发烧词汇:Audiophile Terms

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absolute phase, absolute polarity - Refers to the preservation of the initial acoustic waveform all the way through the recording and reproducing system so that a compression that reaches the original microphone will be reproduced in the listener's system as a compression reaching his or her ears. Some listeners appear to be more sensitive to this being correct than others, often referring to the inverted state as "muffled."

accuracy, accurate - The degree to which the output signal from a component or system is perceived as replicating the sonic qualities of its input signal. An accurate device reproduces what is on the recording, which may or may not be an accurate representation of the original sound. Accurate can also describe how well a piece of equipment can reproduce instruments

acoustical space - 1) A large performing or recording hall. 2) All the spatial and reverberant characteristics of the performing hall or location in which a recording was made.

acuity 1) The sensitivity of the ears to very soft sounds. 2) The learned ability to hear and to assess the subtle qualitative attributes and nuances of reproduced sound.

aggressive -  Reproduced sound that is excessively forward and bright.  A reproduction that sounds in your face.  Opposite of laid-back or polite.

"ah" - A vowel coloration caused by a frequency-response peak centered around 1000Hz.

airy - Pertaining to treble which sounds light, delicate, open, and seemingly unrestricted in upper extension. A quality of reproducing systems having very smooth and very extended HF response.

aliveness - A quality of sound reproduction which gives an impression that the performers are present, in person, in the listening room.  The sound no longer has the appearance of coming from your system, but takes on a sense of “thereness” that seemingly transports you to the actual recording location.

ambiance (pronounced "ahmbee-onts") - The feeling or mood evoked by an environment.

ambience (pronounced "ahmbee-ints") - The aurally perceived impression of an acoustical space, such as the performing hall in which a recording was made.

amperage, amps, amp - Used to describe the amount of current in a circuit.  Expressed with the letter A or a.

analytical - Very detailed, almost to the point of excess.

articulate, articulation - 1) Clarity and intelligibility, usually of voice reproduction. 2) The reproduction of inner detail in complex sounds, which makes it easy to follow an individual musical voice among many.

artifact - any random additive sounds caused by digital processing.  This can come from a lossy compression, scratches, dirt, or some other form of disruption of the laser pick-up’s ability to read the digital data correctly, an out of round disc, or can be due to vibration.  

attack - Attack is the sudden change from low or no volume to high volume caused mostly by string, percussion, or horn instruments.

attack transient - The initial energy pulse of sound created.  This is the leading edge of the sound.

audibility - The measure of the severity of a sonic imperfection. The scale of audibility, from least audible to most audible, is: inaudible, subtle, slight, moderate, obvious, conspicuous, and Arrggh!!

audiophile - listed as a sickness for which there truly is no cure in the national psychology manual.  Symptoms usually include: lack of money, large periods of time spent alone with only music as their company, a compulsion to spend large periods of their free and work time posting useless and pointless posts on web sites like Head-Fi, DIYAudio, or HeadWize, and is usually accompanied by a severe case of upgraditis.  They are deemed as being deluded by their family members (especially their spouse), aloof by their friends, and abusive by their wallet.  The funny thing is that they normally find a close kindred with audio salesman and other sufferers of this sickness.

auronihilist (pronounced "auro-nigh-illist") - A person who believes that all components that measure the same, sound the same. A meter man.

autohype - Suggestive self-deception; hearing something that isn't there, because you expect it to be. A rich source of audio mythology.

"aw" (rhymes with "paw") - A vowel coloration caused by a frequency-response peak centered around 450Hz. An "aw" coloration tends to emphasize and glamorize the sound of large brass instruments (trombone, tuba).

balance - 1) The subjective relationship between the relative loudness of the full range of the audio spectrum from lows to highs; "tonal balance." 2) The relative loudness of the instruments in a performing group. 3) Equality of signal level between the left and right stereo channels, which centers the soundstage and allows mono program material to image at the center; “channel balance”.

ballsy - Describes a system which has a very tight and palpable bass reproduction.

banger - A very loud LP surface-noise pop.

bass - Frequencies that fall below 160Hz.  

billowing, billowy - Excessively reverberant.

binaural - Literally hearing with "two ears," refers to a recording/playback system which presents the listener's ears with the acoustic waveforms they would have received at the original event. Only currently achievable with a "dummy-head" microphone and playback via headphones.

bloated - 1) When describing a phantom image: excessively wide. 2) When describing sound in general: overdone, overly rich, warm, and or reverberant.  A bloated bass is one that is sloppy and/or overdone.  Opposite of “ballsy” “tight” or “punchy”.

blob, blobs - used to describe the reproduction of music coming from headphones that appears to come from blobs of sound located in the right, left, and center of one’s head.  

bloom - A quality of expansive richness and warmth, like the live body sound of a cello.  Also any “hump” in the reproduction of a given frequency or frequency range that is not in the recording.  A tubed item is normally noted to have a characteristic midrange bloom that is both pleasant and pleasing.

body - A quality of roundness and robustness in reproduced sound. "Gutsiness."

body sound - Of a musical instrument: the characteristic sound of the material of which the instrument is made, due to resonances of that material. The wooden quality of a viola, the "signature" by which a brass flute is distinguishable from a wooden or platinum one.

boomy - Characterized by pronounced exaggeration of the midbass and, often, dominance of a narrow range of bass frequencies. ("One-note bass.")

boxy - 1) Characterized by an "oh" vowel coloration, as when speaking with one's head inside a box. 2) Used to describe the upper-bass/lower-midrange sound of a loudspeaker with excessive cabinet-wall resonances.

breakup - The sound of severe analog-disc mistracking.

breathing - From a dynamic noise-reduction system: audible changes in the level of background hiss in accordance with changes in signal volume. See "pumping."

bright, brilliant - The most often misused terms in audio, these describe the degree to which reproduced sound has a hard, crisp edge to it. Brightness relates to the energy content in the 4kHz-8kHz band. It is not related to output in the extreme-high-frequency range. All live sound has brightness; it is a problem only when it is excessive.

bunching - 1) In double-mono reproduction, the imaging of all sounds from a small area between the loudspeakers. Tight (narrow) bunching in A+B mode is essential for good imaging specificity in stereo. 2) In stereo reproduction, excessive center fill with inadequate spread. Compare with stereo spread.

buzz - A low-frequency sound having a spiky or fuzzy character.  

bypass test - Directly comparing the output signal from a device with the input signal being fed to it, by putting the device into and then out of the signal path and observing the difference.

canal type headphones - Headphones in which you actually insert them into your ears vice on or around your head.  Etymonics and Shure are examples of manufacturers that use this design.  See also “in-ear”.

cans - Slang word for headphones.  Shorter and easier to type also.  

CDP - Compact Disc Player.

center fill - Correct image placement between the loudspeakers of sound sources which were originally located at or near center-stage. See "localization," "stereo spread."

center stage - That part of the soundstage that appears to come from midway between the loudspeakers.

chalky - Describes a texturing of sound that is finer than grainy but coarser than dry. See "texture."

channel - Path or source of sound.  This can be left, right, center, rear, surround, etc. in it’s origin.

characteristic - One of the basic constituents of reproduced sound, which contributes to its perception.  Frequency response, loudness, extension, soundstaging, and resolution are sonic characteristics.

chesty-  A pronounced thickness or heaviness from reproduced male voice, due to excessive energy in the upper bass or lower midrange.

chocolatey - Like "syrupy," but darker and more full-bodied.

circularity - The paradox of subjectivity: "You can't judge a recording without reproducing it, and you can't judge a reproducer without listening to a recording."  Also known as circular logic.  

circumaural - a headphone design in which the ear pads totally surround the ears and instead of resting directly upon the ears, they rests on the parts of the head surrounding the ear.

clean - Free from audible distortion, colorations, or any other item that detracts from a pure sound.

click - A small, sharp impulse that sounds like the word "click."

clinical -  Sound that is pristinely clean but wholly uninvolving emotionally.

clip-on - A headphones design in which the headphones have a clip that wraps around the ear to hold them onto the ear where they rest. closed - Used to describe a headphone design in which the driver is enclosed at the side opposite the ear.  These headphones do not usually leak sound, and provide some amount of isolation from outside noises.

closed-in - Lacking in openness, delicacy, air, and fine detail. A closed-in sound is usually caused by HF rolloff above 10kHz. Compare with "open," "airy."

coarse - A large-grained texturing of reproduced sound; very gritty. The continuum of reproduced sound seems to be comprised of large particles. See "texture."

cocktail-party effect - The auditory system's controllable ability to separate-out, on the basis of direction alone, one sound source from many coming from different directions. It allows you to follow one voice among the others at a noisy cocktail party.

cognitive dissonance - A conflict between observations, as when a sound has the timbre of a close listening seat but the perspective of a distant one.

coherent - 1) Pertaining to a multi-way loudspeaker's sound: seamless from top to bottom; showing no audible evidence of a crossover or of different driver colorations in different frequency ranges. 2) Pertaining to the soundstage: Phantom imaging that reproduces within the stereo stage the original lateral positions of the performers. See "bunching," "hole-in-the-middle."

cold - One step worse than "cool".  Having somewhat excessive high-end output and weak low-end output.

coloration - An audible "signature" with which a reproducing system adds to all signals passing through it.  The bass boost found in some portable CD player, PCDP, units is an example of purposeful coloration added.

comb filtering - A hollow coloration that, once recognized, is unmistakable. Caused by a regularly spaced series of frequency-response peaks and dips, most often due to interference between two identical signals spaced in time. If that time difference is continually changed, the comb-filter peaks and dips move accordingly, giving rise to the familiar "phasing," "flanging," or "jet plane" effect used in modern rock music.

compressed - used to describe a soundstage in which the instruments are bunched together too closely.  The sounds tend to emanate from a smaller area than they should.  The next worse step of congested.

congested - Sound that is coming or appears to be coming from an area so close together that the sounds lose their individuality and blend into one sound, or a combination of those sounds.  This is the opposite of transparency.

consonant - Agreeable to the ear; pleasant-sounding. Compare "dissonant."

conspicuous - Very audible. See "audibility."

continuity 1) Of the soundstage: the reproduction of the original lateral positions of the stereo images. See "bunching," "hole-in-the-middle," "stereo spread." 2) Of a multi-way loudspeaker: uniformity of coloration from the operating range of one driver to that of the other(s).  3) Of sound: a reproduction of sounds that proceed from one ear to the other in one contiguous sound that doesn’t get lost in the transition.

control - The extent to which a loudspeaker sounds as if it is "tracking" the signal being fed to it. The sound is tight, detailed, and focused. See "damping."

cool - Moderately deficient in body & warmth due to progressive attenuation of frequencies below ~ 150Hz.

crackle - Intermittent medium-sized clicks. The usual background noise from much-played vinyl discs.

crisp - In reproduced sound: sharply focused and detailed, sometimes excessively so because of a peak in the mid-treble region.

crossfeed - the purposeful addition of sound from one channel to the other to remove any blobs of sound, or help with older recordings with extreme channel separation.

crosstalk - unwanted bleeding of sound from one channel to the other.

cupped-hands - A coloration reminiscent of someone speaking through cupped hands or, if extreme, a megaphone.

current - The flow of electrons thru a circuit.  Expressed with the letter I in formulas, and expressed in amps using the letter A.  Calculated as follows: I=E/R.  Current is equal to the voltage divided by resistance.

damping - The amount of control an amplifier seems to impose on a woofer. Under damping causes loose, heavy bass; over damping yields very tight but lean bass.

damping factor - A numerical rating of how much control an amp has on the bass.  The higher the better.

dark - A warm, mellow, excessively rich quality in reproduced sound. The audible effect of a frequency response which is clockwise-tilted across the entire range, so that output diminishes with increasing frequency. Compare "light."

dead - Dull and lifeless sound that is totally uninvolving.

decay - The reverberant fadeout of a musical sound after it has ceased. Compare "attack."  This is the trailing off of the note or instrument.  Opposite of attack.  A cymbal is one instrument that combines a massive attack when struck hard, then displays a length decay as it fades to nothing.

decibel, dB - Unit of measurement 1/10th that of a Bel.  Each 3dB of sound represents a doubling in noise, and power needed to produce that level of noise.  It is normally a logarithmic expression, not a linear one.

deep bass - Frequencies below 40Hz.

definition (also resolution) - That quality of sound reproduction which enables the listener to distinguish between, and follow the melodic lines of, the individual voices or instruments comprising a large performing group. See "focus."

delicacy - The reproduction of very subtle, very faint details of musical sound, such as the fingertip-friction sounds produced when a guitar or a harp is played. See "low-level detail."

depth - The illusion of acoustical distance receding behind the loudspeaker plane, giving the impression of listening through the loudspeakers into the original performing space, rather than to them. See "layering," "transparency." Compare "flat."

detail - The subtle and most delicate parts of the original recording, which are usually the first things lost by imperfect components. See "low-level detail." Compare "haze," "smearing," "veiling."

diffuse - Reproduction which is severely deficient in detail and imaging specificity; confused, muddled.

dip - An area of depression of a frequency-response curve. Compare dished/humped

dirty - Sound reproduction which is fuzzy, cruddy, or spiky.

direct sound - A sound reaching the ears in a straight line from its source. The direct sounds are always the first sounds heard. The "critical distance" from a sound source is when the spl of the direct sound is equal to that of the reverberant field. See "far field," "near field," "precedence effect." Compare "reflected sound," "reverberation."

discontinuity - A change of timbre or coloration due to the signal's transition, in a multi-way speaker system, from one driver to another having dissimilar coloration.

dished, dished-down - Describes a frequency response that is depressed through the entire middle range. The sound has too much bass and treble, exaggerated depth, and a laid-back, lifeless quality. Compare "forward."

dissonant - Unpleasant to the ear; ugly-sounding. Dissonance is an imperfection only when the music is not supposed to sound dissonant. Compare "consonant."

distortion - 1) Any unintentional or undesirable change in an audio signal. 2) An overlay of spurious roughness, fuzziness, harshness, or stridency in reproduced sound.

double (or dual) mono - Reproduction of a monophonic signal through both channels/speakers of a stereo system, as when a preamplifier's mode switch is set to A+B (L+R). Compare "single mono."

double blind - testing method in which neither the tester nor person administering the test know the actual correct answer to the testing being done.  This eliminates any influence that the administrator could have on the results of person participating.

dramatic - Describing a perceived difference between components: Very noticeable, unmistakable. A term misused by audio reviewers to demonstrate how incredibly sensitive they are to barely audible differences. See "audibility."

dry - 1) Describing the texture of reproduced sound: very fine-grained, chalky. 2) Describing an acoustical space: deficient in reverberation or having a very short reverberation time. 3) Describing bass quality: lean, over damped.

dull - Lifeless, muffled, veiled. Same as "soft," only more so. The audible effect of HF rolloff setting in at around 5kHz.  Dull can also describe the uninvolving reproduction of music due to it’s lack of a desired part of the frequency spectrum.  Music is dull when it lacks bass where it should have it.  Some describe a component that is very flat in it’s frequency response as dull since it lacks the normal peaks one is accustomed to.

dynamic - Giving the impression of very wide range of sounds from soft to loud; punchy. This is related to system speed as well as to volume contrast.

dynamic range - 1) Pertaining to a signal: the ratio between the loudest and the quietest passages. 2) Pertaining to a component: the ratio between its no-signal noise and the loudest peak it will pass without distortion.

ear-buds - Headphones rest just inside the ear, but not all the way into the canal. ease - Pertains to the degree of reproduction which sounds free from strain.

echo - In an acoustical space: the repetition of a sound due to reflection of the original sound from a room boundary. See "hand-clap test," "fluttery," "plastery," "slap."

echoey, echoic - Pertaining to an acoustical space having excessive reverberation. Can also (rarely) be characteristic of a loudspeaker with excessive mid-frequency mechanical resonances.

"ee" (rhymes with "we") - A vowel coloration caused by a frequency-response peak centered around 3.5kHz.

effortless - Unstrained; showing no signs of audible stress during loud passages. Compare "strained."

"eh" (as in "bed") - A vowel coloration caused by a frequency-response peak centered around 2kHz.

element - One of the constituent parts of a sonic characteristic. Bass, midrange, and treble are elements of frequency response. Depth and breadth are elements of soundstaging.

error of commission - Signal degradation due to the addition of sounds that were not present in the original signal. Distortion and coloration are examples of errors of commission.

error of omission - Signal degradation due to the loss of information that was present in the original signal. Smearing and treble loss are examples of errors of omission.

etched - Very crisp and sharply outlined, focused to an almost excessive degree.

euphonic - Pleasing to the ear. In audio, "euphonic" has a connotation of exaggerated richness rather than literal accuracy.

extension - The low and high limits of a component's frequency range at either end of the spectrum.

extreme highs - The range of audible frequencies above 10kHz.

far field - Pertains to that range of listening distances in which the predominant sounds reaching the ears are reflections from room boundaries.

fast - Giving an impression of extremely rapid reaction time, which allows a reproducing system to "keep up with" the signal fed to it. (A "fast woofer" would seem to be an oxymoron, but this usage refers to a woofer tuning that does not boom, make the music sound "slow," obscure musical phrasing, or lead to "one-note bass.") Similar to "taut", but referring to the entire audio-frequency range instead of just the bass.

fat - The sonic effect of a moderate exaggeration of the mid- and upper-bass ranges. Excessively "warm."

flanging - See "comb filtering."

flat - 1) Having a subjectively uniform frequency response, free from humps and dips. 2) Deficient in or lacking in soundstage depth, resulting in the impression that all reproduced sound sources are the same distance from the listener.

floating - A positive attribute that pertains to soundstaging in which the phantom images seem to exist independently of the loudspeaker positions, giving the impression that the speakers are absent. See "beyond-the-speakers imaging," "depth," "layering." Compare "flat," "vagueness," "wander."

fluttery - Pertains to a repeated echo recurring at a rate of about 10 repetitions per second, common to small, bare-walled acoustical spaces. See "hand-clap test." Compare "plastery," "slap."

focus - The quality of being clearly defined, with sharply outlined phantom images. Focus has also been described as the enhanced ability to hear the brief moments of silence between the musical impulses in reproduced sound.

forward, forwardness - A quality of reproduction which seems to place sound sources closer than they were recorded. Usually the result of a humped midrange, plus a narrow horizontal dispersion pattern from the loudspeaker. See "Row-A sound." Compare "laid-back."

frequency range - A range of frequencies stated without level limits: ie, "The upper bass covers the frequency range 80-160Hz."

frequency (or amplitude) response - 1) A range of frequencies stated with level limits: ie, "The woofer's response was 20-160Hz "3dB." 2) The uniformity with which a system or individual component sounds as if it reproduces the range of audible frequencies. Equal input levels at all frequencies should be reproduced by a system with subjectively equal output.  Generally, a frequency response is measures from 20Hz-20KHZ, with the amount of deviation expressed with it in decibels.  Example: 20Hz-20KHZ, +-3dB.  

fuzz, fuzziness - A coarse but soft-edged texturing of reproduced sound. Like "hash," but with muffled-sounding spikes.

gestalt response - The evocation of a complete memory recognition by an incomplete set of sensory cues. A gestalt response to the few things an audio system does outstandingly well can make imperfect reproduction seem more realistic than it actually is.

glare - An unpleasant quality of hardness or brightness, due to excessive low- or mid-treble energy.

glassy - Very bright.

golden - A euphonic coloration characterized by roundness, richness, sweetness, and liquidity.

grainy - A moderate texturing of reproduced sound. The sonic equivalent of grain in a photograph. Coarser than dry but finer than gritty.

gritty - A harsh, coarse-grained texturing of reproduced sound. The continuum of energy seems to be composed of discrete, sharp-edged particles.

grunge - Sonic dirt, crud, roughness. Muffled grittiness.

gutsy - Ballsy.

gutty - Rosinous.

hangover - A tendency for reproduced sounds to last longer than they should. Most noticeable at low frequencies, where it obscures detail.

hand-clap test - The use of hand claps to assess the reverberant properties of a room. See "fluttery," "plastery," "slap."

hard - Tending toward steeliness, but not quite shrill. Often the result of a moderate frequency-response hump centered around 6kHz, sometimes also caused by small amounts of distortion.

harsh - Very unpleasant sounding to the ear.

hash - A very coarse texturing of the sound, characterized by a sharp-edged, spiky roughness. Caused by severe distortion with strong transient content, as from a grossly mistracking phono cartridge.

haze, haziness - A moderate smearing of detail and focus. The audible equivalent of viewing something through a gauzy veil or a dirty window.

heavy - Sound reproduction that is excessive in bass.

heft - Pertains to bass which has weight, solidity, and visceral power.

height - The usually inadvertent production of vertical directional cues, which make some instruments sound as if they are above or below the other performers. See "soundstaging."

HF - High frequency(ies).

high-end - Pertains a) to sound that closely approaches the real thing, b) to audio equipment whose performance is near the top of the quality scale, and often the price scale.

high-end audio - The pursuit of and business of realistic sound reproduction.

high fidelity - 1) A kind of sound-reproducing system whose realism of reproduction is judged to be better than average. Stereo reproduction can be high-fidelity or otherwise. 2) The pursuit of perfection in sound reproduction, as a hobby or a religion.

high-frequency range - 1) The audio range above 1300Hz. 2) usable upper limit of that range. "extension."

hole-in-the-middle - In stereo reproduction, weak or vague representation of center images. Can result from out-of-phase loudspeakers or excessively widely spaced stereo microphones. See "out-of-phase."

Holt's Laws - 1) "The better the recording, the worse the performance, and vice versa." 2) "The shriller the advertisement, the worse the product." 3) "Every component is imperfect, and every imperfection is audible."

honky - Pertaining to a severe "aw" coloration.

hooty - 1) Pertaining to a severe "ooo" coloration. 2) Resonant colorations may cause some lower-midrange notes to jump forward or "hoot" at the listener.

horn sound - An "aw" coloration characteristic of many loudspeakers that have a horn-loaded midrange.

hot - Very tipped-up high frequencies.

hum - A continuous 50/60Hz or 100/120Hz noise, caused by leakage of the household AC supply or its second harmonic into the signal path.

hump - A broad frequency-response peak.

humped Sound that is forward, soft, and lean. The apparent listening distance is up-front and immediate, yet the overall sound is dull and thin. Caused by a broad midrange rise with rolled-off lower and upper ranges. Compare "dished."

"ih" (as in "bit") - A vowel coloration caused by a frequency-response peak centered around 3.5kHz.

imagery - Descriptive terminology intended to convey an impression or mental image of a subjective observation. Imagery is usually employed to describe qualities in reproduced sound in terms of more familiar sensory responses like vision, taste, and touch.

imaging - The measure of a system's ability to precisely and specifically locate individual instruments, performers, singers, noises, echoes, etc. within the defined boundaries of the soundstage.  Good imaging creates a “you’re there” effect since there is a lot of spatial information being presented about specific locations of sounds you are hearing from an image that is wide, deep, and high.  See "stereo imaging."

impact - A quality of concussive force, as from a deep, strong bass attack, which produces a brief sensation of visceral pressure.

impulse - An abrupt, extremely brief burst of signal energy; a transient.

impulse noise - Transient noise, such as surface-noise ticks and pops.

inaudible - A sonic imperfection which is either too subtle to be consciously perceived or is actually nonexistent. Compare "subliminal."

infrasonic - Below the range of audible frequencies. Although inaudible, the infrasonic range from 15-20Hz can be felt if strongly reproduced. Compare "subsonic."

inner detail - The sonic subtleties within a complex program signal, reproducible only by a system having high resolution. See "focus."

intolerable - Unarguably and unforgivably unlistenable. See "audibility."

involvement - The degree to which a reproduction draws the listener in to the musical performance and evokes an emotional response to it.

judgment - A listener's assessment of how well his perception of a sonic element measures up to his concept of perfection. The basic choices are "good," "not good," or "undecided."

laid-back - Recessed, distant-sounding, having exaggerated depth, usually because of a dished or recessed midrange. See "Row-M sound." Compare "forward."

layering - The reproduction of depth and receding distance, which audibly places the rows of performers one behind the other.

lean - Very slightly bass-shy. The effect of a very slight bass rolloff below around 50Hz. Not quite "cool."

LF - Low frequency(ies).

lifeless - Sound that is dull, unfocused, unconvincing, and uninvolving.

light - Lean and tipped-up. The audible effect of a frequency response which is tilted counterclockwise. Compare "dark."

liquid - Textureless sound.

listening distance - The distance from the listener to the loudspeakers. See "critical distance," "far field," "near field."

listening fatigue - A psychoacoustic phenomenon from prolonged listening to sound whose distortion content is too low to be audible as such but is high enough to be perceived subliminally. The physical and psychological discomfort can induce headaches and nervous tension.

live - 1) Describes an acoustical space having a great deal of reverberation. 2) Pertains to the sound of actual instruments or voices in performance, as opposed to the sound of their reproduction.

localization - In stereo reproduction, the placement of phantom images in specific lateral positions across the soundstage. Also, the specificity of those images.

loose - Pertains to bass which is ill-defined and poorly controlled.  Woolly.

low bass - The range from 20-40Hz.

lower highs - The range of frequencies from 1.3-2.6kHz.

lower middles, lower midrange - The range of frequencies from 160-320Hz.

low frequency - Any frequency lower than 160Hz.

low-level detail - The subtlest elements of musical sound, which include the delicate details of instrumental sounds and the final tail of reverberation decay. See "delicacy."

lumpy - Reproduced sound characterized by a number of audible response discontinuities through the range below about 1kHz. Certain frequency bands seem to predominate, while others sound weak.

lush - Rich-sounding and sumptuous to the point of wretched excess.

meter man - A person who believes that measurements tell all you need to know about a component's performance. An auronihilist. Compare "mystic," "subjectivist."

MF - Middle frequency(ies), the all-important midrange.

midbass - The range of frequencies from 40-80Hz.

middle highs - The range of frequencies from 2.6-5kHz.

middles, midrange - The range of frequencies from 160-1300Hz.

moderate - A qualifier which describes a sonic imperfection which is clearly audible through any decent system, but not annoyingly so. See "audibility."

modulation noise - A hiss or other extraneous noise which "rides on" the main signal, varying in loudness according to the strength of that signal.

monaural - Literally "hearing with one ear." Often used incorrectly in place of monophonic (as in Glenn D. White's otherwise excellent Audio Dictionary, 1991, second edition, University of Washington Press.---JA). Compare "binaural."

monophonic, mono - A system or recording with one channel or speaker. See "monaural," "single mono," "dual mono."

motorboating - Low-frequency oscillation of an active device, producing a continuous, rapid "bupupup" sound, like a one-cylinder engine.

muddy - Ill-defined, congested.  

muffled - Very dull-sounding; no apparent high frequencies at all. The result of HF rolloff above about 2kHz.

musical, musicality - A personal judgment as to the degree to which the reproduced sound resembles live music. Real musical sound is both accurate and euphonic, consonant and dissonant.  Musical also describes the enjoyment factor of a component you are listening to.  Kind of a “toe tapping quantity” description of the time spent listening.  (This is one of the most overused and easily misunderstood terms used in describing audio equipment due to overuse and ambiguity.)

muted - Dark, lifeless, closed-in.  Very muddy or muffled sounds.

mystic - An audiophile who attributes all currently immeasurable sonic differences to forces beyond human understanding.

nasal - Reproduced sound having the quality of a person speaking with his/her nose blocked. Like the vowel "eh" coloration. In loudspeaker, often due to a measured peak in the upper mids followed by a complementary dip.

natural, naturalness - Used to describe how close to the “real thing” a component or system sounds.  Instruments and voices sound lifelike and like they were being played live versus listened to in a recording.  Realism.

near field - Pertains to that range of listening distances in which the sounds reaching the ears are predominantly direct. See "far field," "critical distance."

neutral - Free from coloration.  A reproduction of sound that is untainted by the component(s) the signal passes thru.  Opposite of “colored”, “smeared”, or “tainted”

noise - Any spurious background sounds, usually of a random or indeterminate pitch: hiss, crackles, ticks, pops, whooshes.

noticeable - In aural perception, any sonic quality which is clearly audible to most people.

objective - free from bias or opinion.  These are facts, not opinions about something and something over which no one can argue.  

objectivist - A meter man. Compare "subjectivist."

observation - The perceived attribute of a sonic element, on which a personal judgment about its quality is based. Observations are described by subjective terms such as "smooth," "woolly," or "spacious."

obvious - You'd have to be deaf not to hear it. See "audibility."

"oh" (as in "toe") - A vowel coloration caused by a broad frequency-response peak centered around 250Hz.

one-note bass - The exaggeration of a single bass note, due to a sharp LF peak, normally due to an underdamped woofer but also caused by room resonances.

"oo" (as "gloom") - A vowel coloration caused by a broad frequency-response peak centered around 120Hz.

opaque - Lacking detail and transparency.

open - 1)Exhibiting qualities of delicacy, air, and fine detail. Giving an impression of having no upper-frequency limit.  2) In headphone designs it is used to describe a set of cans that do not have an enclosed driver in the rear.  The driver is essentially open to the air outside the driver opposite the ears.  These headphones generally leak sound out for all to hear and provide no isolation from outside noises..

out-of-phase - In a two-channel system, one channel being in opposite polarity to the second, most commonly due to having one speaker hooked up with the red (positive) lead to the red (positive) terminal, the other with the red lead to the black (negative terminal). As well as a "phasey" sound, the result will be a reduction in low frequencies. See "phasey." Not to be confused with an inversion of Absolute Phase or Polarity.

out-of-the-head imaging - The placement of phantom images or spatial (stage boundary) information beyond the positional limits of the ears and headphone drivers.

overblown - Sound that is excessively fat and rich.  Bloated.

over damped - Pertaining to the audible effects of excessive woofer damping that reduces the amount of bass reproduced.

pace - The apparent tempo of a musical performance, which can be different from its actual beats-per-minute tempo. Pace is affected by phrasing in performance and speed in reproduction.

palpable - Reproduction that is so realistic you feel you could reach out & touch the instruments or singers.

PCDP - Portable Compact Disc Player.

perceptible - At or above the threshold of audibility of the listener.

perspective - The soundstage depth information that is conveyed by layering.

phantom image - The re-creation by a stereo system of an apparent sound source at a location other than that of either loudspeaker.

phasey - A quality of reproduced sound which creates a sensation of pressure in the ears, unrelated to the intensity of the sound. Phasiness is experienced by many people when listening to two loudspeakers which are connected out of phase with each other.

phasing - See "comb filtering."

picket-fencing - (Also called vertical-venetian-blind effect.) A tendency for stereo channel balance to vacillate from left to right as the listener moves laterally with respect to the loudspeakers.

pinched - 1) Very cold, with a "nyeah" coloration. 2) Pertaining to soundstaging: Laterally compressed and lacking in spaciousness.

pinpoint imaging - Stereo imaging that is precise, stable, and focused.

pitch resolution - The clarity with which the pitch of (generally) bass notes is perceived. Poor pitch resolution makes all notes sound similar; good pitch resolution gives an impression that you "can almost count the cycles."

plastery - A hard-sounding reverberation having an "a" (as in "cat") coloration, characteristic of bare, plaster-walled rooms. Compare "fluttery," "slap."

polite - Sound characteristic slightly lesser than laid-back.

pop - A midrange pulse characterized by a very sharp attack followed by a short "o" or "aw" vowel sound. Usually the result of a severe LP blemish.

power - Energy dissipated in the form of heat.  Expressed in watts using the letter W or w.  Calculated using the following formulas: P=I*E; P=I^2*R; P=E^2/R.

power range - The frequency range about 200-500Hz that affects the reproduction of the power instruments of an orchestra---the brass instruments.

precedence effect - The tendency for the ears to identify the source of a sound as being in the direction from which it is first heard. See "direct sound."

presence - A quality of realism and aliveness.

presence range - The lower-treble part of the audio spectrum, approximately 1-3kHz, which contributes to presence in reproduced sound.

pristine - Very clean, very transparent music.  This term is positive, as opposed to sterile which is negative.

pumping - 1) The exaggeration of abrupt signal-amplitude changes, often due to the malfunctioning of a companding (compressing/expanding) noise-reduction system. 2) Audible fluctuations of background noise in the playback phase of compansion. 3) Large, spurious subsonic motions of a woofer cone, usually due to analog-disc warps or marginal LF stability in the power amplifier.

qualifier - An adjective which the listener attaches to an observed sonic imperfection (such as "peaky" or "muddy") in order to convey a sense of its magnitude. "Subtle" and "conspicuous" are qualifying adjectives. See "audibility."

quality - The degree to which the reproduction of sound is judged to approach the goal of perfection.

quick - See "fast."

reaction - A counterforce imparted to a speaker enclosure in response to the air resistance to the motion of a moving diaphragm or cone. On a thick carpet, a reacting enclosure will rock slightly back and forth, impairing LF quality and overall detail. See "spike."

realism - A subjective assessment of the degree to which the sound from an audio system approaches that of live music. This has meaning only when the recording purports to reproduce an acoustical event taking place in a real acoustical space. See "quality."

recessed - Very laid-back sounding.  Midrange portion of the sound is much lower than it should be.

reflected sound - A sound which reaches the ears after being reflected from at least one boundary surface. See "critical distance," "far field," "near field," "precedence effect." Compare "direct sound."

resistance - opposes the flow of current.  Expressed in ohms using the letter R.  It is calculated as follows: R= E/I.  

resolution - See "definition."

reticent - Moderately laid-back. Describes the sound of a system whose frequency response is dished-down through the midrange. The opposite of forward.

revealing - Pertaining to a loudspeaker or a system as a whole: Outstandingly detailed and focused; analytical.  Positive term.  Compare "pristine."

reverberation - A diminishing series of echoes spaced sufficiently closely in time that they merge into a smooth decay.

rhythm See "timing."

ringing - The audible effect of a resonance: coloration, smear, shrillness, or boominess.

rolloff (also rollout) - A frequency response which falls gradually above or below a certain frequency limit. By comparison, the term cutoff (often abbreviated to "cut," as in "bass cut") implies an abrupt loss of level above or below the frequency limit.

rosinous (or resinous) - Describes the "zizzy" quality of bowed strings, particularly of cellos or violas.

rotated - The sound of a frequency response that is linear but tilted. See "tilt."

rough - A quality of moderate grittiness, often caused by LP mistracking.

rounding, rounding-off - The shearing-off of sharp attack transients, due to poor transient response or restricted HF range. See "slow," "speed."

row-A sound - Sound which is up-front, forward.

row-M sound - Sound which is laid-back and somewhat distant.

rumble - An extraneous low-frequency noise, often of indeterminate pitch, caused by physical vibration of a turntable or of the room in which a recording was made.

scrape flutter - Roughness and veiling of analog tape sound due to discontinuous movement of the tape across the head ("violining").

screechy - The ultimate stridency, akin to chalk on a blackboard or a razor blade being scraped across a windowpane.

seamless - Having no perceptible discontinuities throughout the audio range.

seismic - Describes bass reproduction which creates an impression that the floor is shaking.

sensitivity - Used to express the ease at which a speaker or headphones produce sound with very little power.  For speakers it is normally expressed as the volume produced with one watt of power and measured at one meter.  With headphones it is measured with one milliwatt of power.  It is expressed in decibels, or dB for short.  Example: fpr headphones: 98dB/1mW; for speakers: 93dB/1W/1m

severe - Very annoying fault that is very audible. See "audibility."

sheen - A rich-sounding overlay of velvety-smooth airiness or guttiness. A quality of outstanding HF smoothness and ease.

shift - See "soundstage shift."

shrill - Strident, steely.

sibilance - A coloration that resembles or exaggerates the vocal s-sound.

silky - Pertains to treble performance that is velvety-smooth, delicate, and open.

silvery - Sound that is slightly hard or steely, but clean.

single-mono - Sound reproduction through a single loudspeaker system. Compare "dual mono."

size - See "width."

sizzly - Emphasis of the frequency range above about 8kHz, which adds sibilance to all sounds, particularly those of cymbals and vocal esses (sibilants).

slam - British for impact.

slap - In an acoustical space, a repeated echo recurring at a rate of about 3 per second, common to moderate-sized, bare-walled acoustical spaces. See "hand-clap test." Compare "fluttery," "plastery."

slight - Easily audible on a good system but not necessarily on a lesser one. See "audibility."

slow Sound reproduction which gives the impression that the system is lagging behind the electrical signals being fed to it. See "fast," "speed," "tracking."

sluggish - Very slow.

smearing, smear - Severe lack of detail and focus.

smooth - Sound reproduction having no irritating qualities; free from HF peaks, easy and relaxing to listen to. Effortless. Not necessarily a positive system attribute if accompanied by a slow, uninvolving character.

snap - A quality of sound reproduction giving an impression of great speed and detail.

sock - A quality of sound reproduction giving a sensation of concussive impact.

soft - Very closed-in, markedly deficient at the extreme high end.

sodden, soggy - Describes bass that is loose and ill-defined. Woolly.

solid-state sound - That combination of sonic attributes common to most solid-state amplifying devices: deep, tight bass, a slightly withdrawn brightness range, and crisply detailed highs.

sonic detail - See "detail."

soundstaging, soundstage presentation - The ability of a system to accurately convey the general or overall size, shape, heigth, width, acoustical characteristics, and depth of the instruments as they were recorded within the space in which they were recorded.  As it were, the soundstage defines the boundaries of the imaging.  If a system creates a soundstage larger than the original recording, this is known as an artificial soundstage.  

soundstage shift - Apparent lateral movement of the soundstage when listening to speakers and moving from either side of sweet spot.

spacious - Presenting a broad panorama of ambience, which may be wider than the distance between the loudspeakers.

sparse - Less cold than "pinched" but more than "thin."

spatiality - The quality of spaciousness.

specific, specificity - The degree to which a phantom image exhibits a definite and unambiguous lateral position, without wander or excessive width.

speed - The apparent rapidity with which a reproducing system responds to steep wave fronts and overall musical pace. See "fast," "slow."

spike - 1) The "tick" sound of a pulse. 2) A sharp-tipped, conical supporting foot which allows the weight of a loudspeaker to be passed through carpeting to rest firmly on the underlying floor. Used to minimize speaker-enclosure reaction.

spiky - Pertains to a coarse texturing of sound characterized by the presence of many rapidly recurring sharp clicks. Like the sound of tearing cloth, only crisper.

spitty - An edgy "ts" coloration which exaggerates musical overtones and sibilants as well as LP surface noise. Usually the result of a sharp response peak in the upper treble range.

spread - See "stereo spread."

state-of-the-art - Pertains to equipment whose performance is as good as the technology allows. The best sound equipment money can buy.

steely - Shrill. Like "hard," but more so.

stentorian - A quality of great power and authority from a loudspeaker; like the voice of God. Loud and attention-getting.

stereo imaging - The production of stable, specific phantom images of correct localization and width. See "soundstaging," "vagueness," "wander."

stereophile - 1) The original magazine of subjective reviewing. 2) An audiophile who owns a stereo system.

stereophonic A two-channel recording or reproducing system. Compare "binaural," "monophonic." See "dual mono," "single mono."

stereo spread - The apparent width of the soundstage and the placement of phantom images within it. Generally, a group of instruments or voices should uniformly occupy the space between the loudspeakers. Compare "beyond-the-speakers imaging," "bunching," "hole-in-the-middle."

stereo stage - The area between and behind the loudspeakers, from which most phantom images are heard.

sterile - Pristinely clean, yet uninvolving music presentation.

strained - Showing signs of audible distress during loud passages, as though the system is verging on overload. Compare "ease," "effortless."

streetsyle/behind-the-neck - describes a headphone design in which the headphones rest with the band behind the neck instead of over the head.

strident - Unpleasantly shrill, piercing in the HF range.

sub-bass - Infrasonic bass.

subjective - Opinion based on a person’s experiences, ears, equipment.

subjectivist - A person who has found that measurements don't tell the whole story about reproduced sound. Compare "mystic," "meter man," "objectivist."

subliminal - Too faint or too subtle to be consciously perceived. Compare "inaudible." See "listening fatigue."

subsonic - Slower than the speed of sound through air. Often used incorrectly to mean infrasonic.

subtle - Barely perceptible on a very good system. See "audibility."

suckout - A deep, narrow frequency-response dip.

supersonic - Faster than the speed of sound through air. Sometimes used incorrectly to mean ultrasonic.

supra-aural - a headphone design in which the ear pads rest directly upon the ears instead of resting upon the parts of the head surrounding the ears.

sweet - Having a smooth, softly delicate high end.

sweet spot - That listening seat from which the best soundstage presentation of speakers is heard. Usually a center seat equidistant from the loudspeakers.

syrupy - Excessively sweet and rich, like maple syrup.

tail - The reverberant decay of a sound in an acoustical space.

taut - In bass reproduction, under tight control of the electrical signal; detailed and free from "hangover."

tempo - The actual number of beats per minute in a musical performance. Compare "pace."

texture, texturing - A perceptible pattern or structure in reproduced sound, even if random in nature. Texturing gives the impression that the energy continuum of the sound is composed of discrete particles, like the grain of a photograph.

thick - Describes sodden or heavy bass.

thin - Very deficient in bass. The result of severe attenuation of the range below 500Hz.

tick - A high-pitched pulse characterized by a very sharp attack followed by a short "i" vowel sound. The most common background noise from analog discs.

tight - 1) Bass reproduction that is well controlled, free from hangover, not slow. 2) Stereo imaging that is specific, stable, and of the correct width. 3) Describes a closely bunched image in A+B double-mono mode that occupies a very narrow space between the loudspeakers.

tilt - 1) To aim the axis of a loudspeaker upward or downward. 2) Across-the-board rotation of an otherwise flat frequency response, so that the device's output increases or decreases at a uniform rate with increasing frequency. A linear frequency-response curve that is not horizontal.

timbre - The recognizable characteristic sound "signature" of a musical instrument, by which it is possible to tell an oboe, for example, from a flute when both are sounding the same note.

timing - The apparent instrumental ensemble (synchronism) of a performance, which is affected by system speed. See "articulation," "rhythm," "pace."

tipped-up - Having a rising high-frequency response.

tizzy - A "zz" or "ff" coloration of the sound of cymbals and vocal sibilants, caused by a rising frequency response above 10kHz. Similar to "wiry," but at a higher frequency.

tonality - In music, the quality of an instrument's tone, often related to the key in which the music is written. In audio, mistakenly used in place of "tonal quality."

tonal quality - The accuracy (correctness) with which reproduced sound replicates the timbres of the original instruments. Compare "tonality."

top - The high treble, the range of audio frequencies above about 8kHz.

toppish - Tipped-up. Slightly "tizzy" or "zippy."

tracking- degree to which a component responds to the dictates of the audio signal, without lag or overshoot.

transient - See "attack transient."

transistor sound, transistory - See "solid-state sound."

transparency, transparent - 1) A quality of sound reproduction that gives the impression of listening through the system to the original sounds, rather than to a pair of loudspeakers. 2) Freedom from veiling, texturing, or any other quality which tends to obscure the signal. A quality of crystalline clarity.

treacly - British for syrupy.

treble - The frequency range above 1.3kHz.

tubby - Having an exaggerated deep-bass range.

tube sound, tubey - That combination of audible qualities which typifies components that use tubes for amplification: Richness and warmth, an excess of midbass, a deficiency of deep bass, outstanding rendition of depth, forward and bright, with a softly sweet high end.

turgid - Thick.

tweak - 1) To fine-tune a system or component to the nth degree in pursuit of perfection. 2) A person who constantly does this in an ultimately vain effort to achieve absolute perfection.

ultrasonic - Beyond the upper-frequency limit of human hearing. Compare "supersonic."

uncolored - Free from audible colorations.

unctuous - Overripe, super-rich, pleas~antly blah.

underdamped - Pertains to the audible effects of inadequate woofer damping. See "damping."

uninvolving - Ho-hum sound. Reproduction which evokes boredom and indifference.

upper bass - The range of frequencies from 80-160Hz.

upper highs, upper treble - The range of frequencies from 10-20kHz.

upper middles, upper midrange - The range of frequencies from 650-1300Hz.

usable response - The frequency limits between which a device sounds as if it is essentially linear, regardless of how it measures.

valve - British word for a vacuum tube.

vague, vagueness - Having poor specificity, confused.

veiled, veiling - Pertaining to a deficiency of detail and focus, due to moderate amounts of distortion, treble-range restriction, or attack rounding.

velvet fog (as in "listening through a...") - Describes a galloping case of haze, wherein virtually all detail and focus are absent.

vertical-venetian-blind effect - See "picket-fencing."

violining - See "scrape flutter."

visceral - Producing a bodily sensation of pressure or concussion.

voltage - The felt difference of electrical potential.  Expressed in volts using the letter E.  Basic Ohm’s law formula to calculate voltage is: E=I*R.

volts - unit of potential energy from a source.  Units of volts are expresses with the letter V or v.

vowel coloration - A form of midrange or low-treble coloration which impresses upon all program material a tonal "flavor" re~sembling a vowel in speech.

wander - Side-to-side vacillation of the apparent position of a stereo image as the instrument plays different notes. Poor imaging stability.

warm - The same as dark, but less tilted. A certain amount of warmth is a normal part of musical sound.

weight - 1) The feeling of solidity and foundation contributed to music by extended, natural bass reproduction. 2) The emphasis assigned to a subjective term by a qualifier.

width - The apparent lateral spread of a stereo image. If appropriately miked when recorded, a reproduced instrument should sound no wider or narrower than it would have sounded originally. See "stereo spread."

wiry - Having an edgy or distorted high end, similar to the "tish" of brushed cymbals, but coloring all sounds reproduced by the system.

withdrawn - Very laid-back.  The extreme of laid-back sounding.

woolly - Pertains to loose, ill-defined bass.

zippy - A slight top-octave emphasis. See "toppy."