Audiophile terminology, what does it mean?

Yes these are all descriptors used to compare and contrast things with each other not general definitions in the hobby

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What about weight and shape (roundness, bluntness)…or are those more combinations of others?

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So I already have weight handled under density, but shape is a good one, I think roundness would be something worthwhile to add, let me do that

There, 35, I’m not adding any more in fear I actually have to use this lol

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Youre already about 15 past whete i would he gone so that feels apropriate :joy:

I was actually going to come here to see what people think about two descriptors that i think can be very close. Tactility and texture.

For me:

Tactility: The feel you get similar to as if you were in the physical same space as an instrument. IE: finger picking guitars. When that string is being pulled back and abruptly released, you feel that string’s weight snapping to create the sound and the associated burst of air as it is produced from that motion. Or a piano when the hammers mass creaks to motion to hit a string.

Texture: The feel of “grit” or lack thereof. Harder to explain but hopefully examples help. IE: back to the picking guitar. When that steel string is vibrating, you feel/hear the scratch of the tiny windings on that string all vibrating to compose the overall note. Nylon strings would produce that note but with a smoother texture. Or a cello / fiddle, as the instrument is played with a bow you can hear in the texture the sound is being created by the bow pulling back the strings and vibrating due to these micro releases of tension.

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Makes sense to me, I personally somewhat just mix both of those together into texture, but I can see how separating them can be valuable

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As long as I am not on a totally different track.

And some of this overlaps with timbre, or really, may be parts of what composes timbre.

Let me know how you guys would interpret this example. Is it Imaging, or is it just Precision of Staging.

Ex: there is a sound that keeps moving back and forth left to right. On headphone A you can hear it and have a decent idea where the object is as it pans, but mostly you know when its going left or right in more general terms. On headphone B you can make out exactly where it is at any time in the pan.

Does that make it so headphone B has better imaging or is it just more precise staging.

Extra credit: if you can now hear on B that the object also has some depth change, but cannot hear that on A, does that change the term used to describe it?

If there’s no depth or placement in a 3d space and it’s just directly stereo moving from one side to the other, then it would just be imaging imo

That would probably signal that it’s overall spatially stronger, so now factoring in things like depth, placement accuracy, etc

Here’s my audiophile terminoloy…

High-Fidelity.

No, I don’t mean the turn of the century movie, I mean listening to music while on a euphoric and chilled out marijuana high. Your $2k chain will sound like $20k and your $20k chain will sound like $200k. I can’t explain it but it’s the only time I can without a doubt listen to my music, with the utmost of that “being there” listening experience.

If you’re lucky enough to have that $200k chain… let me know what a $2 million chain sounds like. lol

It’s cheaper too.

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Btw a widely used term, “fun” when referring to gear is typically what they call V shapes. I hate how that’s such a widely used term for gear when it’s got a V shaped frequency response.

First of all frequency isn’t the end all and be all for what one enjoys on gear and even if it is to you it does not mean that a V shaped response is something you consider to be fun

I’ve always taken fun as something just being exaggerated, as in if something is fun in let’s say dynamics it would be dynamically exaggerated (like an elex), or fun stage being exaggerated in some aspect (like an 800s) , etc. I guess my way of defining it would end up somewhat feeding into that v = fun since that’s a frequency response I’d consider exaggerated, but I personally don’t tend to use fun on it’s own and only in context of a specific aspect rather than just calling something overall “fun”.

But I’d agree that is is basically used to describe a v shape most of the time and just applied to headphones only because of that, totally ignoring other aspects of a headphone what people could consider “fun” about it, it’s a tough term though, because fun will really really depend on the person so it’s something that’s pretty useless on it’s own

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Yeah I like the way in which you use it. But man they really do that word dirty bro

Nah bro you’re just a v shape hater, only real fun fans know

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***subtly changes title on recent article
:joy:

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Fun means it’s enjoyable.

But something enjoyable isn’t always fun per se, something can be satisfying which is enjoyable but doesn’t exactly always mean/imply fun, at least that’s how I’d view it lol, no idea, just think using them as interchangeable isn’t how most people would, I view fun as a more lively enjoyable, something more entertaining than enjoyable if that makes sense?

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I get it, and I don’t think you’re splitting hairs. some people think it’s fun watch scary movies. Satisfying to me means more of a ticking of the box of a certain requirement where if the box isn’t ticked, well then you’ve not reached that satisfaction.

Pleasurable, satisfaction, fun can be used as synonyms but then again not really. :upside_down_face:

From an anthropological audiophile’s pov, it’s really good to have these discussions because even with great articles and great descriptions we’re still left no entirely interpreting things in the same manner.

Ah that’s true, in that case enjoyment would be more attached to satisfaction as in that enjoyment comes from the satisfaction, makes sense

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I think you guys are going too deep with the word aspect of this lol. It’s like the whole joy vs happiness thing. I think that defining a special sonic characteristic as fun is indeed great for maybe some extra, or slightly ecagerrated aspect of something. Obviously slam factor etc etc fills that word role properly