Quote Originally Posted by filecat13
Some guys that I know (and I don't really "know" anyone here so there's nothing personal implied) find it necessary to apply adjectives to their current high dollar set ups to justify the expenditures, and during the time of ownership they tend to be big believers in the descriptive truth of their systems.

I've heard more than one guy go from describing his new system as "open, airy, and accurate" at the beginning to "thin, cold, and sterile" when he was ready to get rid of it for something that was "warm, intimate, and musical" which later became "fuzzy, claustrophobic, and sentimental" when he was looking to buy something "dynamic, wide, and articulate"...

Whenever I hear these terms germinating in an audiophile's mouth, I want to pull out the BS meter because here comes a load of you know what. If people would just be honest and say, "You know, I liked this when I got it but now I like that," that would be an honest conversation. Just admit to being human and perhaps a bit fickle, and move on to what he wants.
We really don't need to justify our choices, and going to great lengths to do so is unnecessary. I kind of like the simplicity of kex's one word descriptions; it's more direct than "Your SS gear is too cold and analytical; my tube gear is warm and emotional."

Someone could say my SS gear was bad, and I could say their tube gear was worse. End of conversation. Get the F out of my house.

Well, that may be slightly extreme.

However, for most on this site, I think the use of the adjectives is an attempt to communicate qualities that we're trying to share without being able to share the most important thing: the sound. Peabody's OP was a great conversation starter, if only to illustrate two things:

1. We're trying to use the same words to describe different things. Unless we can all hear what he heard this morning, it's hard to get a decent context.

2. We've all changed over the years. Things we liked we may not like as much, or perhaps things we used to like and replaced with other things we liked, we suddenly like again.

The biggest factor in all this is that our primary equipment is constantly changing. That would be our ears, our brains, our experience, our preferences, and our tastes.

So if you invite me over to your house and tell me your system is warm, I'll tell you exactly what I think; then you'll either kick me out or say that I'm very perceptive.

As long as we're on this site, I'll listen to your flowing adjectives with all due respect and hang on your every word. I just might learn something.

Good Points. Far too much time is spent trying to justify our excesses... do we really need to spend the obscene amounts of money we do upgrading our setups? Nope... but it sure is fun (untill you have to pay the credit card bill)...

Another problem is that trying to justify a subjective preference with objective statements is just a tad silly... So we try to use all these wonderful sounding terms to explain why our setup sounds better (to us, anyway) than another one. That's a major reason why reviews mean next to nothing in practical terms... Just take a major publication like Stereophile... the class rating of a product really just comes down to how much a given reviewer liked it... if he thought it was cold, when he wanted warm, then it gets a lower class than if another reviewer who likes 'cold' had reviewed it.

Also, all things change with time... especially people... so today Mr. Peabody may love Dynaudio and Conrad Johnson and I love Monitor Audio and Musical Fidelity... But 10 years from now... my musical tastes may have changed and I suddenly find Dynaudio more suitable for my tastes than Monitor Audio & Mr. Peabody may have moved on to Monitor Audio or some other brand of speaker and maybe the latest generation of switching amp... So even the debates we have now about which brand is better than the other etc... really doesn't make much sense...