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What the heck do these terms mean?

I read a lot about audio equipment and some descriptions come up occasionally about the components sound qualities that to me are confusing. Most of the time I regard these descriptions as by someone with little knowledge about audio equipment that are trying to sound impressive.

Most of these terms are used in describing speakers but I have also seen them used on cables, amps , electronics of all sorts etc..
So, can someone help define these common descriptive terms?

1. Treble/ bass is dry- Huh? What does this mean?
2. Treble/bass is wet.- Huh? Again, what does this mean?
3. Organic sounding- Huh, huh?
4. Musical sounding.- What? Compared to non musical sounding?

The last one can be used with just about any description of any component or speaker performance.

There may be more...

ozzy

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ozzy's avatar
ozzy OP
7,197 posts
 
Thank you for help in trying to understand those descriptions. As they all are very subjective to wild interpretations.

When I hear, Musical and Organic terms, to me, they sound like terms trying to describe something for sale or used to impress someone... I mean, who wouldn't want the item to sound "Musical"?  Organic is still a smelly connotation to me.

ozzy
b_limo's avatar
b_limo
2,271 posts
 
I think it’s hard to convey what you hear, thats why these terms exist.

 Organic to me would be the opposite of digital sounding.  I guess it would be a fuller, richer sound with more underlying tones. Organic would be smoother and less etched or zippy.  Organic to me would be LP’s vs CD’s.  Digital playback has become so good though that the lines get blurred.

Musical to me means more warmth or pleasing colorations.  Musical, to me, would be the opposite of Cold, thin and analytical.  Musical has more “meat on the bones” in my opinion.

I suppose we could better describe what we hear if we used terms like attack, decay, compressed, headroom, noise floor, peaks, nulls, palpable, holographic...terms that are easily defined and understood.



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oldhvymec
5,101 posts
 
Crack me up... I love the describers of things.. Cables descriptions get me rollin' on the floor.  I swear, sounds like someone explaining food, to me... Just yummy.... Or Betty built well's Gams. These long, lean, well structured, cables are magnificent... LOL

Regards
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,394 posts
 
Dry, wet, organic, musical - it reminds me color selection in a movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s33ScN4D-HU
ozzy's avatar
ozzy OP
7,197 posts
 
The biggest culprit is Six Moons reviews. They are always full of lots of words that mean very little to my understanding of how the component sounds or relates to another piece of equipment.

ozzy
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