Thread: Please help define these audiophile words

- scale --thing found in bathrooms and butcher shops.
- bloom ---Thing found at your local florist
- sparkle ---4th of July playthings for kids.
- sizzle ---- 4th of July BBQ indicator that the foods ready
- dry ---------- How you get after towelling off.
- clinical vs. analytical ----practitioner vs researcher
- clean vs transparent ---- ideally the same, at least for class and clear plastic.
- pace and rhythm ---bowling in cricket, that most english of games
- microdynamics ---------a tautology

I always found these interesting ;

Sounds Like? An Audio Glossary Glossary: A | Stereophile.com

Describing Sound A Glossary - Head-Fi.org Community

- scale size of the presentation
- bloom a fullness to the sound
- sparkle well defined highs, that are pleasant
- sizzle well defined highs, that are (typically) unpleasant
- dry lifeless; dull sounding
- clinical vs. analytical presentation where you're focused too much on the sound, than music; same meaning...maybe of varying degrees
- clean vs transparent clean is a neutral presentation; maybe not a lot of "bloom", lol; transparent is detailed...allows you to hear "into" the music (microdetails)
- pace and rhythm presentation feels quick, lively, with decisive drive; hence the toe-tapping reference
- microdynamics revealing of the little things (vs. macrodynamics, which is cohesiveness of the sound as a whole

For the record; just because I defined them...doesn't necessarily mean I subscribe to them

My personal take

- scale - relative size of performers to venue in relation to the listener's position within that venue
- bloom - a particular way a system portrays the projection/expansion of sound events into space; presented as unfolding or blossoming in a spherical fashion from a point of origin
- sparkle - realistic sounding highs if the highs are supposed to be sparkly that is
- sizzle - mechanical/distorted highs
- dry - lacking in harmonics and overtones
- clinical vs. analytical - tough one - the former has emotions scrubbed out the latter elicits a purely cerebral response?
- clean vs transparent - former pertains to lack of distortion of sound events, latter pertains to the lack of distortion in the spaces between sound event's sources
- pace and rhythm - where the emphasis lays on the sonic envelope. Fast pace leans on attacks, proper pace is balanced between attack, sustain and decay, slow pace lacks attack dynamics. I always hated the term "PRAT" most of all, its origin being a misappropriation.

- microdynamics - low level amplitude changes within the larger whole

Originally Posted by JackD201

bloom - a particular way a system portrays the projection/expansion of sound events into space; presented as unfolding or blossoming in a spherical fashion from a point of origin

I'll take yours on this one

Great question. This is what I think of when I read these terms in reviews:

• scale
  The system's ability to portray proportionally the size of the recording venue size and performers. An orchestral symphony should sound larger than a trio in a small nightclub say.
  
  
• bloom
  The envelope of sound created by a voice or instrument within the overall soundstage
  
  
• sparkle
  A lively topend
  
  
• sizzle
  A lively topend with some distortion
  
  
• dry
  A presentation that has very little reverb, either micro or macro.
  
  
• clinical vs. analytical
  Hmm, I tend to read these as one and the same, but I like Jack's response to this one.
  
  
• clean vs transparent
  Clean is the lack of haze/hash/veil to the sound. I also think of clean is nicely layered sound, left to right and front to back.
  
  
  Take clean sound and add detail, microdynamics and venue reverb, and you get transparent sound - a window into the recording.
  
  
• pace and rhythm
  Good speed delivery to the sound, both the start and stopping of it.
  
  
• microdynamics
  Low level changes in the sound of a note or chord. Too long a sustain that is unnatural for the sound will ruin microdynamics.
  

Originally Posted by Boogieman

Please help out a confused bloke and define these; examples would be helpful to make more meaningful:

- scale
- bloom
- sparkle
- sizzle
- dry
- clinical vs. analytical
- clean vs transparent
- pace and rhythm
- microdynamics

Thx

Personally I consider these terms in the same way as when I read reviews of wines.

I look as clinical and analytical as meaning the same. For me it means music that is cut and dry with no emotion or smoothness like early CD players and digital music sounded and like many Sabre based DAC's can sound. Early and poorly designed digital amps can sound this way.

The terms that I have trouble with are differentiating between detail and resolution. Sparkle also bothers me. I always get the feeling that when the term "a lot of sparkle" is used, that it means bright or too much high frequency energy.

Originally Posted by bzr

Personally I think of most of it as people with a resemblance of intelligence with too much to say that use superfluous expressions & then try to put their own spin on it because their experience is unique like no other before. .....

What he said!

My daughter used the word "accurate" when auditioning the system at home last night. Played at low volume but there's nothing missing. Highs mids and bass does not lose any character.

I am having some new interconnects for home demo. She told me later...please don't change anymore...that statement to me seems inaccurate.

Originally Posted by bzr

Personally I think of most of it as people with a resemblance of intelligence with too much to say that use superfluous expressions & then try to put their own spin on it because their experience is unique like no other before. .....

I think all experiences are both personal and unique in some way. That's always been the challenge of communicating them regardless the subject matter. We always need to express these in ways the receiving parties will hopefully understand. The guessing game begins even before a word has been uttered or typed. In a pinch we just get it out there and hope something sticks!

I like the Almost! Yes I agree. The problem with measurements isn't the measurements but again how we as people have the tendency to read more into them than what they are meant to represent in so doing bloating the scope and ignoring the limitations in one direction or being outright dismissive of measurements in the other.

Still, I think there is beauty in our collective inadequacies when it comes to communication. Life would be so bland if we could perfectly read each others minds

Exactly Methodolgy is equally important

Originally Posted by JackD201

I think all experiences are both personal and unique in some way. That's always been the challenge of communicating them regardless the subject matter. We always need to express these in ways the receiving parties will hopefully understand. The guessing game begins even before a word has been uttered or typed. In a pinch we just get it out there and hope something sticks!

..Jack you must have slept thru Audio Journalism 101 :-)

I wasn't born yet!

Originally Posted by bzr

Personally I think of most of it as people with a resemblance of intelligence with too much to say that use superfluous expressions & then try to put their own spin on it because their experience is unique like no other before. .....

Originally Posted by wisnon

What he said!

Do some people, really not understand the idea of hobby? It's why it's your thing; because it's more important to you, than most.

Tell me we'd be better off; no, scratch that! Tell me we'd have more fun; simply stating...this is good, that is bad.

Originally Posted by bzr

Chris, personally, it's about the sound for me & all the pretty words don't mean jack when I read a review. When I do read a review or give credit to someone else's opinion on a component or sound, it's usually a sentence sometimes 2 is what the relevance is for me. By the way, the above comment was tongue in cheek, so no doubt had a slight wooly & subdued sound to it, the highs were there but the lows a tad obscured.........................

Well, I'm down with that; and as I said in my 1st post...just because I defined them, doesn't mean I endorse or use them.

But it has become the language of our hobby. In fact, one of the reasons I took...what I thought might be flame-bait; was because there is a "plain" way, to describe the different things we hear and experience...at this level of audio.

There's this friend of mine I'd known since elementary school who's a member in the same Golf club. One day we had the equivalent of a pick up game after hanging out at the range. It was my first time to play a round with him. I noticed that before he'd put his caddy would say a number. Quatro, he'd pick his line....dink....and the ball would roll close to the cup. Next hole. Siyete...dink...close to the hole. Third hole. Tres.....dink....close again. Cinco....dink....in the hole. That's cool I thought. They worked out a system for the speed of his putter head through his putting stroke. I asked how long it took them to work that out. They said it took about six months playing twice or thrice a week. It not being a betting round I kidded with my caddy and said, ok we have a left to right downhill curler give me a number. Dos....tap.....I was five feet short.

I guess what I'm saying is that even this simplest way of describing gradations of variance, a simple scale of 1 to 10, needs to be synced up with both parties. Standardized to some extent if you will. What it is, is concise from the get go. The effectivity came later. Eventually as my friend's game progressed he no longer needed a caddy to give him the speed. Good thing too since the caddy eventually retired.

None it was that period of limbo between the walkman and the iPod. LOL.

As I've gathered from it's usual usage, "Open" is often used as the opposite to congested so it describes a lot of things at once making its description vexing. It's a one word-er that attempts to depict separation, clarity, expansiveness and linearity particularly in the highs and the lack of nasties like compression artifacts from things like heat and other sources of grain or grunge. So I guess an open sounding system is one that allows the listener to effortlessly pick an instrument or vocal and focus on it while the instruments and vocalists sound natural. In effect getting something akin to an exploded view on things without things sounding technical or artificial.