Hi Fi mumbo jumbo

It gets interesting when reading about those little tweaks.
Sure proper attention to set up can make a difference, and if enough reviews are favourable to those more esoteric touches - like fuses, wall resonators, quantum dots etc. Has spurred me on to find out for myself.
You can’t imagine how bad the system would sound without them.

I thought Fragrantica was bad enough, but this takes verbiage to a new level

Thanks for your further description FR, that does help, especially read with @NO-QUARTER’s description “like as if you were standing in the first two rows on the floor at a concert”. @Simon-in-Suffolk referred to no attenuation in the 2-4KHz range, which as one would not normally expect attenuation anywhere suggests attenuation above and below that range, which if correct in effect is like emphasising that range. I now have a better understanding of what is meant …I think!

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Reminds me of wine critic Jilly Goolden who delighted in describing wines as having undertones of leather, tarmac and manure from farmyards! All I can remember thinking is who the bloody hell would want to drink that! Wine buffs and hifi critics certainly seem to share the ability to speak absolute bo**ox.

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@NigelB - blimey :expressionless:

Isn’t this always going to be a problem with subjective experiences described by words that have more than one meaning, as most words in the English language have. I try and read each reviewers comments aginst their last review where possible, it gives a grading system for that reviewer. I always wonder what it is I ( we) are trying to achieve when listening. Do I want to hear Pavorotti clear his throat under the cover of a sweeping orchestral passage, before he sings again, showing just how precise my system is, or do I just want to hear whatever I hear when I attend a live performance?

Did Mozart intend us to hear each musical instrument individually, or was he aiming for a wall of sound?

It’s all subjectively recieved and if we can strip out the bllx in the reviews we are still left with the best attempt at describing that subjective experience.

Take the reviews as a personal comparison and use them as a starting point.

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The tasting notes are combined from the impressions of a panel so there’s more than one persons impressions there, it also like the whisky is unfiltered and undiluted.

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Its all personal interpretation. Pre inter web we had to wait months for the Northern Hemisphere Hi Fi Mags to get down here so things were very different as compared to now. My favourite was the Audiophile Mag. Always waiting in anticipation for the latest, usually they would all turn up on the shelves at the same time so I’d tour around various shops to see who had which publications…Hi Fi in them days meant getting out and about, hunting down information. CD players competed directly with TT’s/Cartridges and Phono Stages. FM tuners were still the holy grail. Exciting times so all these Hi Fi terms were taken in and had meaning. Probably a little different to each individual. They haven’t just turned up by accident.
Edit: Its only now that I’m enjoying my Naim gear that all that stuff has far less importance…is it my age? Is it Naim? Who knows.

Cosmetics industry advertisements…pseudo-pseudoscience*.

  • The two pseudos do not cancel each other out!

I like that, pseudo pseudo science! Now I wonder if anyone can find any examples in hifi marketing, which after all seems in some areas to have a similar approach to that of cosmetic marketing…

At least hifi speak makes some kind of sense, this is just cobblers!!

As long as there is never ‘pro-vitamin B complex to enhance the vitality of your electrical contacts’ we should consider ourselves fortunate.

Isn’t that the new Chord cleaner!

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@PatM
I kind of agree but, journo’s have a living to make and must find new superlatives to keep attention grabbing, and that’s without the added pressure of being first on the list to get the bestest newest hi-fi components to test. On forums it should be slightly different but again it’s subjective. I may have upset the forum by suggesting that my 202 is better than my 112, but not wow better. That may be my ears or my system not giving the 202 the conditions it likes, but it is still true to me, if not others. Forum members (on any forum) tend to be more honest with their comments and trawling through a number of them helps to get a fair judgement for me.

It’s a learning curve isn’t it ?
When faced against a foreign discipline, with its own language and rules.
Takes some time and experience to decipher what it’s all about and to inform ones own opinions.
Same with most things that can get very complicated and stimulate passions.

It could be worse, you could be an accountant.

A client just sent me this,

Sorry to be a pain - the P11D I sent you wasn’t a P11D!

I understand things like Inky backgrounds and noise floors perfectly but accountancy???

This is what I was going to comment, but you already have!

Language has its limitations, especially when applied to phenomena such as we’re discussing. If any of you have a better lexicon, let’s see it!

Otherwise we’re reduced to “good” or “bad” which doesn’t give us much to go on. And it’s human nature . . . no writer would stick with just “good” and “bad” for very long!

It was trying to explain the FRS17 adjustments to councillors that got me. Contingent liabilities was another one. When is contingent contingent?

With hifi speak some of it is rubbish but some is actually required. What I find more irritating - and it’s often found on this very Forum - is gross exaggeration - x kills y, night and day difference, and so on. That’s the real bollocks.

Every profession, field, etc., has its own vocabulary. It allows people to communicate with requisite accuracy.

The TRICK is that, when communicating with those outside the field, one should endeavor to tailor the communication to the audience.

My field - patent law- is FULL of jargon. I’ve made it my professional goal to become adept at explaining patent law risk to intelligent business leaders (who have no background in patents) so that they can understand and use the information. It’s probably my favorite part of my role as in-house counsel; communicating. Really, so much comes down to communication. Which is what folks are TRYING to do with “inky blackness” verbage.

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I loved that challenge – how can I explain it so that they can ‘get it?’ Almost never does one explanation work for everyone. Finding what works in the moment is interesting, the reward being seeing the “ah ha” expressions.