Definition to describe speaker characteristics

polkatese

Gents and Gals,

I am losing counts of how many subjective adjectives are being used to describe a particular speaker characteristics, and I am sure some of those adjectives are actually synonyms to the rest or each others. For instance, statement such as: "all speakers' tonal quality are colored since there is no perfect speaker."

Ok. What exactly is that mean? colored, warm, dark, aren't these intended to mean the same characteristic?

Anyone care to school me on these adjectives?

TIA

PolkThug

Colored means it is different from the source.

zombie boy 2000

I happened upon a thread a couple of months ago that addressed this same question.....


http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35631&highlight=terms+audio

hope it helps

I found it plenty useful:)

steveinaz

Tonal accuracy means that emphasis on all frequencies/levels strictly adheres to the original recording (perfect world scenario). "Colored" simply means the signal has been altered in some way, from the original.

Here's what I believe those terms to mean:

Warm: thicker bass, sweet treble without midrange harshness
Dark: Lacking in drive, dynamics, mids can sound stringent, highest highs attenuated; bass tight but lacking body

It's very subjective, but I think I've capture the "just" of it..

scottnbnj

i think there are universal definitions for many terms and there are a bunch of websites with audio definitions that reflect the general agreement. this one's a pretty decent example:

http://stereophile.com/reference/50/index.html

)

polkatese

Thanks, Guys! these are great information! here is one that I pulled off Stereophile, courtesy of Scott:

"Dark = A warm, mellow, excessively rich quality in reproduced sound. The audible effect of a frequency response which is clockwise-tilted across the entire range, so that output diminishes with increasing frequency. Compare "light."