Nov 30, 2009

Glossary of Basic Audiophile Terminology

With many thanks to Mr. Bierce, Mr. Swift, Mr. Pope, and others, Classical Candor takes a tongue-in-cheek look at audiophile nomenclature with our own "terms of endearment."

By John J. Puccio

Amplification:  The ability of a writer to phrase trivial ideas in pompous, grandiose, overbearing, bombastic, authoritarian, redundant, and often repetitious style, thereby convincing readers that anyone who sounds so important must be right.

Articulate:  To voice an opinion. But not too loudly.  See "Discussion."

Audiophobe:  (1) A person who loves the sound of stereo equipment more than the sound of music.  (2) A person who spends more time reading about audio than listening to it. (3) A person whose opinions on sound reflect those of his current guru.  For further information, read "Fear of Listening" by I.M. Deef.

Audiophile:  A tool used by the audio elite to scrape away the cherished beliefs of others.

"Blows it away":  Sounds different.  See "Breathtaking," "Super," "Extraordinary," "Ultra good," "Incalculably better," "Superior in every way," "Knocks your socks off," and, most important, "More expensive."

Boomy:  The voice of God or the voice of one's favorite audio reviewer, whichever comes first.

Compact disc:  A small, circular, silver plate said by some to contain music but used mainly to provide background noise while doing daily chores.  See also "Pirate."

Crossover:  (1) Giving up hi-fi and buying a digital camera. (2) Giving up digital cameras and buying an MP3 player. (3) Giving up MP3 players and buying a multimedia computer. (4) Giving up multimedia computers and buying a home theater. (5) Giving up home theater and reading a good book.

DAT:  The EQ of a DCC's IM and THD, calculated as the balanced fiber optic oversampling of a 12 kHz coaxial migraine at a maximum impedance of twelve supra-aural anechoic Ohms, filtered to V rms. SPL. LS. MFT.

D/A converter:  One who changed his hairstyle in the sixties but kept his music intact.

Digital:  (1) Viewed by some authorities as sweetness and light, the hope and salvation of the world. (2) Viewed by others as the Evil Empire, the Dark Side.

Discussion:  Outside the audiophile community a term denoting the exchange of ideas. Within the audiophile community a euphemism meaning, "You say whatever you want, but I'm right."

Dolby:  The man who invented sound.

Dynamic range:  The magnitude and authority of a voice in the audio world, determined largely by the size of the advertising budget and/or the scope of the circulation.

Equalization:  The law of opposing views, which states that after reading two or more reviews of the same subject, the reader will be no further ahead than he was before.

Equalizer:  Also known as the Great Equalizer; i.e., money.

Expert:  One whose opinion appears in print.

Fatiguing:  Reviewers, including yours truly.

Golden-eared reviewer:  A writer whose hearing is infinitely better than everyone else's, because he says it is.

Golden retriever:  The only listener whose hearing has never been in doubt.

High end:  (1) The uppermost limit of reproduced sound, capable of being heard only by dogs and audiophile reviewers. (2) Anything that costs a lot.

Hi-Fi:  (1) A greeting among members of the audiophile community, meaning "high five" or "gimme fi'." (2) The salutation commonly used when addressing the group of five composers who in 1875 united their efforts to create a national school of Russian music.

Jargon:  Specialized language, vocabulary, argot, lingo, patter, cant, palaver of the field; generally employed to cloud the fact that the writer doesn't know what in the hell he's talking about.

Loudspeaker:  The guy with the biggest mouth or the most impressive credentials. See "Amplification."

LP:  A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, it is said people used to play music from these large, round, flat, black-vinyl discs. It is supposed that the medium was accessed by simultaneously spinning the LP on a circular table while scraping it with a piece of sharp-pointed metal. Curiouser and curiouser. Such artifacts have recently been found and are being replicated by several manufacturers for further investigation. Also great as Frisbees.

Masked:  What some audio dealers and manufacturers should be when they ask the prices they do.

Mellow:  The sound of any hi-fi system after several glasses of Chardonnay.

Noise reduction:  (1) The exclusion of anyone from a listening room who begins talking the moment music plays. (2) The exclusion of "experts" from the listening room.

Open:  Tell-it-like-it-is honesty in the halls of esoteric, high-end audio. See also "Edgy," "Tight," "Pinched," "Muddy," "Hollow," "Strident," "Rude," "Boorish," "Churlish," "Uncouth," "Barbaric," "Duplicitous," and "Sneaky."

Opinion:  An accepted misnomer, implying that audiophiles actually have their own views.

Platter:  An antique black-vinyl disc used to play music, now used mainly to carry roast beef and potatoes.

Point of view:  "I'm right; you're wrong."  See "Expert."

Presence:  The stereo gear you got for Christmas.

Receiver:  The guy who takes the cash. Not to be confused with the listener, who shells it out.

SACD:  What happens to audio salesmen who don't know the jargon.

Second order harmonic distortion:  SOHD. Derogatory remark, chiefly British, made when the hi-fi acts up or the wife complains.

State-of-the-art:  The biggest or most-expensive stuff.

Stereo:  The reproduction of sounds through both sides of the face; see also "forked tongue."

Surround sound:  An audiophile gathering with everyone talking at once and nobody listening to the music or to anybody else.

Third order harmonic distortion:  TOHD. (1) Speakers angled toward the primary listening position. (2) Parent or adult who constantly nags, "Turn it down!"

Transient:  Out-of-work audio reviewer.

Tuner:  An American media mogul, founder of CNN and owner of several TV stations and a baseball team; formerly married to Jane Fonder.

Tweak:  To wring from a component the last ounce of perceived performance; proof positive that nobody or nothing is perfect.

JJP
Labels:

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank you for your comment. It will be published after review.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Meet the Staff

Meet the Staff
John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor

For nearly 30 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2024 Honda CRV Sport L Hybrid, I stream music from my phone through its adequate but hardly outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through a Roku Streambar Pro system (soundbar plus four surround speakers and a 10" sealed subwoofer) that has surprisingly nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence and reasonable price. Finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker and a pair of Google Pro Earbuds for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technologies that enable us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.

William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.

Ryan Ross, Contributor

I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.


Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio

Contact Information

Readers with polite, courteous, helpful letters may send them to classicalcandor@gmail.com

Readers with impolite, discourteous, bitchy, whining, complaining, nasty, mean-spirited, unhelpful letters may send them to classicalcandor@recycle.bin.

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa