My pet peeve: "revealing" speakers


The one word that bugs me the most in all of the audiophile world is "revealing." 

It's plenty descriptive but it's also biased.  What I mean is that speakers that are revealing are also usually quite colored. They don't unveil a recording, they focus your attention by suppressing some tones and enhancing others. The reviewer who suddenly discovers hearing things he has never heard before and now goes through his entire library has fallen for this trap hook line and sinker.

This is not always true, as some speakers are revealing by ignoring the room.  They can remain tonally neutral but give you a headphone like experience.  I'm not talking about them.  I'm talking about the others.  I  wish we had a better word for it.

Mind you, I believe you should buy speakers based on your personal preferences.  Revealing, warm, neutral, whatever.  I'm just saying this word is deceptive, as if there were no down side when there is. 

Best,

Erik
erik_squires
djones51 - I'll take a pair of Dutch and Dutch 8c in white/white.
What an unusual port, they do look pretty, no doubt about it.
The most revealing thing is how many definitions of revealing audiophiles have. 
And the Inuit people have some 80+ varied descriptors for ’snow’.

Your point?
My point is good luck with both. PEople make things much harder and more complicated than they often need be. But it does make for an interesting discussion.  Is "revealing" really so controversial?    That is revealing.  :-)
"Revealing" is for me what a good audio system reveals from itself, through the room acoustic, through the noise floor level, and through mechanical influences....

"Resolving" is more linked to the source recording and his translation by the embedded audio system.....

Then an audio system reveal something of itself, of the room and of the house, through his resolving power "working" in his own way to be true to the recording source....

There is always a balance between the revealing and the resolving peower.... No speakers can resolve "per se" in the absolute without revealing some intrinsic limitations of his own design and at the same time extrinsic one linked to the gear, room, house etc...

This is why i speak about a "living" sound, between an " ideal" neutral and a "bad" coloration.... Neutral is not always good, and coloration not always bad, when you inhabit specific conditions....

There is a trade-off between generic design and specific conditions.....