Review terms

[mshump]

Good Morning all !! I thought it would be a good idea for us that are trying to move to high end to understand some of the terms used during listening reviews etc. For example "simblance" "palpability" "fast" Tiring" "Jitter" these are just a few I've heard and I'm sure there are many many more . Thanks for all your input !!!

[garbulky]

Well unfortunately most of them are hard to define. They are subjective terms. Sibilance is where the "s" pronounciation is emphasized too much. Jitter refers to timing errors where the bits arrive at incorrect times. What it sounds like is anybody's guess but the general impression I get is that it's a sort of smearing or murkiness to the sound. Tiring simply means just that, the listener got tired of listening to the sound. Fast is a little easier of course it means different things for different people. For me it means that it can produce sounds with no, uh, smearing (sigh). As in the sound doesn't get blurred with the rest of the sound especially in a sudden dynamic passage. Usually in dynamic passages one will hear just a single focus (the loud sound) while the subtle details get lost. So fast means that for me. It could also mean for instance in rapid drum beats that each beat is produced very clearly.
Palpability means how real it feels. Does the music feel like a recording out of speakers or can you reach out and touch them - real. Do the speakers dissapear?
For me an important description is "tone". As in how close to the tone of the real thing is the music sound like. For instance my behringer uca 202 ($30) is one excellent deal as a DAC. But it has a very slight treble upshift. It's subtle. But when compared to my xda-1, the behringer sounds more clear likely due to this IMO. But which is the better DAC, that would be the xda-1 as its more neutral response allows a more natural tone of musical instruments. They sounded more like the real thing to me.

Now something that I still don't understand is PRAT - pace rhythm and timing.

[mshump]

Thanks garbulky.

Any other terms from anyone could help also ! I read through the threads and see quite a few terms even describing items or specs and can figure out most but there are some so anything anybody can add to help educate would be much appreciated !!!

[DYohn]

www.rane.com/digi-dic.html

The best audio terminology dictionary on the webz.

[KeithL]

I've got to chime in with a bit more on this one....

There is nothing subjective about audio signals. There is nothing mystical that cannot be measured or quantified. As I like to say "if you hear a difference when measurements say there is no difference - then you just aren't measuring the right thing".

There are different types and "flavors" of jitter. A lot of jitter tends to blur the sound, which contributes to some of those other hard-to-name things... like "speed" and "focus". The easiest way to hear this sort of thing is to listen to something with wire-brush cymbals. If there's a lot of jitter (or some other problems), a cymbal hit will sound more like a steam release valve than like a bunch of pieces of wire hitting a piece of metal (presumably because the individual "hits" that make up the "tizz" sound get blurred together). How much this matters to you will depend on what you listen to. Even ridiculous amounts of jitter are inaudible on things like voice tracks or organ music (at least to me). It will also depend on your speakers (some speakers simply don't let you hear slight differences of this type. Our Airmotivs are VERY revealing of this sort of shortcomings.)

Different choices in digital filter design can also result in differences in whether specific types of sounds and frequency ranges are slightly blurred. If you listen to a DAC that offers multiple filter choices, you will hear the differences mostly in terms of "high frequency blurring" and high frequency rolloff. Some common choices mask the blurring introduced by less-than-perfect encoding, but at the cost of a lot of rolloff of audible high frequencies. Rather than offer a range of filters that sound different, we chose to simply use the one that is most correct

With apologies to certain folks, it is obvious from a technical standpoint that the whole "PRAT" (pace rhythm and timing) idea is not "real" (or, more accurately, it is an inaccurate characterization for a legitimate acoustic effect). Virtually ALL digital recording equipment sold today is absurdly accurate in terms of speed and pitch. Maybe an old cassette deck could get the speed wrong, or shift the pitch, but even the cheapest CD player will get it right to within a few THOUSANDTHS of a percent. You may hear a pitch shift with a defective turntable, or with a dub that originated on an old (and off-speed) tape, but no CD player is going to play a CD at the wrong speed, and neither will a digital player unless it's broken.

My guess here (which I know is true for me) is that what most people are actually hearing is a slight softening of transients. If transients are softened, or a shift in harmonic content makes things like drum hits seem less sharp, then music SEEMS to be "moving slower" or have "less excitement" - which we perceive as it's "being slower in pace". (This is that scale of how much you want to tap your foot in time to the music.) Now, you could get this effect by poor frequency response, or by poor phase response in a speaker, or by a badly designed digital filter in a DAC - and less so from a poorly designed amplifier that couldn't deliver enough oomph to accurately reproduce those transients. It is not, however, an actual difference in the rhythm or pace of the music - that is an "audio optical illusion".

And I think something similar is what's going on with "tone". No DAC, or amplifier, or speaker, is going to change the frequency of a note (its pitch). They can, however, alter the harmonic content such that it seems like the pitch is different (remove a lot of upper harmonics and the "overall tone" sounds like it's lower in pitch). Time blurring also affects the perceived frequency response of a device. If you have a DAC with a poor digital filter that blurs high frequencies like cymbals, they will sometimes seem like their level is too low (even though the actual frequency response is flat, we perceive the blurred cymbal as being "less there" than when it is sharp, and so we "hear" it as rolled off, even though measurements show that it isn't.) This is why better DACs often seem like they have slightly boosted high frequencies even though measurements prove that they are actually flat.

I think a lot of the confusing terms we see are simply failed attempts to convey "effects" like this by people who don't fully understand them...

Unfortunately, this leads to a lot of confusion....

[Andrew Robinson]

As a reviewer (or perhaps former full-time reviewer) I've always found it quite humorous the adjectives writers invent or use in order to describe a sound or feeling. For whatever reason, over time, these terms or phrases have become increasingly obtuse -no doubt a ploy to make the author appear "superior" to their reader. While many of these terms have become somewhat universal in the specialty AV space, their usage or meaning -as you're discovering -is anything but universal.

[monkumonku]

May 8, 2013 11:35:15 GMT -5 KeithL said:

I've got to chime in with a bit more on this one....

There is nothing subjective about audio signals. There is nothing mystical that cannot be measured or quantified. As I like to say "if you hear a difference when measurements say there is no difference - then you just aren't measuring the right thing".

There are different types and "flavors" of jitter. A lot of jitter tends to blur the sound, which contributes to some of those other hard-to-name things... like "speed" and "focus". The easiest way to hear this sort of thing is to listen to something with wire-brush cymbals. If there's a lot of jitter (or some other problems), a cymbal hit will sound more like a steam release valve than like a bunch of pieces of wire hitting a piece of metal (presumably because the individual "hits" that make up the "tizz" sound get blurred together). How much this matters to you will depend on what you listen to. Even ridiculous amounts of jitter are inaudible on things like voice tracks or organ music (at least to me). It will also depend on your speakers (some speakers simply don't let you hear slight differences of this type. Our Airmotivs are VERY revealing of this sort of shortcomings.)

I agree, there is no "mystical" thing that is beyond measurement that differentiates gear A from gear B. That's simply an excuse to justify a conclusion when nothing else makes sense.

As for the Airmotiv's being revealing - I just want to chime in and say that has been my experience so far. I have a pair of 4's that have superb detail, just like how Keith described. That led me to buy the Stealth 8's and the same holds true for them - excellent detail. I'll be posting my review after I can listen to them more this weekend but so far, I'm really pleased and impressed. If anyone is on the fence about buying the 8's, my opinion is come down from your fences and open the gate. There will be a rainbow above you. ;D

[DYohn]

Hey Keith, if I say "right on" about your post will that reveal my age? Oh to hell with it. Right on!!

[Deleted]

Keith rocks!!

-RW-

[geebo]

May 8, 2013 11:35:15 GMT -5 KeithL said:

I've got to chime in with a bit more on this one....

There is nothing subjective about audio signals. There is nothing mystical that cannot be measured or quantified. As I like to say "if you hear a difference when measurements say there is no difference - then you just aren't measuring the right thing".

There are different types and "flavors" of jitter. A lot of jitter tends to blur the sound, which contributes to some of those other hard-to-name things... like "speed" and "focus". The easiest way to hear this sort of thing is to listen to something with wire-brush cymbals. If there's a lot of jitter (or some other problems), a cymbal hit will sound more like a steam release valve than like a bunch of pieces of wire hitting a piece of metal (presumably because the individual "hits" that make up the "tizz" sound get blurred together). How much this matters to you will depend on what you listen to. Even ridiculous amounts of jitter are inaudible on things like voice tracks or organ music (at least to me). It will also depend on your speakers (some speakers simply don't let you hear slight differences of this type. Our Airmotivs are VERY revealing of this sort of shortcomings.)

Different choices in digital filter design can also result in differences in whether specific types of sounds and frequency ranges are slightly blurred. If you listen to a DAC that offers multiple filter choices, you will hear the differences mostly in terms of "high frequency blurring" and high frequency rolloff. Some common choices mask the blurring introduced by less-than-perfect encoding, but at the cost of a lot of rolloff of audible high frequencies. Rather than offer a range of filters that sound different, we chose to simply use the one that is most correct

With apologies to certain folks, it is obvious from a technical standpoint that the whole "PRAT" (pace rhythm and timing) idea is not "real" (or, more accurately, it is an inaccurate characterization for a legitimate acoustic effect). Virtually ALL digital recording equipment sold today is absurdly accurate in terms of speed and pitch. Maybe an old cassette deck could get the speed wrong, or shift the pitch, but even the cheapest CD player will get it right to within a few THOUSANDTHS of a percent. You may hear a pitch shift with a defective turntable, or with a dub that originated on an old (and off-speed) tape, but no CD player is going to play a CD at the wrong speed, and neither will a digital player unless it's broken.

My guess here (which I know is true for me) is that what most people are actually hearing is a slight softening of transients. If transients are softened, or a shift in harmonic content makes things like drum hits seem less sharp, then music SEEMS to be "moving slower" or have "less excitement" - which we perceive as it's "being slower in pace". (This is that scale of how much you want to tap your foot in time to the music.) Now, you could get this effect by poor frequency response, or by poor phase response in a speaker, or by a badly designed digital filter in a DAC - and less so from a poorly designed amplifier that couldn't deliver enough oomph to accurately reproduce those transients. It is not, however, an actual difference in the rhythm or pace of the music - that is an "audio optical illusion".

And I think something similar is what's going on with "tone". No DAC, or amplifier, or speaker, is going to change the frequency of a note (its pitch). They can, however, alter the harmonic content such that it seems like the pitch is different (remove a lot of upper harmonics and the "overall tone" sounds like it's lower in pitch). Time blurring also affects the perceived frequency response of a device. If you have a DAC with a poor digital filter that blurs high frequencies like cymbals, they will sometimes seem like their level is too low (even though the actual frequency response is flat, we perceive the blurred cymbal as being "less there" than when it is sharp, and so we "hear" it as rolled off, even though measurements show that it isn't.) This is why better DACs often seem like they have slightly boosted high frequencies even though measurements prove that they are actually flat.

I think a lot of the confusing terms we see are simply failed attempts to convey "effects" like this by people who don't fully understand them...

Unfortunately, this leads to a lot of confusion....

A very chocolatey explanation I must say. ;D

[monkumonku]

May 8, 2013 12:26:52 GMT -5 geebo said:

May 8, 2013 11:35:15 GMT -5 KeithL said:

I've got to chime in with a bit more on this one....

There is nothing subjective about audio signals. There is nothing mystical that cannot be measured or quantified. As I like to say "if you hear a difference when measurements say there is no difference - then you just aren't measuring the right thing".

There are different types and "flavors" of jitter. A lot of jitter tends to blur the sound, which contributes to some of those other hard-to-name things... like "speed" and "focus". The easiest way to hear this sort of thing is to listen to something with wire-brush cymbals. If there's a lot of jitter (or some other problems), a cymbal hit will sound more like a steam release valve than like a bunch of pieces of wire hitting a piece of metal (presumably because the individual "hits" that make up the "tizz" sound get blurred together). How much this matters to you will depend on what you listen to. Even ridiculous amounts of jitter are inaudible on things like voice tracks or organ music (at least to me). It will also depend on your speakers (some speakers simply don't let you hear slight differences of this type. Our Airmotivs are VERY revealing of this sort of shortcomings.)

Different choices in digital filter design can also result in differences in whether specific types of sounds and frequency ranges are slightly blurred. If you listen to a DAC that offers multiple filter choices, you will hear the differences mostly in terms of "high frequency blurring" and high frequency rolloff. Some common choices mask the blurring introduced by less-than-perfect encoding, but at the cost of a lot of rolloff of audible high frequencies. Rather than offer a range of filters that sound different, we chose to simply use the one that is most correct

With apologies to certain folks, it is obvious from a technical standpoint that the whole "PRAT" (pace rhythm and timing) idea is not "real" (or, more accurately, it is an inaccurate characterization for a legitimate acoustic effect). Virtually ALL digital recording equipment sold today is absurdly accurate in terms of speed and pitch. Maybe an old cassette deck could get the speed wrong, or shift the pitch, but even the cheapest CD player will get it right to within a few THOUSANDTHS of a percent. You may hear a pitch shift with a defective turntable, or with a dub that originated on an old (and off-speed) tape, but no CD player is going to play a CD at the wrong speed, and neither will a digital player unless it's broken.

My guess here (which I know is true for me) is that what most people are actually hearing is a slight softening of transients. If transients are softened, or a shift in harmonic content makes things like drum hits seem less sharp, then music SEEMS to be "moving slower" or have "less excitement" - which we perceive as it's "being slower in pace". (This is that scale of how much you want to tap your foot in time to the music.) Now, you could get this effect by poor frequency response, or by poor phase response in a speaker, or by a badly designed digital filter in a DAC - and less so from a poorly designed amplifier that couldn't deliver enough oomph to accurately reproduce those transients. It is not, however, an actual difference in the rhythm or pace of the music - that is an "audio optical illusion".

And I think something similar is what's going on with "tone". No DAC, or amplifier, or speaker, is going to change the frequency of a note (its pitch). They can, however, alter the harmonic content such that it seems like the pitch is different (remove a lot of upper harmonics and the "overall tone" sounds like it's lower in pitch). Time blurring also affects the perceived frequency response of a device. If you have a DAC with a poor digital filter that blurs high frequencies like cymbals, they will sometimes seem like their level is too low (even though the actual frequency response is flat, we perceive the blurred cymbal as being "less there" than when it is sharp, and so we "hear" it as rolled off, even though measurements show that it isn't.) This is why better DACs often seem like they have slightly boosted high frequencies even though measurements prove that they are actually flat.

I think a lot of the confusing terms we see are simply failed attempts to convey "effects" like this by people who don't fully understand them...

Unfortunately, this leads to a lot of confusion....

A very chocolatey explanation I must say. ;D

I found it more organic, myself. Your cheesecake to my mousse.

[The Mad Norseman]

May 8, 2013 8:00:00 GMT -5 mshump said:

Good Morning all !! I thought it would be a good idea for us that are trying to move to high end to understand some of the terms used during listening reviews etc. For example "simblance" "palpability" "fast" Tiring" "Jitter" these are just a few I've heard and I'm sure there are many many more . Thanks for all your input !!!

Right!
But also don't forget those other well worn techincal terms like:
Airy, open, detailed, lovely, wide, wonderful, fluid, musical, imaging, slamming, sophisticated, silky, relaxed, and "Gee!, that's just darn nice!"

[stiehl11]

May 8, 2013 11:35:15 GMT -5 KeithL said:

And I think something similar is what's going on with "tone". No DAC, or amplifier, or speaker, is going to change the frequency of a note (its pitch). They can, however, alter the harmonic content such that it seems like the pitch is different (remove a lot of upper harmonics and the "overall tone" sounds like it's lower in pitch). Time blurring also affects the perceived frequency response of a device. If you have a DAC with a poor digital filter that blurs high frequencies like cymbals, they will sometimes seem like their level is too low (even though the actual frequency response is flat, we perceive the blurred cymbal as being "less there" than when it is sharp, and so we "hear" it as rolled off, even though measurements show that it isn't.) This is why better DACs often seem like they have slightly boosted high frequencies even though measurements prove that they are actually flat.

Before the days of digital audio (or, at least at their beginning) to have a real-world example of harmonics altering the perceived pitch we used an old organ that was in one of our practice rooms. This particular organ, and unique to the campus, with the right stops pulled could create notes with very little harmonic overtones. This created a very odd sounding chromatic scale that sounded flat on certain notes but were dead-on accurate when checked to the electric tuner; much to the amazement of the students.

[stiehl11]

May 8, 2013 12:51:31 GMT -5 monkumonku said:

May 8, 2013 12:26:52 GMT -5 geebo said:

A very chocolatey explanation I must say. ;D

I found it more organic, myself. Your cheesecake to my mousse.

I'll take the cheesecake, most mice taste a bit gamey to me.

[Deleted]

May 8, 2013 11:35:26 GMT -5 Andrew Robinson said:

As a reviewer (or perhaps former full-time reviewer) I've always found it quite humorous the adjectives writers invent or use in order to describe a sound or feeling. For whatever reason, over time, these terms or phrases have become increasingly obtuse -no doubt a ploy to make the author appear "superior" to their reader. While many of these terms have become somewhat universal in the specialty AV space, their usage or meaning -as you're discovering -is anything but universal.

+1..Well said Sir! and too the point if I may say.

Carl

[geebo]

May 8, 2013 13:01:19 GMT -5 stiehl11 said:

May 8, 2013 12:51:31 GMT -5 monkumonku said:

I found it more organic, myself. Your cheesecake to my mousse.

I'll take the cheesecake, most mice taste a bit gamey to me.

Okay...how about chocolate cheesecakey?

[stiehl11]

May 8, 2013 14:32:12 GMT -5 geebo said:

May 8, 2013 13:01:19 GMT -5 stiehl11 said:

I'll take the cheesecake, most mice taste a bit gamey to me.

Okay...how about chocolate cheesecakey?

Now if you can just get that into a glass of beer.... ;D

[monkumonku]

May 8, 2013 14:32:12 GMT -5 geebo said:

May 8, 2013 13:01:19 GMT -5 stiehl11 said:

I'll take the cheesecake, most mice taste a bit gamey to me.

Okay...how about chocolate cheesecakey?

I think that would cause the sound to be too bloated and syrupy.

[geebo]

May 8, 2013 15:04:15 GMT -5 monkumonku said:

May 8, 2013 14:32:12 GMT -5 geebo said:

Okay...how about chocolate cheesecakey?

I think that would cause the sound to be too bloated and syrupy.

And adding the beer requested by David, it would become pilsnery.

[mshump]

Thanks for all the help so far !!