Why do audiophiles shun feedback in amplifiers?

Learsfool, when you are not talking about orchestra musicians, the idea of long scale and short scale basses is well-known. A short-scale bass (electric, BTW) will have a neck about the same length as a guitar. A long-scale bass will have a longer neck, so the translation between the scale for a string bass player to a long-scale bass is about the same.

Long scale and short scale concepts are not used with classical instruments. But there *are* different sizes, at least with basses; I played a half-sized bass in jr. high, but my personal bass was a 3/4 size. As I understand it, full-size basses are rather rare- I don't think I have ever seen one. Most of the basses you see in orchestras are 3/4 size.

Hi Atmasphere - yes, I am of course familiar with 3/4 and 1/2 size instruments in the string world, I had just never heard the term "scale" applied to them, being purely a classical orchestral horn player. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank you again for all your highly informative posts I have read on this board over the last several years. You have a way of putting very technical subjects into layman's terms that is unequaled in my experience.

****But we audiophiles (and closet musician on the side such as myself)
have our own set of terminology that will befuddle most musicians. We use
many different terms to describe the similar, if not the same, thing (eg,
instrument tone, tonality, timbre, overtones, harmonics). ****- Dracule1

Yes, and that is a very real problem. It does befuddle that there should be
so little effort to understand and describe music in the same way (at least
as far as terminology, if not depth) that musicians do. At the end of the
day, this is one of the reasons that the sound of so many audio systems
bears little resemblance to the sound of live music.

Are you suggesting that there is a correlation between the descriptive definitions of musicians and various gear designers and consequently their result? Or just the systems that musicians put together vs. the rest of us?

Not exactly; but more the latter than the former. In the broad sense, what I meant is that I believe that if audiophiles would take it upon themselves to learn more about music at a level of understanding approaching the level of understanding that many reserve for the technical aspects of the playback equipment, their scope would be broadened in a way that would allow them to assemble audio systems that more closely approach the sound of live music; not to mention, enjoy music even more. Unless we dismiss the importance of what we may each learn about equipment via reviews, discussion forums, etc., the importance of using terminology that is universally used is obvious. As far as the more specific sense goes, let's look at some terms that are used frequently used in audiophile descriptive language that are problematic. A couple that come immediately to mind:

"Dynamic"- Often used to mean the ability to play loudly. It has nothing to do with loudness, but rather the way that the sound gets from point A to point B on the volume scale. Is it done seamlessly?

"Accuracy"- It is bad enough that the importance of comparison to live is routinely dismissed. The term is often used as a description without comparison to anything else; simply to connote a quality that is considered to be lean, bright, or lacking warmth (even natural warmth); playback that is "accurate" is anything but.

"Brightness/harshness"- Often confused. Harshness does not have to be bright. It is very possible to have a harsh sound that is too dark; just as it possible to have a bright sound that is round and smooth. Tonality is often confused with texture.

Musical, warm...the list goes on