How to Describe What You Hear

[StephenJK]

I was going to reply to “the problem with subjective impressions” but perhaps this deserves a new topic. 
 

i subscribed to The Absolute Sound for many years, from the late 70s to the late 80s. That’s neither here nor there, other than what I learned from Harry Pearson and a number of other reviewers. 
 

And that is, you need to develop a vocabulary to be able to properly explain how and why this sounds different from that. 
 

There’s an entire descriptive universe between “it sucks” and “it rocks”, never mind blacker blacks and a lower noise floor. 
 

Wasn’t someone developing a matrix for audiophiles years ago to give some hints as to what all that torturous vocabulary is all about?

 

Maybe we need to do something like that over here at AS. 

[sphinxsix]

Sounds Like? An Audio Glossary J. Gordon Holt, Jul 29, 1993

[crenca]

https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/audio-terminology-subjective-terms-used-on-superbaf.3400/

 

SBAF as a forum is not everyones cup of tea, but they consciously work at getting this language/descriptive aspect of audio reviews consistent.  Not only this, at least some of the regulars are more or less successful at practicing it.

[esldude]

4 hours ago, crenca said:

https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/audio-terminology-subjective-terms-used-on-superbaf.3400/

 

SBAF as a forum is not everyones cup of tea, but they consciously work at getting this language/descriptive aspect of audio reviews consistent.  Not only this, at least some of the regulars are more or less successful at practicing it.

plankton is my favorite.  

[crenca]

16 minutes ago, esldude said:

plankton is my favorite.  

 

 

I know, another name for microdetail...it's audio so everyone has an angle I suppose.

[StephenJK]

19 hours ago, sphinxsix said:

Sounds Like? An Audio Glossary J. Gordon Holt, Jul 29, 1993

I’ve never seen that before despite having subscribed to Stereophile for many years. Thanks for that. 
 

 

[fas42]

A good snippet from that article is this,

 

Quote

Realism
Good: aliveness, ease, delicacy, involvement, musicality, naturalness, palpable, realism, transparency
Not Good: boring, colored, dead, distorted, lifeless, uninvolving

 

This is about as precise as anything about what I focus on, as written by someone else, that I've come across ...

[keeper]

I thought people just used words based on what others had used without actually having a definition for that word?