Your vote: Most Useless Audio Adjective

neutral

liquid

Most useless adjective: Palpable (I second Montytx, who named this one earlier.)

Most useless noun: Continuousness (I've seen this in reviews in Stereophile several times and I have no freaking idea what the hell they're talking about). Anyway, it is not even a word.

there have been many adjectives mentioned so far that have been criticized as not useful. can anyone mention an adjective that is useful ?

most adjectives are ambiguous and do not have a predictable denotation. it is preferable to describe in a sentence what you are trying to say rather than using one word.

as an example, instead of using the word "bright", describe what you mean, namely an audible peak in the range 1000 to 3000 hz.

there are many descriptors which are imprecise that audiophiles consider useful, such as deep bass, wide and deep sounstage, richness, warmth, detail, resolution, etc. . while connotations may be perceived, there is much disgreement as to the definition of the aforementioned terms.

Really a noun, but in the spirt of this thread, I offer

"eargasm"

"These speakers only powered by the best electronics"

Do they have a memory for the next buyer ? What a pathetic laugh.

Air!

Agreed.

The same guy uses "hot stamper", "presence", "deep and powerful", "detailed", "open", and a bunch of other superlatives for almost every ad.

Ironically, he probably hasn't heard more than 1 copy of each record for sale.

Air!

here's another ambiguous adjective, namely, "analog".

since there are so many turntables, arms and cartridges, it is hard to know what "analog" means. perhaps, someone could define the term.

add 'new' to the shortlist.

when someone uses term "organic" to describe the sound of a component or a system.

Musical

Michale Fremer's "Bass bins" on his Wilson speakers.

Chashmal said:
"I have never liked the word 'fatiguing' to describe the glare and shrill qualities of an overly bright system. I don't get fatigued by it, it just sounds like crap."

Well, you've probably got the good sense to stop listening as soon as you hear the glare; however, if you didn't, then you'd be fatigued. ;-)

Dave

anything involving a percentage is really stretching credibility (unless verified by an actual measurement)

as if!

>>Bill, is a hot stamper worse than a box mover?<<

Worse? Not really.

Both are in it only for the money.

But the hot stamper guy probably hasn't heard more than 2 copies of the albums he's deified.

Caveat emptor.

Fatiguing, jaw dropping, and neutral are all in the spirit of things!

Though fatiguing has become more than ubiquitous, it's true, a shrill or bright system doesn't leave anyone I know fatigued. Annoyed, irritated, or wincing, yes. Fatiguied, no.

Grant, you really hit the nail on the head. I've heard a lot of systems like so many of us. Never has my jaw ever dropped. I've been suprised or impressed, and sometimes, incredibly so, but never to the point where I was 1% close to jaw dropping. I find tracking those who tend to use it to demonstrate over time why I need to take their opinion with a grain of sale. My favorite is when someone makes what many would deem a small change, and then uses the term jaw dropping. Reviewers are probably more guilty of this than anyone, which is why reviews have become so utterly worthless. This phrase should hereby be outlawed, and I say we get involved whenever we see someone use it here.

Neutral, should be relegated to a term like accurate; something I always feel the need to challenge. I have no idea how accurate or inaccurate a component is, and I've never met anyone who had any competence in doing so, despite their confidence in being able to. Likewise, the more I think about it, as much as the term neutral is used, the less I feel any component could be described as neutral. Even the so called straight wire with gain component to impart some identifiable sonic signature. Well, perhaps a passive preamplifier comes closest to being deserving...

Bill, is a hot stamper worse than a box mover?

How about "hot stamper".

Especially from sellers who don't have a clue.

Check him out.

Didn't read through this whole thread, but my least favorite term in the audiophile world is "neutral." Speaking as a professional musician, I certainly wouldn't ever want that term applied to a performance, either of live or recorded music. Yes, I do understand why reviewers use it, I just think it is silly, as live music is most certainly not neutral, and one would never want it to be.

Dracule1, I have never heard a musician use the term "tonal color." We all use the term "tone color," and this term always refers to timbre, not pitch.

Easy..."minty" I will not purchase anything described as "minty" on general principle. It sounds like a word an interior designer would use to describe the Mojito he just shared with his fashionista hair designer at the latest popular gay bar! Not something even remotely related to anything audio. Just stop using it idiots! Please!!

I have never liked the word 'fatiguing' to describe the glare and shrill qualities of an overly bright system. I don't get fatigued by it, it just sounds like crap.

"Tone Color" - stupidest term I've come across in hi end. Why couldn't these reviewers just stay with tonal color.

I think "mid-fi" is mostly a marketing term (as opposed to a sonic descriptive), usually understood to mean a brand (as opposed to a piece of gear) that is intended to bridge the presumed gap in sound, design, appearance and price between mass-market gear and hi-end audiophile gear. As a marketing, pricing, engineering and styling approach, mid-fi has been typified by brands such as NAD, Rotel, Adcom and Parasound. Whether this hierarchy of brand and price actually correlates directly with sound quality -- especially at the lower and higher ends of the mid-fi price scale, where there can be considerable overlap with the higher and lower ends of the mass-market and high-end price scales, respectively -- is another question, one for which the answer is probably often taken for granted. Although I've used the term mid-fi myself in these forums, one problem I can see with it is that it could be taken to imply that hi-end necessarily equals hi-fi (high fidelity) and mass-market necessarily equals lo-fi, both very questionable assumptions.

Mid Fi.....who the hell knows what that means or where to set the bar, if it is cheaper gear then person A has, person B has Mid fi gear.....go figure.

Okay, Grant. I guess that makes sense to me. Sorry for the double post.

Another word that has bothered me is "slam". When I read a review that this amp has slam or the bass has slam, what the hell does that mean? If the bass has slam is it also "gut-wrenching"?

Another word that has bothered me is "slam". When I read a review that this amp has slam or the bass has slam, what the hell does that mean?

I was in search of "vinyl like" sound from my CDs. It was driving me to try some desperate things only an audiophile would do. We call them tweaks, the rest of the world calls them stupid...

I scattered my CDs all over the driveway, and began to walk on them, and even jump and down on some that I felt were especially poor sounding. Scuffed up the playing surfaces pretty good. Yes, I was able to emulate the ticks, pops, and skips, but it still didn't have that overall relaxed, easy to, natural sound of a good old fashioned record. I heard concrete is more effective than asphalt, but I haven't had time to try it yet...

A post yesterday reminded me of another adjective I've never understood - 'vinyl' like. With all the different cartridges and phono preamp variations it can't be tonal, can't be that someone wants clicks, snaps, pops, and tracing noise, can't be the compression involved in recording.

It's really quite simple; it means, flat and black with a small hole in the middle. Some donuts are 'vinyl like'. Manhole covers are often loosely described that way, though their holes are more often towards the edges.

Your post gave me an idea for a descriptor for the manifesto, exclusively for vinyl playback devices and donuts: "Rice Krispies"!

A post yesterday reminded me of another adjective I've never understood - 'vinyl' like. With all the different cartridges and phono preamp variations it can't be tonal, can't be that someone wants clicks, snaps, pops, and tracing noise, can't be the compression involved in recording. What exactly is this vinyl sound that is so immediatly identifiable that even folks without vinyl experience know what it is? Hummmmmm :-)

To imply that it will take Stereophile as long as "a few years"

Ah, Zaikes, you obviously missed the operative preface in the headline: "yet again". Let me further predict that the follow-up issue will see a B&W speaker gracing the cover (AGAIN) declaring it has established a new plateau of performance worthy of the subcategory "rollerderby crack whore"

Marco

Marco: Well, it's quite obvious we can't consider seriously anything you have to say about expanding the Pipe'n'Slippers program. To imply that it will take Stereophile as long as "a few years" to feature another Musical Fidelity product on their cover just totally destroys any credibility you may have had with your Flying Monkeys and your Close'n'Play ;^)

You "Pipe and Slippers" lot ought'a write yourself a manifesto to clarify your mission to the world. You'll need to come up with some additional categories to define other qualities of sound...maybe group them into classes...publish a regular journal of some sort to enlighten the rest of us. Here are a few suggestions of more adjective substitutes: Evil Klown (note the "K" substitution). Afro Pick, Close-N'-Play, Flying Monkeys, Good Humor Truck, Used Condom, Burma Shave, Crack Whore. Just give it a few years and you'll see the cover story in Stereophile picking up on the trend: "...this performance yet again puts the $30K Tri-Vista solidly in our Crack Whore category. If it weren't for the lack of pipe and slippers in the highest octave (it was my dog who had to key me in about this), it would go into the coveted Crack Whore riding the Good Humor Truck category (Buying that double-page spread ad in this months issue might have helped them achieve that status as well)." In the same issue you might see the iPod (generation XVII) go from hobo camp to used condom status. Personally, I recommend burma shave stuff for the best bang for the buck.

...Tristan Tzara would be proud.

Marco

Ah, if we keep this up, we will be the bane of the audiophile community. I mean, how will reviewers cope with no longer being able to use the terms tubelike and electrostatic-like to convey describing amps that sound slow, dark, and easy or speakers that sound fast and revealing???

Yes, Doctor, your memory is correct. It was CJ gear with the Quad ESL988. We listened with CJ Premier 140 monos and CJ ART II. Then, we later tried a big Classe power amp. Neither would allow one to us to remove our smoking jackets or put down the Dostoevksky, "I say, old Rex, be a good dog and fetch daddy's slippers."

No worries Grant, I'm buying...

I was with Trelja when we auditioned the newer Quads that won the Stereophile product of the year. In fact Joe you used Pipe and Slippers as well as very "Polite", and we did hear it with A CJ pre which we kept adjusting much to the salesmans annoyance ( or was it the new LS-17?0 . I would add velvet Smoking Jacket to the pipe and slipper as well as fireplace burning away while reading some endless russian novel.

Howard, that list brought back a memory that had long since been buried in the deepest recesses of my mind - Marilyn Lange, May of 1974. Though she probably isn't remembered by anyone else here, allow me to assure you she was one healthy young woman. Thank God Uncle Walter was careless with those magazines!

If I could get 1/100 of what Hef gets, I'd gladly go with a big time pipe and slippers rig (Quad ESL63, CJ PV10 preamp, Adcom 555 amplifier, Rega Planet CDP) evermore.

Who was it that said that "writing about music is like dancing about architecture"?

“Blacker than black background!”

(Huh? Did Newton miss something?)

Rufus

Joe, you crack me up.
This list should help standardize any future review of e-stat characteristics.

Verbalizing sound is perilous. Few of the words we use have shared meanings among us. How much better it would be were we able to post sounds, not words or pictures.

Thanks Joe, but "Pipe-and-Slippers"? What, did you grow up learning about hi-fi from Playboy? Hmmm -- guess if one does the supertweeter-addition thing with Quads, then you've got Pipe-Slippers-and-a-Golden-Retriever speakers ;^)

Howard, was that a Mrtennis review?

Honestly, despite whatever he tries to say, a world without adjectives (or, adverbs for that matter) is one incompletely developed, and of little use to one beyond the most elementary understanding. One cannot perform subject review or analysis, which as a scientist and engineer, I will argue is far more important than objective analysis, without the use of modifiers of the nouns and verbs. Analytical tests provide the numbers, but advancing the craft requires an individual to transcend the data, keep an open mind, and shift towards the model of an artist where patterns are seen, things are viewed in subjective terms, and the next step is reached.

This site is not geared toward the reader of The Audio Critic (whose editor, Peter Aczel is literally hard of hearing) or Stereo Review. Measurements have their place, but in the end, just about every Audiogoner cares far more about the way his components sound than how they spec out.

Zaikesman, you ALWAYS enrich the threads you participate in! Here, you nailed one of my all time favorites; electrostatic - like. As Grant explained tubes do not sound anything like what most people say they do, so do electrostatic speakers. Again, I hear the opposite of the conventional wisdom in regards to electrostatic loudspeakers. To my ears, they are MORE slow, caramel colored, rich, relaxed, liquid, and soothing. My term for Quads, Innersounds, etc. is "pipe and slippers" speakers.

I can see it now. The new XYZ amplifier review in Stereophile:

"It was as if...no, not as if...VERY...no, not very. Remember, no adjectives...it was good...no, not good. Hmmm....well, just listen to it yourself, and see what you think. But remember, don't ask, don't tell."

PRaT (First of all, forget "acceleration" -- that was only thrown in there after the fact to try and save a shred of dignity. OK: pace, rhythm and timing are all separate qualities applying to *music*, not reproduced sound. Each means something different from the others, musically speaking, so lumping them all together as going hand in hand just underscores how empty this acronym truly is. For instance, when was the last time you heard anyone talk about an interconnect that had ‘great timing’ but ‘lousy rhythm’? And since when can an amplifier affect the tempo -- which is what ‘pace’ is -- of a piece of music? So it’s meaningless in the literal sense, but as figurative shorthand for the more precisely descriptive, actual audio qualities for which it substitutes, I think most audiophiles get the drift of it, though as a catch-all it glosses over the details and doesn’t do anything to help educate neophytes about what really might be going on.)

Bloom, bloomy (Flowers bloom. No one has any idea what this means about gear, or everyone has a different idea.)

Musical, musicality (Biggest cop-out ever invented. Doesn’t tell anybody anything about the way something sounded, just that the reviewer didn't think it sucked.)

Liquid, liquidity (The opposite of a liquid is either a solid or a gas -- does live music sound like any of these things? Nobody describes sound as being “gassy” thank goodness, and “solid” is usually a positive term for bass or imaging. Again, no one knows what the hell this really means, just that it's supposed to be good. Watch out it doesn’t get on your pants.)

Analog-like (Said only about digital. Except, apparently, in the case of the Music Direct: the latest catalog they sent me actually describes the new Clearaudio cartridges as "now voiced for an overall sense of analog-like warmth and richness". Did I mention this was in reference to a cartridge?)

Digital, digital-like (Means anything bad.)

Solid-state-like (Can be somewhat good, except when said of a solid-state piece of gear.)

Tube-like (Means anything good. Surprised Music Direct hasn’t used this to describe tube amps. Not to be confused with “tubey”, a perfectly good term for describing a tubed piece of gear that sounds archetypically like same, but a laughable term for describing anything else.)

Electrostatic-like (Means the reviewer has conflicted feelings about the fact that deep down he knows he wouldn’t be content if he actually owned electrostatic speakers.)

Bright (Everything is too bright for audiophiles. Bright is the bane of an audiophile's life -- the very reason he is an audiophile, yet also the reason he’s never happy as an audiophile. The future of an audiophile is so bright he’s gotta wear earmuffs.)

Warm, warmth (Audiophiles and reviewers are forever conflating this term. Simplistically put, one meaning is a tonal balance generally favoring lower frequencies over higher ones, or to a degree generous in the lower mids. The other meaning indicates a pleasing if additive harmonic profile, from gear favoring lower- and even-order distortion products while avoiding higher- and odd-order ones. The two qualities are unrelated, but the distinction is almost ever noted.)

Continuousness (What can really be said about this one?…There’s a special place in hell for reviewers who make up indefinable words to supersede other indefinable words they made up.)

Laid-back (Dude, where’s my system?)

Delicate (Ssshhh, turn it down or you’ll break it. And “delicacy” is something you eat.)

Sweet, sweetness (I am a bitter, bitter man.)

Plays the tune (I suppose lesser gear plays whatever the hell it feels like.)

Gets the notes and beats right (The only person alive who might know what this means is the one reviewer who says it, but I strongly doubt it.)

Organized (Another one-reviewer special, for anal-retentives only. Oops, that’s all of us. Wish it described my record collection though.)

Action (A questionable term coined by yet another reviewer who's been endlessly defining it for us in every review he's written for at least several years, and still nobody uses it but him.)

Lit from within (Yeah, I’ll be you are!)

Midrange magic (No treble, and certainly no bass.)

SET-like (Means inferior to my SET, except for those many ways in which it is objectively superior.)

All things considered something of a bargain (Paging Bill Gates.)

Black background (This is what music arises out of, kids.)

Translucent (Larvae and pupae can be translucent. Anybody? Didn’t think so.)

Ruthlessly revealing (What something is not. Break glass to use immediately after telling how neutral, fast, extended, resolving and transparent something is, so we don’t run away screaming.)

But if you’re in the market for XXXXXXX, I can certainly recommend that you should go hear it for yourself and form your own opinion (Oh man, I can't tell you what a waste of time that would be! No, I mean I literally cannot tell you that.)

Speaking of useless adjectives; a while back, I designed a t-shirt (and other useless products) using quotes ripped right off these very pages (I swear...I copied them verbatim...plagerism, right here on the Gon'!! Imagine that?!). Check out the t-shirt here and click on "view larger" then "zoom in on image" in order to read a few many more useless adjectives in action.

(Pay no attention to the shameless plug for the cheap swag).

Marco

Its as though a veil had been lifted and someone took three layers of blankets off my speakers when I put the isolation blocks under the ultra phase 3 modification of my Esoteric Reiymo combation of the X-1 and 777 CDP fused into a single box only can play one CD though don't worry any audiophool Knows that is required the other transport is hidden as a back up for digital DVD suround when h=needed but that is the Level 5 mod. The mods were only $5,000 for the phase 3 mods only By Erik Von Recklinghouse oF Intensive mods located in Southern Peru. However he's backed up about 8 months, due to the ultrafine micro damping he was mainly damps with isodamp from parts depress acting as RMI RFI RPM RP RPQ RPMx shielding sheilding on every bare spot The blackness is incedible.

There are some of these come as apackage readily available for a discount of only $4000 and with the extra Jittering satelite controlled super clocking- from Interforests Harvey in Louisiana (the Flood was nowhere near the warehouse just missed it).
Plus the floating isolation platform which Al Swearinger of Ultra Tweaks Men was imperative and convincing was totaley and an asolutley needed the Fabulous spring loaded Super Deluxe Isolation Platform that had to be used (which consisted of ping pong blls over painted and cryo treated MDF and put on Home Depot Brass plumbing fixture points,)It was was imperative or the last level of micro ultra data retreival would be lost and more focus would't be brought to the music.
Total for the CDP plus the mods is a $17,00 for the basic CDP, plus $5,00 for the mods, plus $3500 for the platform only $25,500 I know most you should by all means find this investment in quality to acieve true sonic Nirvana. It was well worth the money believe it, come fee for auditions at my home in North Datoka.
The first $5,00 takes it all. Reason for selling is to upgrade to separates.