Your vote: Most Useless Audio Adjective

Restock, Not really, a stereo system is meant to replicate recorded music. It produces sound. The music is in the recorded performance. I can hear the 'music' in a poor system or a very advanced system, even if the output from the speaker is rolled off, bloated, shrill etc.

As a descriptive term, I believe it is usually connected with someone's attempt to describe a system as smooth with a neutral to warmish tone. But, its just undescriptive as everyone has their own opinion of what sounds 'musical' to them. Some would strike my assumption that 'musical' connotes any warmth. That to be 'musical' it must be 'neutral', which of course to me would suggest that in their definition 'accuracy' equates 'musicality'.

Rather than 'musical' why not for example 'the upper bass/lower mid-range is a tad warmer than normal, the mid-range is smooth and transitions into the highs without any upper midrange emphasis, and the highs are detailed and airy with out being bright? (Or what ever combination of adjectives you care to decide to use which would define your use of the term 'musical').

Were you to use your own specific terms I could then apply my knowledge of the components in your system to decide whether or not your opinion would be useful to me, but when you just say its musical I really don't have a clue about what it is that makes it 'musical'.

To me saying a product is 'musical' is much the same as saying its a 'killer', 'beats all', choose your own superlative, but you get the idea.

I don't know if this makes sense to you, its JMHO.

PLUMY, who the hell came up with THAT???

Minty -- reminds me of a few lines from a Steven Leacock story "She had a face that was so face like in appearance as to be absolutely facial."

The word minty makes me hope for the days when matter can be transfered through the ether so I can slap the person using the word minty.

most adjectives are ambiguous because they are subjective and have idiosyncratic conotations.

for example, "bright". what does it mean ? i believe, it means a peak in the range 100hz to 3000hz ?

what does it mean to someone else ?

also, how does one translate a qualitative variable into a quantitative one ?

nouns and description are easier to understand.

another problem is that most adjectives are threshold based. this means that it depends upon someone's ability to perceive changes in "sound". if 2 listeners are reporting an experience of auditioning a stereo system, one may say "i hear thinness", while the other may disagree.

there is the issue of aural acuity and what constitutes thinness to each listener.

thus, there are too many variables involved in using an adjective which reduces the clarity of communication.

even a simple description such as " i hear an excess of treble harmonics" and is subjective and not necessarily replicable.

such a statement is preferable to "i hear brightness" .