Audio Terminology

[Djembe]

I am constantly amused by the way different sound qualities are expressed in words.
I realise it can be difficult to describe one medium with another, especially as we can all have different notions of what is "pleasing to the ear". Throw a bit of marketing hype in the verbal soup and it can get very confusing.

I recently received some information about the sound qualities of various tubes and they were described thus:

1) rich, warm midrange, deep bass, silky high end

2) balanced sonics, a touch of warmth in the mid, a little more open at the top than 1

3) neutral and accurate sonics, lean midrange, very open and airy at the top end

So which one has the brightest top end? I'm none the wiser.

[warhead]

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's a really stupid thing to want to do."
--Elvis Costello

Of course it's done every day on these boards and by phone and emails between lots of different people and other than just buying them all and trying them all out it's all we're left with most times.

War

[Matt Hepworth]

3.

But remember one man's harsh is another's crisp.

[NesNeedsGear]

and one man's MUDDY is another man's "warm".

[mtstudios@charter]

Usually if I hear any of those comments, I just turn some knobs and wait to hear "yeah, more like that" then we are done. Print.

Sometimes they have said that when I have only touched the knob.

www.bluethumbproductions.com

[lucey]

Originally Posted by warhead

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's a really stupid thing to want to do."
--Elvis Costello

Of course it's done every day on these boards and by phone and emails between lots of different people and other than just buying them all and trying them all out it's all we're left with most times.

War

If you know the person who's talking .... you know what they mean.

[joelpatterson]

Writing about anything--"language"--is always a step removed from the real thing. Writing about dancing or architecture is equally precarious-- writing just boils down to the thought process, and impressions, and storytelling.

And you couple that with advertising's imperative to never say a discouraging word about anything, which I guess means a language where everything is just exceptional, and you got real problems.

I still say--someone could take those tubes, and compose a vividly detailed analysis of them, and you would know when you were done which was brightest. Unless, of course, "bright" to you is "shrill" to someone else.

[warhead]

Originally Posted by lucey

If you know the person who's talking .... you know what they mean.

In reference to dealings with a person before and understanding how they apply terminology to sonics, I agree.

War