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Your vote: Most Useless Audio Adjective

From what I've seen in online audio discussion forums such as Audiogon, words like warm, taut, wooly, and forward can upset even died in the wool audiophiles. While some may have a hard time getting their arms around them, most of the terms seem quite appropriate to me. You have to develop some list of terms in order to convey a description of a component's sonics, or to delineate it from another component.

However, I have noticed the description "self effacing" creeping into more and more reviews, and it flat out boggles my mind. Initially, it seemed to fit into the context it was being used - affordable or downright cheap gear, that was fun and lively. However, now that I've read the term being used to describe quite a serious piece of high end kit, the time has come to point out how ridiculous things are getting.

I had to laugh out loud thinking of the snootiest, most condescending audio dealer I know who was carrying this brand. Using the term "self effacing" with anything had to do with this guy was akin to describing Phyllis Diller a young, hot sex symbol.

What is your most useless audio adjective???
trelja
zenblaster
504 posts
 
Easy..."minty" I will not purchase anything described as "minty" on general principle. It sounds like a word an interior designer would use to describe the Mojito he just shared with his fashionista hair designer at the latest popular gay bar! Not something even remotely related to anything audio. Just stop using it idiots! Please!!
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learsfool
1,215 posts
 
Didn't read through this whole thread, but my least favorite term in the audiophile world is "neutral." Speaking as a professional musician, I certainly wouldn't ever want that term applied to a performance, either of live or recorded music. Yes, I do understand why reviewers use it, I just think it is silly, as live music is most certainly not neutral, and one would never want it to be.

Dracule1, I have never heard a musician use the term "tonal color." We all use the term "tone color," and this term always refers to timbre, not pitch.
audiofeil
4,011 posts
 
How about "hot stamper".

Especially from sellers who don't have a clue.

Check him out.
trelja OP
3,223 posts
 
Fatiguing, jaw dropping, and neutral are all in the spirit of things!

Though fatiguing has become more than ubiquitous, it's true, a shrill or bright system doesn't leave anyone I know fatigued. Annoyed, irritated, or wincing, yes. Fatiguied, no.

Grant, you really hit the nail on the head. I've heard a lot of systems like so many of us. Never has my jaw ever dropped. I've been suprised or impressed, and sometimes, incredibly so, but never to the point where I was 1% close to jaw dropping. I find tracking those who tend to use it to demonstrate over time why I need to take their opinion with a grain of sale. My favorite is when someone makes what many would deem a small change, and then uses the term jaw dropping. Reviewers are probably more guilty of this than anyone, which is why reviews have become so utterly worthless. This phrase should hereby be outlawed, and I say we get involved whenever we see someone use it here.

Neutral, should be relegated to a term like accurate; something I always feel the need to challenge. I have no idea how accurate or inaccurate a component is, and I've never met anyone who had any competence in doing so, despite their confidence in being able to. Likewise, the more I think about it, as much as the term neutral is used, the less I feel any component could be described as neutral. Even the so called straight wire with gain component to impart some identifiable sonic signature. Well, perhaps a passive preamplifier comes closest to being deserving...

Bill, is a hot stamper worse than a box mover?
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