One thing this hobby lacks is a well-known and standardized vocabulary for sensory experience. Without that, we have no "Rosetta stone" to communicate about what we are experiencing with this or that component. Even if we had a standard vocabulary, we might still disagree about what sounds "better" or "worse,"
but without some way to designate an experience which is significantly similar, we often wind up miscommunicating.
The "rosetta stone" for the audio vocabulary is in acoustic concepts and listening acoustic experiments... It is there i discovered it for myself...Not at all reading audiophile reviews but more in acoustic books... For example :
A good example for the vocabulary problem is the soundfield of specific recorded source as perceived in the virtual psycho-acoustic space of a room or the psycho-acoustic space perceived from the shell/ cup of an headphone...
I never read a review where the THREE components of the soundfield of the recorded albums are described completely as such :
---Timbre...
---Distortion...
---Immersiveness...
And the three components of the soundfield immersiveness:
---Imaging differentiation of each sound source ...
---Soundstaging global size dimensions of all sound sources together ...
---Holographical ratio between the recorded sound source (ASW) and the recorded listener envelopment (LV) , it is more here about the size dimension of the musical instrument themselves and the perceived spatial VOLUME of each chord in his own space; it is not about their differentiation "per se" or the size dimension of the recorded global stage, but about the way the recording is translated by your brain/ears , translated through the speakers or headphone by a specific volume size for each playing instruments ...
Observe that most of these concepts are acoustical one and not ONLY mere audiophile vocabulary...For example the ASW/LV is a specific acoustic ratio in room acoustic ... i discovered it reading acoustic articles not audiophile reviews at the times where i tune my room mechanical equalizer made on one hundred Helmholtz resonators.. The location of the resonators and not only their absorbtion /diffusive frequencies ratio matter to reach immersiveness and in particular this aspect of immersiveness, the more important one, i called holographical ratio : ASW/LV
If your system is right/wrong acoustically you will feel for example the recorded holographical ratio as intended from your headphones or from your speakers as they can do it by virtue of their acoustic content and properties coming from the specific relation between the drivers properties and the room or shells ...
Now a test : Look for all reviews of headphones anywhere, and cite one where the holographical ratio is described? Good luck... :) Audiophile reviewers never spoke about it or so rarely i dont remember one... ( i only use my AKG K340 now because i go in a smaller house with no space for an acoustic dedicated room as i tuned it myself in my last home )
This ratio is recording dependant, for example chorus recorded in a church generally dont exhibit this ratio the same way a jazz trio did playing and recorded in a small studio.... The recording space in my headphone may be more "out of my Head" partially or completely as if the chorus was there in my room ( not in my head at all ) ... With the jazz trio recording often the soundfield will be "outside of my head" only partially but more "around my head" than "inside my head" but not filling my room as the church chorus did...
With speakers, the soundfield holographical ratio will present different immersive experience: the church recorded chorus may be completely detached from the speakers, extending behind them and/or around me, it is recording dependant,
and with the small jazz trio recorded studio, the soundfield may be more for some part behind the speakers and for some part in front of them , it is microphone dependant for sure and it is dependant of my room acoustic translation ....
This immersiveness is very difficult to reach with speakers in a non dedicated ordinary room.... It is more easier to reach in a dedicated acoustic room....But with headphones this immersiveness we feel with speakers in a good acoustic room, is more difficult to reach, more difficult to reach with headphone than with speakers if possible, why? Most of the times the soundfield is between our ears and in our head not "out of our head" be it completely out or around the head, not merely inside the head , with a perceived volume impression for each instruments chords... Here the acoustic design of the shell and his relation to the driver(s) is the key, and most ordinary headphones , sorry, are not well designed...
Because for the headphones driver the shells/cups chamber are like the room is for the speakers drivers; it is the space content of this two rooms ( the room where are located your speakers and the shells of headphone) and their acoustic properties that make possible the immersiveness experience....
Now read all headphone reviews attentively, you will never read anything directly describing this immersiveness in details... most of the time they spoke about the soundstage only or/ and the imaging...Moast reviewers wrote about bass mids, and highs larger paragraphs... Which is preposterous for me because the TIMBRE acoustic is not an external sums of these three factors, but an internal perceived ONE experience... Is the piano recording translation right about timbre ? i dont want to know if the headphone had more bass or less than some other headphone X, i want to know if the headphone is able to give an organ bass note which will be felt by my body by skeltal resonance or not ?
People having no musical timbre experience nor any acoustic experience go for marketing brand publicity : this headpghone had more bass and less fatiguing highs than this other headphone... This is completely useless, because the difference between two headphones in soundstage, imaging, bass, mids and highs, between headphone X and headphone Z are not enough to give you the real acoustic experience for any other headphone .... Immersiveness three factors especially the third one, the holograpghical ratio, and the timbre experience are the KEY....And these two factors are the less well described in headphones reviews...
The reason is simple : most headphone are not well designed enough to give a clear immersiveness experience...( Because generally headphones are one single driver attached to an empty shell with no acoustic device or content inside )
It is the same thing for the speakers, but for different reasons than only the design box itself, most speakers need a specific passive acoustic treatment and an active acoustic mechanical control of their dedicated room to achieve complete immersiveness and good timbre and their optimal acoustic potential ...