How do you describe sound quality

sk88

In the pursuit of sound quality, I often see people use all kind of words to describe what they hear. This often happens when people try to compare the differences between different products - cables, speakers, caps, amps, tubes, plugs, you name it. However, I must say very often I found myself not knowing what do they really mean. I feel myself dumb. I mean, what does 'more air' mean? Is it a good or bad thing? :rolleyes:

So I listed some common terms that I see and tried to explain their meaning to the best of my understanding and guessing (which mean a lot could be worng ). I don't know if this information is already available somewhere or not, but at least I found nothing when I I tried to google "what does it mean when the sound has more air".

Please provide your feedback. I want to learn the lanaguage and I'll update this post when there are consensus.

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COLORATION - The sound reproduction is biased at certain frequencies. The result can be pleasant or worse.

SIGNATURE - A particular way of COLORATION.

NATURAL/NEUTRAL - No coloration. Sound the same as it was recorded.

MUSICAL - High and low frequencies are more noticeable in a pleasant way.

DRY - High and low frequencies are less noticeable in an unpleasant way.

SLOW - Lifeless sound with no impact, dull.

FAST - Opposite of SLOW.

DYNAMIC - A technical perspective of being SLOW or FAST. It is how components such as capacitors can react very fast to varying forces in terms of charging and discharging while maintaining desired capacitance and inductance.

TRANSPARENT - It's like the speaker disappears and you are listening the flow of music directly from the instrument. The lack of transparency means the lost of details, precision and depth of sound (aka behind a veil).

AIR - The transparency at high frequencies.

WARM - Less focused on higher frequencies.

THIN - Less focused on lower frequencies.

FLUID - Somewhere between being AIR and WARM.

SMOOTH/CREAMY - Somewhere between being FLUID and WARM.

BODY/BONE - More or lack of sensitivity in the mid to lower mid frequencies.

SOUND STAGE - Perceived distance and direction of the sound to the listener, vertically and horizontally.

IMAGING - Presentation of the SOUND STAGE to the listener.

FLAT - No IMAGING.

DEPTH OF FIELD - The contrast of sound being close and away from the listener.

FORWARD - A sound stage that's too upfront/close to the listener.

BRIGHT - Being FORWARD especially on higher frequency.

LAID BACK - A sound stage tends to be away and WARM or SMOOTH.

EDGY - Unpleasant harmonic distortion at high frequencies.

ROUGH - Unpleasant series of spikes across a range of frequencies due to delayed signal or destructive interference.

Glen B

This Stereophile audio glossary may help you out:

http://www.integracoustics.com/MUG/MUG/bbs/stereophile_audio-glossary.html

sk88

Wished I had known this link. Thanks! But.. wow.. 2000 terms.

jeremymarcinko

Nice job sk88 I can agree on most of those. As for stereophiles glossary, I've never thought of the male voice when I hear the word "chesty"

sk88

Me neither
I guess I did mostly close, except for "bright".

B Run

"Bright" to me is like a flashlight to the eyes but with sound. If you cringe, flinch or get general fatigue from listening. Speakers can still be forward without necessarily being bright to the ears.

Elementtw1023

http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2011/04/version-204-of-harman-how-to-listen-now.html

This is a link to Harmon's How To Listen software. This will allow you to actually listen to the effects of the various terms you mentioned. It will help fine tune your listening skills and help you to describe different qualities. Hope it helps!

zane77

Great link, will be playing with this later this evening. Yard chores to do today, just got the lawn tractor out of the shed last night and on the battery charger so I can cut the grass for the first time this year. Spring was slow to come this year.

Elementtw1023

Within that software you can listen to the tracks they provide or add your own. I would suggest adding something you're familiar with but make sure it is a good quality recording or the tests will be very difficult. But otherwise its a great program. I'm actually curious what levels other people are reaching. Harmon requires their listening stamp,es to be level 8.

WLDock

B Run wrote: »

"Bright" to me is like a flashlight to the eyes but with sound. If you cringe, flinch or get general fatigue from listening. Speakers can still be forward without necessarily being bright to the ears.

I swear the last time I auditioned some of the lower/mid line Klipsch the sale guy turned them waay up and "BRIGHT" is the 1st word that came to mind. Still, I would like to find the time to listen to some of their other lines as well as JBL and others because the "forward" and wide soundfield could be an interesting thing for HT.

zingo

The Harman software is a fun experence, even a year later. They don't let listeners trial test their products until they've completed the software to a certain experience level.