“Faithful to the recording”

I despise when reviewers use those words in describing a piece of equipment unless they were, quite literally, at the recording. Once those words are used, I pretty much stop reading since IMO the reviewer is full of BS.

If they compared the input (recording) to the output from a speaker or amp, like with a graph, then it can make sense.

Otherwise it is hyperbole when used subjectively..

If the step function, or impulse response, of the speaker is not textbook, then it is hard to claim it is faithful.

I agree, but I'd still rather hear 'faithful to the recording' than 'faithful to the performance', which I've always found to be an absurd concept.

Perhaps such terms of praise are best viewed as a measure of the reviewer's enthusiasm rather than an accurate description of what is occurring sonically, although given that each listener perceives and judges sound differently, I'm not sure there is an "objective vocabulary".

Brings to mind the Les McCann lyric "Tryin' to make it real compared to what". . . as in, what would you all rather hear from reviewers?

@stuartk  maybe that's why I seldom read a review anymore, except to sometimes get specs and prices of something I find interesting.

"Faithful to a recording"means nothing...or almost nothing at best.... 😁😊

i agree...

But there is a misconception in all audio...

Some claim that an ideal speaker set for example COULD be faithful to the recording...

This is also meaningless, not because there is no perfect speakers, but because these alleged perfect speakers must be located in a SPECIFIC IMPERFECT room with his acoustic content and acoustic geography...

The goal in audio is the creation/translation of this music/sound from one acoustical context, which is the RELATIVE perspective of the recording process on a lived event, to be translated in the psycho-acoustic geography of your room which is also a relative acoustic and esthetic perspective from and on the recording event ....

All this meaningless descriptions about absolute fidelity and "reproduction" instead of the more correct TRANSLATION word, come from the gear market publicity and sellers(reviewers)..,

And also from the forgetfulness that between the specific trade-off choices during recording process, there is TWO acoustic perspectives, the specific perspective of a listener seating at the original lived event, and the perspective of the listener with the play back gear in relation with his specific room and ears...

Then this misconception about being " faithful to the recording" it did not come from acoustic experience for sure , but from gear sellers...

And the desesperate pursuit toward some new piece of gear allegedly able to be more "faithful to the recording" erase the importance of room acoustic out of the equation at worst and at best put it in the secondary position completely, a minor necessity instead of the center of the experience itself, which it is...

Selling is not always educating....it is also unvolontarily deception of ourself to begin with....