordings. Can a system do it all? Dunno- I have never heard a system that is utterly seamless- you hear the machinery at some point- whether it is a limitation of the recording or system.
All of this, I think, is why it is so difficult to bridge the gap between the objective and subjective schools. (I don't know if that is now a taboo subject here, I apologize if I am raising this in a way that is inappropriate- not trying to be provocative). I just don't know how you can, at the end of the day, rationalize into some predictable schema, all of the above. As a result, "natural sounding" is really in the eye (ear) of the beholder. I had a guy here recently- a drummer- listening to a Vertigo press of Master of Reality- he was blown away by the details of the drumming that he had never heard - though he had listened to the recording--different mastering, different system- hundreds of times. To him, and he has good ears and solid musical values, I'd bet he'd call it 'natural.' And in some ways, I wouldn't disagree, though it wouldn't be high on my list of examples of such recordings.
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