Terminology

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Terminology

Postby Henley » Thu Feb 20, 2003 9:28 pm

What does Mk I, II, IV, etc means (a dumb question maybe :roll: )?

Can reviews be more 'neutral/transparent', no coloration/musicality (without rhetorics please). Kindly give it straight to the point (k.i.s.s.)? I guess it takes the fun out of it... :D (or it can never be done?)

How can audio jargons be newbie-friendly?
It can sometimes be intimidating you know (what the h3#! does he mean by that?) :?
In laymans terms please, have mercy...

Yun lang, thanks :D
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Postby rtsyrtsy » Fri Feb 21, 2003 5:59 am

MkI, MkII, MkIII represents revisions on a product. The van den hul D102mkIII for example is a third generation version of the product. The JMR Twins mkII is second generation.

I'm having a hard time figuring out what you mean by reviews being "neutral and transparent." Do you mean reviewers should use less flowery terms? Do you mean that reviewers should use neutral and transparent sounding equipment so they can report more accurately on the sound of the piece being reviewed?

Here's something that can help you figure out what audiophile jargon (e.g., boxy, bright, warm, lush, etc.) means:

http://www.stereophile.com/showarchives.cgi?50

I myself am thinking hard about how to make this wonderful happy newbie friendly. If you have any ideas/questions, let me know.

Pinoydiophiles,

What would be interesting is some sort of glossary or the Tagalog terms we use to describe sound.

These are terms like "Mataba" or "Bilog-bilog" or "Matigas." Audio Tyro, wipe that smirk off your face. Above samples refer to audio and audio only. :twisted:
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Postby johnmarc0 » Tue Feb 25, 2003 10:05 pm

Mk came from the word "mark" which is the british colloqial term for "version". Before WWII "Mark" or MK was more popular than the term version. The term version only became popular after the gemini space program until apollo, in the 90's the term "release" became much more prevalent specially with software projects.

To make life simpler, use and understand them interchangeably, no harm

JM
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Mark

Postby Audio_Tyro » Tue Feb 25, 2003 10:29 pm

johnmarc0 wrote:Mk came from the word "mark" which is the british colloqial term for "version". Before WWII "Mark" or MK was more popular than the term version. The term version only became popular after the gemini space program until apollo, in the 90's the term "release" became much more prevalent specially with software projects. To make life simpler, use and understand them interchangeably, no harm.
JM


JM, splendid etymological elucidation, you just did, chap. Anyway to add to it, you need to pronounce it the way the founders (British) would. So you pronouce the word "Mark" as "Ma'ahk" (silent "R"), alright?
:lol:

'Tata...
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Postby johnmarc0 » Tue Feb 25, 2003 10:39 pm

Sir Micob,

Graces please me sire, my grave mistake to dishonor the traditions of our old shire by upholding the spoken language of an ignorant uneducated colonial. Be steadfast as I will uphold our valiant battlecry...."The sun never sets on the british empire"... and may my mistakes be forgiven by your good graces.

ta'ta :cry:
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Postby johnmarc0 » Tue Feb 25, 2003 11:21 pm

Henley,

The site russ gave you is a good start and will be a good reference for net and mag based reviews. For auditioning systems here is a scheme I personally use. One audition method I use is the

"John Marc0 Distortion and Coloration Determination Method" for short JMDCDM :wink:

For distortion, all music is possible bec of distortion (that's why we can talk bec of distortion our voice box makes). I usually group them into two kinds, good distortion and bad distortion.

Before I listen to one particular system, I make it a point to audition it with music material that I have heard a hundred if not a thousand times. That material now becomes my baseline, and I can consider that as my subjective "neutral" reference. Regardless of what distortion the material have, it becomes neutral as it becomes zero reference point.

So when I audition to a system, I mentally listen to tone cues and points, this where distortion becomes really discernable, then I make a judgement if the distortion is annoying? if yes then it is "distorted" and usually the most common form is clipping. Where the tone just won't reach it's peak or a peak is boken, dispersed or plain "basag or wasak".

If it is not annoying then I will conclude that it is a form of coloration. Coloration can come in forms, it can be veiled where it seems like a blanket of tones are prevalent throughout the material. It can be "matining" where high frequencies supercedes other lower frequencies and will be overwhelmingly dominant in the material.

It can be harmonic, subsequent tones of musical instruments (i.e. tone decay from a pluck of a string instrument) somehow heavily masks other parts of the material i.e. vocals.

Remember this is done comparative to your mental baseline reference.

Now, how will I judge systems? sometimes I will say it is heavily colorated, where distortion is not annoying but deviates from my reference. Or it can be transparent where it is close to my reference point thus it's almost neutral. Or it can be plain distorted, where the whole thing is annoying to my ears.

As you go by, you create your own method and come up with your judgement points. But always remember, your reference point maybe someone else's bad distortion and vice versa. Be sensitive in how you convey your opinion, you can be offensive if your not careful. Don't be trapped in self righteousness, people will stop auditioning with you.

Another approach is diplomacy where you can use flowery terms and it can be a good conflict avoidance tool. No harm in using 500 dollar words for a 2 cent opinion.

Good Luck
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