Literary Transgressions of the Audio Community

[shadyJ]

Paul, thanks for the excellent read. (It was a breadth of fresh air in an otherwise stale state of affairs. Sorry couldn't resist.)

The food based analogies always seem funny to me. What if I'm not into Vanilla and prefer Black Current Bass?

Was it a Dark Chocolate mid or White Chocolate mid? I'll have one any day if it was a Tobletone mid haha!

To be honest I have always preferred the mids to be a smooth milk chocolate infused with hazelnut cream, but that is just me. White chocolate is fine for bass, but it is a bit too smooth for treble, and dark chocolate is too bitter for mids, but just sharp enough for treble.

 

[Wayde Robson]

Good read, Paul.

I often try to describe what hear using accepted, popular phrases where appropriate:

http://www.head-fi.org/a/describing-sound-a-glossary
This list alleges stipulative definitions for many of the cliches. If an accepted term offers clarity, than I would say use it. But, on the other hand - I like Paul's practice of saying that for a claim about sound to be valid, you must ask yourself if the opposite can be true. If so the initial claim is probably esoteric mumbo-jumbo.

So, if you describe a speaker's performance as... deftly nimble, able to scurry into a hole in the wall with a chunk of cheese before the trap is sprung. Then, you cannot in the very next paragraph describe that same set of speakers as a pacyderm with a penchant for peanuts.

This is why I don't care much for highly esoteric audio descriptions. I find myself lost in meaningless analogs.

But, I did have an epiphany last night while laying back listening to my current favourite headphone rig.

My night-time ritual is to decide what Dac/Amp I'll use with what pair of headphones and then I sink into my bed in a trancelike state that only heroin junkies or audiophiles can relate to.

I decided just last night before falling asleep, enveloped in the details of Yo-Yo Ma's rendition of Two Mules for Sister Sara... that "this"... THIS... is all I need.

Damn my other headphone setups. Forget the middling kits I have for work, for walks... none of it matters, because it's not this. They all might as well be wireless earbuds - which are pretty good, but in that moment my epiphany was that "pretty good" is the best it gets when it's not... "this".

Mere words fail to describe impact the bitter-sweet tonality of that song had on me in that moment. Yo Yo Ma's cello doing Ennio Morricone over my Audeze LCD-3 headphones plugged into a pairing of - Emotiva DC-1 DAC - Antique Sound Lab headphone amplifier. Words are meaningless, because I realized that "this" sound didn't just leave me wanting more, it left me wanting nothing else.

 

[Paul Scarpelli]

Paul (Scarpelli),
You certainly have a lot of courage and honesty to write this post !
No matter what the review in any audio magazine or online, I just can't help thinking that some kind of payoff from the production company is involved, free equipment or just not honest reporting.
I appreciate your high standard of honesty.

This response may surprise you, but in my twenty-two years in sales and marketing with audio companies, I never witnessed a single incident of "pay-to-play." Any samples I sent to reviewers were returned after the evaluation, except for the times when the reviewer bought the sample. (Usually they bought at industry accommodation pricing.)

Most reviewers realize their most valuable asset is credibility. Most...

 

[Paul Scarpelli]

What's wrong with a cliche that's technically accurate? I rather that any day then inaccurate flowery hyperbole that can be taken any number of ways in describing a process. If a speaker cabinet is acoustically inert and it passed the "knuckle wrap", then so be it. Every industry or hobby comes with its own lingo and thats just the way it is. Kids these days are having problems learning math because its being taught a new way compared to how us older fogies learned it. If it causes problems understanding the basics with the new approach, then its being taught wrong. Similarly with new audio lingo...if its open to many interpretations, then the message being delivered is wrong. What ever happened to the days of saying what it really is.

I wasn't implying that there's anything wrong with cliches. They're the best thing since sliced bread.

 

[Paul Scarpelli]

I've always found "PRAT" quite amusing.

Yeah, me, too.

 

[Paul Scarpelli]

Brilliant article, nicely illustrates the problem with writing subjective portions to speaker reviews; it's hard to say something new, but you have to say something.

And to further add to the absurdity, I penned the article...because I had to say something!

 

[Paul Scarpelli]

Thanks to all of you for accepting the article in the spirit in which it was written. We take this stuff so seriously, and it's only for fun. Unlike food and shelter, no one really needs audio gear...

 

[Wayde Robson]

Any samples I sent to reviewers were returned after the evaluation, except for the times when the reviewer bought the sample.

I have had unsolicited garbage dropped at my doorstep. Baffling gadgets that often come from a soon-to-be-failed Kickstarter. Certainly, nothing of value. Attached press release with an unpersonalized note saying "Thought you might be interested..."

 

[Dan Madden]

Good read, Paul.

I often try to describe what hear using accepted, popular phrases where appropriate:

http://www.head-fi.org/a/describing-sound-a-glossary
This list alleges stipulative definitions for many of the cliches. If an accepted term offers clarity, than I would say use it. But, on the other hand - I like Paul's practice of saying that for a claim about sound to be valid, you must ask yourself if the opposite can be true. If so the initial claim is probably esoteric mumbo-jumbo.

So, if you describe a speaker's performance as... deftly nimble, able to scurry into a hole in the wall with a chunk of cheese before the trap is sprung. Then, you cannot in the very next paragraph describe that same set of speakers as a pacyderm with a penchant for peanuts.

This is why I don't care much for highly esoteric audio descriptions. I find myself lost in meaningless analogs.

But, I did have an epiphany last night while laying back listening to my current favourite headphone rig.

My night-time ritual is to decide what Dac/Amp I'll use with what pair of headphones and then I sink into my bed in a trancelike state that only heroin junkies or audiophiles can relate to.

I decided just last night before falling asleep, enveloped in the details of Yo-Yo Ma's rendition of Two Mules for Sister Sara... that "this"... THIS... is all I need.

Damn my other headphone setups. Forget the middling kits I have for work, for walks... none of it matters, because it's not this. They all might as well be wireless earbuds - which are pretty good, but in that moment my epiphany was that "pretty good" is the best it gets when it's not... "this".

Mere words fail to describe impact the bitter-sweet tonality of that song had on me in that moment. Yo Yo Ma's cello doing Ennio Morricone over my Audeze LCD-3 headphones plugged into a pairing of - Emotiva DC-1 DAC - Antique Sound Lab headphone amplifier. Words are meaningless, because I realized that "this" sound didn't just leave me wanting more, it left me wanting nothing else.

That's it !! You've got it !

 

[MWD]

At the end of the day, they're just trying to keep a dying industry alive. Now I'm going to go listen to my new remastered, 180 gram, virgin vinyl, 4 disc, signature edition, limited print version of "Kind of Blue". My 34th copy of it!

 

[Paul Scarpelli]

At the end of the day, they're just trying to keep a dying industry alive. Now I'm going to go listen to my new remastered, 180 gram, virgin vinyl, 4 disc, signature edition, limited print version of "Kind of Blue". My 34th copy of it!

I am an old enough jazz lover and audiophile that I bought "Kind of Blue" when it was released on my birthday in 1959. I own the original worn out mono version, a "reprocessed for stereo" version (awful), a stereo version, an audiophile version, and two CDs of it. It's a shame it's become a cliche. A better Miles Davis album from the same period is the ebullient and up-tempo "Milestones" which contains the finest drumming ever from hard-bop icon Philly Joe Jones, over-the-top jamming between Coltrane and Cannonball, and the rich block chords of Red Garland on piano. There is no chocolaty midrange, but Coltrane's tenor sax is palpable, with the basic facial mannerisms of veal parmigiana; 32nd-notes cascading over each other like a fine Argentinian Malbec being poured, quit wastefully, onto a hot, Woodland Hills concrete driveway.

I could do this for a living, I bet...

 

[mtrycrafts]

At the end of the day, they're just trying to keep a dying industry alive. Now I'm going to go listen to my new remastered, 180 gram, virgin vinyl, 4 disc, signature edition, limited print version of "Kind of Blue". My 34th copy of it!

I wonder which industry will die first.

 

[Dan Madden]

I am an old enough jazz lover and audiophile that I bought "Kind of Blue" when it was released on my birthday in 1959. I own the original worn out mono version, a "reprocessed for stereo" version (awful), a stereo version, an audiophile version, and two CDs of it. It's a shame it's become a cliche. A better Miles Davis album from the same period is the ebullient and up-tempo "Milestones" which contains the finest drumming ever from hard-bop icon Philly Joe Jones, over-the-top jamming between Coltrane and Cannonball, and the rich block chords of Red Garland on piano. There is no chocolaty midrange, but Coltrane's tenor sax is palpable, with the basic facial mannerisms of veal parmigiana; 32nd-notes cascading over each other like a fine Argentinian Malbec being poured, quit wastefully, onto a hot, Woodland Hills concrete driveway.

I could do this for a living, I bet...

"Fine Argentinian Malbec" ???!!! Ya........I'd buy that sound !! Hehehe!!

 

[Frans]

In need of some inspiration? Read a whathifi review. The website where audio racks lack "authority" and add "a boomy character" to your receiver that clearly needs to be "mechanically disconnected" first, to sound "forward" and "convincing".

 

[andy_c]

An audio reviewer named Teresa Goodwin once claimed that her mother could tell the difference between different speaker cables from another room while doing the dishes.

 

[shadyJ]

An audio reviewer named Teresa Goodwin once claimed that her mother could tell the difference between different speaker cables from another room while doing the dishes.

What she didn't say was that one cable was made from copper, and the other cable was made from beef jerky. Copper is much more conductive and has less resistance than beef jerky, so it is no surprise that the speaker sounded more clear through the copper cable.

 

[Jersey Jim C]

There actually is such a thing as bass attack. It's when a group of stripers cooperate to capture bait fish. Then I catch them and put them in the freezer next to my new speaker cables.

 

[Paul Scarpelli]

I much prefer gluton-free cables. Jerky is so vulgar...

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

[swest]

No question about it. My favorite was, is, and shall forever be: Jaw-dropping.

If I had a dime for every time I was exhorted to listen to those, "jaw-dropping mids", I would have, well, a jaw-dropping number of dimes...

 

[heroesunplugged]

"It is like the musicians were in the room!"

All I know is that I won't ever use eq in my system because I want to hear the music exactly like they heard it in the studio. Before I play any music I find out what studio it was recorded in, buy the same studio monitors, use the same cables, the same mixer, amps, playback source, find out what the thermostat in the studio was set, and have a custom made replica of the studio built, so that I hear the recording exactly the way it sounded to the engineer, producer and musicians. One more important factor, if there were drugs involved and what kind? And you call yourself and audiophile? Please!