Describing sound is similar to a quote I saw years ago- "Talking about food is like dancing about architecture". The experience is different for every person.
Unfortunately, bad live sound production is where many people develop their sense of how music "sounds". I was at the State Fair last night and the guy doing sound for The Wallflowers clearly had no idea how it would sound where we were. I'm sure it sounded better where he was and if not, he needs to be replaced. The vocals, which should have been clear and balanced (we were directly across the race track from the speaker tower) had wayyyyy too much in the 150-400Hz region ('W' sounds are wooly and over-bearing) and the bass was too strong in several areas. Oh, the bass was making the grandstand rattle, it was strong and didn't sound distorted but it was far from good sound (plus, the D string went flat and the bass player didn't bother to re-tune it). The drums, other than the kick drum, were fine and everything else was listenable but far from the best sound I have heard.