“Faithful to the recording”

I don't necessarily hate them, but a lot of the descriptive terms  become subjective when used to describe sonic qualities.  So they may not mean the same to me as they do to the writer. 

@stuartk  maybe that's why I seldom read a review anymore, except to sometimes get specs and prices of something I find interesting.

LOL!  There was a point in my career as a wanna-be-audiophile where that's what I was striving to hear:  "faithful to the recording."  But who knows what that even means?  Often, different sections of the final mix are recorded at different places and different times, and then it's all mixed and mastered. . . .

@stuartk  I guess what I typed was inaccurate.  Within the last couple of years I did buy two new pieces, a SA10 and a SLP05, and I did read a couple of reviews for both of them.  However, after my last prescription to Stereophile expired over 20 years ago, I never did re-up it.

Reading reviews of audio equipment reminds me of listening to Chris Collinsworth call a Sunday Night Football Game.  He makes every name that comes out of his mouth sound like a world beater.  I have never read a review that said, "This piece of gear sounds like hammered dog $hit."  It seems as if every piece of gear winds up being written about in glowing orgasmic terms. 

@tylermunns when I hear what I, personally, would describe as "flabby" bass, the sound I hear makes me think of woofers that have come loose and are just slopping around.

We come back to the subjective versus objective descriptors. Not to way long ago I was reading a thread about books about listening to audio, and apparently R. Harley wrote a book on the subject, and in that book he defines what these terms mean.

So maybe these terms are not as subjective as I am given to think of them as.