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Audiophile pomposity/verbosity

B

berty bass

pfm Member
I was reminded of an old thread I commented on when that comment received a 'like' from another member only recently. The thread was about Rega RX5 speakers. I drew attention to a specific word - gravitas - someone had used within the thread, and commented that I had no idea what anyone could mean by using the word gravitas to describe the performance of a speaker. My comment received the following response:

"Gravitas is a Latin word that means "weight or heaviness." I found them lightweight and they also didnt like playing loud."

This strikes me as a classic example of the tendency of some commentators to use rather grandiose terminology to elevate their opinion above that of mere mortals who choose simpler vocabulary, and represent themselves as some sort of sage on any given subject. As well as being an example of what one might term 'audiophilesplaining'. Predictably, the word gravitas does not mean what the responder claims here to justify their use of it when talking about speakers - at least not according to the Oxford English Dictionary. It means "dignity, seriousness or solemnity of manner - ORIGIN Latin, from gravis 'serious' ".

Surely I can't be the only person who gets fed up reading pompous comments from d**kheads who use language (often incorrectly) as a way of trying to communicate to the rest of us just how smart and knowing they are?!....and breathe! :)
 
If every word was an exact synonym for the others that get used in its place, I might agree that the 'plain English' approach has some merit. I don't think the plain English argument works here, though, because there's a difference between what I take from the use of the word 'gravitas' and the word 'heaviness' in whatever context. I will assume that the writer chose the word advisedly, and wishes me to understand the difference in nuance in their choice. This does, of course, assume that the writer knows the appropriate usage of the word in the circumstances, and hasn't misused it. The OP's example above may be valid, since it gives an example of where a word may have been misconstrued by the writer, leading to misunderstanding by the reader, but that's not an argument for restricting the vocabulary we can use.
 
Beobloke said:
I'd love to go back to my grandad's standard assessment of sound quality - "It has a nice tone".

Sadly, I'm expected to come up with more words than this for most of my reviews!
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Ha! I don't envy you Adam.

I once thought about turning my hand to music journalism but realised that "It's a nice record. I really liked it." probably wasn't going to be the basis of a successful freelance career.
 
berty bass said:
I was reminded of an old thread I commented on when that comment received a 'like' from another member only recently. The thread was about Rega RX5 speakers. I drew attention to a specific word - gravitas - someone had used within the thread, and commented that I had no idea what anyone could mean by using the word gravitas to describe the performance of a speaker. My comment received the following response:

"Gravitas is a Latin word that means "weight or heaviness." I found them lightweight and they also didnt like playing loud."

This strikes me as a classic example of the tendency of some commentators to use rather grandiose terminology to elevate their opinion above that of mere mortals who choose simpler vocabulary, and represent themselves as some sort of sage on any given subject. As well as being an example of what one might term 'audiophilesplaining'. Predictably, the word gravitas does not mean what the responder claims here to justify their use of it when talking about speakers - at least not according to the Oxford English Dictionary. It means "dignity, seriousness or solemnity of manner - ORIGIN Latin, from gravis 'serious' ".

Surely I can't be the only person who gets fed up reading pompous comments from d**kheads who use language (often incorrectly) as a way of trying to communicate to the rest of us just how smart and knowing they are?!....and breathe! :)
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well, ah’d hate to be accused of pomposity or verbosity but the guy’s definition of gravitas is wrong…shame ye did not tell him at the time. Would’ve stalled his self-importance 😎
 
Tony L said:
Please provide your full list of approved words for audio reviewing. Without such formal guidelines what hope has any one of compliance? It would be useful to have a supplementary guide covering approved punctuation too.
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The scabs fell from my back…
the smugness of the cymbals…
The splendour of the strings was only surpassed by the stateliness of bassoons.
Think Ah’ll be a reviewer …it’s piss-easy…’til they ask me tae cover cables…(not with mesh)…😇
 
For some time I have thought that the audiophile world needed a better basis on which to describe what we hear, so I was surprised when I bumped into this video which goes some way to explain what we hear and why, although, unsurprisingly it doesn’t tackle the more obscure descriptions that I see banded about.

 
I thought Gravitas was the name of the subwoofer module for the Neat Petite.
 
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