"Breathing" of the air

"Liquid" applies to midrange, as "air" applies to treble(general semantics anyway).

The Audio Glossary (http://www.audioxpress.com/bksprods/products/bkaa7-s.htm) Defines "air/airy" as, "Pertaining to treble that sounds light, delicate, open and seemingly unrestricted in upper extension. A quality of reproducing systems having very smooth and very extended HF response." The Complete Guide to High-End Audio (http://www.audioxpress.com/bksprods/products/bkap1.htm) defines "air" as, "Sonic description of treble openness, or of space between intruments in the soundstage. Contrast with dull, thick." I've always thought of it in terms of the sense of open space that I get when listening to music in a live venue, or the space that I sense of the recording venue, when listening at home(if the ambience info is on the disc). That is, of course, "ambience recovery" and is directly related to whatever "air" your system possesses/is capable of. There's a lot of ambience info in the bass ranges, but it seems the "life" or "breath"(of the live experience) is in the highs.

Welcome to the Department of Redundancy Department.

"anechoic" MEANS "no echo". No echo means no reverberations or ambience. Anechoic chambers are built so that the frequency response, efficiency, etc. of a transducer/speaker system might be tested without any room interaction at all. Were you listening in such a room: all you would hear would be the source, and whatever resonances it generated from it's own body.