Audio terms????

[drakeyb]

Hello all,
I've been reading this forum for a few weeks now and have found it very informative for the most part. But a few things seemed to have me puzzled. I will just make a short list and I would appreciate some incite....

audio terms:
musical?? all audio equipment I thought was 'musical'
warm...
forward...
analytical...
neutral.....
there are a few more but these are the main one's. Thanks .....

[Jesse111]

Don't forget the most important one...WAF

[Jesse111]

Hello all,
I've been reading this forum for a few weeks now and have found it very informative for the most part. But a few things seemed to have me puzzled. I will just make a short list and I would appreciate some incite....

audio terms:
musical?? all audio equipment I thought was 'musical'
warm...
forward...
analytical...
neutral.....
there are a few more but these are the main one's. Thanks .....

All equipment plays music. But not all are "musical". Musical is a rather broad description of quality sounding gear. A consideraton of the terms underneath musical can help define musical equipment.

For me, warm means not hot or not bright. It's a more cozy and pleasant sound not harsh. But too much warmth adds a darkness to the sound that hinders the livelyness and accuracy.

Neutral in my opinion is a mark of a good speaker. No coloration. No dark warmth, no bright harshness. Sounds like what you'd expect at a live performance to a certain degree.

Many of these terms overlap. Analytical, detail and others are descriptive words that simply offer an opinion of an individual.

Detail is good, without it, you're not going to hear everything that was recorded. Imaging won't be as clear. Imaging is the sytems capability of producing the illusion of an image of a performer or instrument right before your eyes. A good image is astonishing. We could discuss these ideas for hours. And everyone hears things just a bit differently.

By the way, WAF is (Wife Acceptance Factor). By far the most important, demanding most illusive and misundertood audiophile term of them all.

[Victor]

Hello all,
I've been reading this forum for a few weeks now and have found it very informative for the most part. But a few things seemed to have me puzzled. I will just make a short list and I would appreciate some incite....

audio terms:
musical?? all audio equipment I thought was 'musical'
warm...
forward...
analytical...
neutral.....
there are a few more but these are the main one's. Thanks .....

You are not alone. I have no idea what those things mean either. Perhaps they have no meaning at all. On the oter hand, the Terms like THD+N, resolution, frequency responce do have meaning and they also offer clarity of the subject matter.

[fauzigarib]

Hello all,
I've been reading this forum for a few weeks now and have found it very informative for the most part. But a few things seemed to have me puzzled. I will just make a short list and I would appreciate some incite....

audio terms:
musical?? all audio equipment I thought was 'musical'
warm...
forward...
analytical...
neutral.....
there are a few more but these are the main one's. Thanks .....

Drake,

This is a very good question. In fact, it's one of those questions that I'm sure a ton of people would want to ask, but would not have the gall to!

I will attempt to answer your question, but there is no way I will be able to make you understand without an example of a, say forward speaker playing.

Musical: This is a term used to describe the sound coming out of the speakers which I translate this to mean gentle and smooth. The sound coming out of your speakers sounds like it's playing smooth effortless music, rather than struggling to hit the notes. (Man, this is going to be tough!)

Warm: I think technically this would mean that the highs of the sound are soft. Take a cymbal crash for example. The timber of that crash can very easily sound painful to the ears when reproduced through the speakers accurately. So a warm sound would be where it would be pleasant to hear.

Forward: This term means that the sound is in your face. I've never quite understood this term, but I take it to be a bad thing. This usually happens, as I understand it, that the driver timing between the highs and lows are such that the highs get to your ears first. This makes the music sound a little ahead of where you would expect it to be. Of course, I could be completely wrong here.

Analytical: The opposite of musical. (That wasn't too bad!)

Neutral: This is probably the most important one in my mind. Each speaker, whatever material it's made of, has its own "sound". The way teh sound waves move inside the cabinet, the way they bounce of that specific cabinet material, the way the drivers sound, how the music is affected by that particular grill cloth, etc. If you listen critically for long enough, you will know that you are hearing cabinet resonances, or that you are hearing a driver that has not fully opened up yet. Each of these factors (and there are many more than the ones that I have mentioned here) add a certain color to the sound. So the idea is to strive for an uncolored - or neutral - sound.

The fun part here is not to understand these above terms... but to make up your own. It's a lot easier than you think. "Dude, I don't know how to put this, but the sound coming out of you speakers is... ummm.... (finger to clef of chin, contemplating), gooey! Yeah, that's it!"

Here are a few more that get a feeling across: Adhesive, deplosive, unmodulating, wavering... the list goes on.

The trick is to put in one good sounding word, paired with a "but" and two critical yet intelligent sounding ones. "Responsive as your system is, it almost feels like the de-tonation and the wave-looping symbiosis curves are slightly off!"

Read the current issue of Stereophile... it'll get you some good ideas!

Good luck!

Fauzi

[alebonau]

this is a good summary/glosary

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