How do you describe sound and thus give meaningful good advice to audiophiles?

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Christ you are impatient aren't you? I do have a life away from forums you know ;-)

My comments with regards to "focussed" were addressed at the musical irrelevency of the quality the word describes rather than the language itself.

You don't listen to live music and go "wow! How focussed the soundstage is" . I don't want 'focussed" speakers, or "fast" ones for that matter simply because both adjectives describe dead sound IME, and are musically irrelevant.

The important thing generally though is that people do have a common language and understanding of that language so that they can discuss products without misunderstanding. The chances of that happening on a UK audio forum are non existant, either through ignorance or beligerance (in the case of certain PFM stalwarts).

 

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You don't understand the language or the context in which it was used by me?

 

i'm afraid there is no universal consensus on meaning of the words used in audio jargon because of lack of semantics that would mean the same to everyone. it's similar as with food. what is hot? what is sweet? what is salty? there is no known mechanism yet that would enable us to share what our senses decode with anyone else.
it is completely different issue what priorities an audiophile has on his agenda when evaluationg a system. i have a feeling you are not talking about the same thing.

 

"What we have here is a failure to comooonicate"
I also wonder if there's any point in trying to advise anyone who considers themselves an 'audiophile', the title itself suggesting a person who is up his own arseIn the case of audio enthusiasts however there appears to be enough shared understanding of the original adjectives to at least make some progress.Trouble with audiophiles is they have their own highly personal ego driven metalanguage unpenetrable to mere mortals.

 

Time to link yet again to the dictionary


The problem is people are either too ignorant to read it, or think it's really cool to pretend they don't care, then post with all the clarity of mud.

 

And very informative it is, too.

But it also shows where confusion can arise. The majority of words listed have much the same meaning as they do in everyday speech but applied to a particular situation. There are however differences in connotation; 'texture' I would consider to be a good thing for things that I touch - wool is different to silk is different to cotton canvas and so on. Texture in sound reproduction would appear to be a bad thing though, as in this context it shouldn't be there.
Secondly, what may generally be considered a positive attribute is often used by opponents of a particular component to criticise it. True you can have too much of a good thing but the following extract gives an example:

ENTIRE RANGE
Good: airy, accurate, alive, balanced, extension, flat, neutral, smooth, uncolored, weighty
Not Good: dark, chocolatey, discontinuous, light, lumpy, syrupy, tilted, treacly

How often do we see airy and accurate used as criticisms while at the same time dark is something that suits some people.

 

There would also be some adjectives that trigger 'Manchurian Candidate' like responses-'accurate' is a good banker in this regard as is 'neutral'.

 

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Hi,
Who decided in the first place what words, should be used to describe the sound of certain pieces of hi-fi equipment. Were these dreamt up by reviwers/journelists. From another angle peoples hearing efficiency varies with age and exposure to sustained levels of high decibel sounds. ie exposure at work ,headphones and rock concerts etc.
I was once told women have a more acute sense of hearing than men. Maybe we should be listening to women's audition of equipment. Keep on rocking. john

 

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Agreed, the lego bionicles section is fab
Sadly fora are chock full of people primed to question, doubt, ridicule a persons personal take on a piece of kit and what it does for them in their system demanding almost forensic quantified data to justify their choice of words(FFS)instead of accepting we're all in this for the enjoyment of music and not trying to find a cure for cancer.
Publish and be damned I say.
My own recent explorations of hifi fora leave me with the distinct impression that hifi attracts more than its fair share of absolutist nutcases.
I suggest you get some Tannoy DC's and join the yahoo group-a haven of civility IME unless you do what romy did in which case they burn you at the stake.

 

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You raise an interesting question and one where there is little commonality on terms. BUT please don't rely on measurements alone they can barely describe what is heard. If it measures bad it may not sound good but then again valve amps measure badly but sound bloody good. And for some transistor amps the reverse applies with vengenance.

Some terms may be easier, slow , is normally easily understood and is easily heard but could be due to a colouration of the bass or it could be due to having a very deep bass response which tends to make music sound slower.

Sound staging (depth and width) tend to actually mean something.

And dare I say it focussed implies the sound is less smeared and amorphous.

What leathery means God only knows and cares.

 

Sounds like it is borrowed from wine tasting.

 

Sounds like a satisfied customer!
What is this preamp? did it cost an arm an a leg or is it available for lecturer money?What did it replace?
Criss Cross Quiz!!!!!I used to watch that with my mum!

 

I continue to be amazed by the almost total lack of agreement and common ground between Stereo Mic and me. Perhaps we should get married

No, I don't go "wow! How focussed the soundstage is" at a live concert - but you need all of these things to replicate that live concert in your home. At that point I go "wow" 'cos it's great to hear music well produced at home.

You don't want focussed and fast and detailed and neutral and soundstage ... etc? - fine, there's loads of people like that - Bose makes millions out of them.

I've yet to see SM or anyone else come up with an alternative vocabulary. How about it? Let's have some "musically relevant" terminology.

 

No you don't - that's the point. It's only one troubled forumite who thought my comments had anything to do with the vocabulary.

I've never been to a concert where I could pinpoint the instruments - simply because live music takes place in live acoustic spaces and a diffuse soundfield produces a diffuse image.

So having a hifi that etches images in a cartoon like manner is artificial and unnatural - and to me musically irrevelent. Dynamic compression, phase anomolies and bandwidth are however very relevant - and totally forgotten my boutique speaker manufacturers foisting irrelevent values upon us IMO.

 

Hi Stereo Mic (and everyone else!)

Oh dear. Perhaps we are more in agreement than I thought.

I have no interest in "having a hifi that etches images in a cartoon like manner" either. But at a concert I can certainly hear a solo violin as a point source surrounded by a diffuse ambience. That's what I want to hear at home too.

Also the degree of diffuseness heard at a concert is very dependent on where you are seated. The closer you are, the less diffuse it sounds - IME it can be very "focussed" indeed from a seat in the front stalls. I want my hifi to be able to reproduce that when appropriate, and it needs to be able to reproduce "focus" in order to do that IMO.

Not sure I'd know a "phase anomaly", but dynamic compression and bandwidth, sure.

We still need a language to talk to each other, I believe, if only so we can more effectively share our interests and enthusiasms. And I suspect that we can come to an agreement about 'soundstage' too.

I really would like to know how you describe equipment, just as I really would like to understand something about how Larkrise's pre-amp sounds without having to listen to it. I would suggest to Larkrise not to give up, but to work together to make it easier.

Such things may well be difficult or impossible to communicate to a non-audio-fan, but we can at least try to communicate effectively to better share our passion for music.