The audiophile glossary.
Every term this site uses, in plain language - the signatures, the graph words, and what the hardware terms mean. No prior knowledge assumed.
Signatures - how a tuning is described
Basshead / bass-heavyElevated sub-bass: extra rumble and punch. The tuning EDM and hip-hop fans chase.WarmLifted bass and lower mids with a smooth top. Cozy, relaxed, easy to listen to for hours - vocals and acoustic music feel intimate.Neutral / referenceFlat and accurate: nothing exaggerated, nothing missing. The mix as the artist heard it. Classical and critical listening live here.BrightLifted treble and upper mids: sparkle, detail and air, with cymbals that shine. Fatiguing for treble-sensitive ears over long sessions.V-shapedBass and treble up, mids recessed. Energetic and "fun" - but vocals sit a step back. Common in stage-oriented gear.U-shapedA V with gentler mids: excitement without vocals disappearing. The crowd-pleaser shape.Mid-centric / vocal-focusedForward mids put voices and acoustic instruments front and center.L-shapedStrong bass, mids kept intact, treble gently rolled off. Warm and safe, rarely sharp.
The graph - technical terms
Sub-bassThe lowest octave-and-a-half of hearing, roughly 20-60 Hz: rumble you feel more than hear. Sealed in-ears often outrun big speakers here.Mid-bassRoughly 60-200 Hz: kick drums and bass guitar body. Too much smears into the mids; too little sounds thin.MidsRoughly 200 Hz-2 kHz: vocals and most instruments live here. The region vocal-focused tunings lift.TrebleRoughly 2-8 kHz: sparkle, attack, cymbal shimmer. Also where harshness lives when a tuning is careless.AirThe band above ~10 kHz. Less a sound than a sense of openness around notes.SoundstageThe sense of space: how far apart instruments feel and whether the music sits outside your head. Recording first, gear second.ImagingPlacement within that stage - the ability to point at where the tambourine is playing. Good imaging needs a recording mixed for it.TimbreHow natural instruments and voices sound. A piano that sounds like a piano: correct timbre.Detail retrieval / resolutionHow much fine information comes through - room echo, finger slides, the tail of a note.SibilanceHarsh "s" and "t" sounds in vocals, usually around 5-9 kHz. The thing bright tunings are accused of.Slam / punchThe physical hit of a drum note - speed and dynamics in the bass, not just quantity.ExtensionHow far the tuning reaches at the extremes: sub-bass rumble below, air above, without falling off a cliff.DecayHow a note fades. Natural decay rings briefly; choked decay cuts notes off early.TransientsFast attacks - a snare crack, a plucked string. Good transients start notes sharply, not smeared.Harman targetA research-derived curve describing the tonal balance most listeners prefer. EQ presets often correct toward it.TechnicalitiesUmbrella for the measurable-but-not-graphed: resolution, imaging, separation, transients.
The hardware - what the words on a box mean
Dynamic driver (DD)The classic speaker cone shrunk tiny: a diaphragm moved by a voice coil in a magnet. Deep, physical bass per rupee.Balanced armature (BA)A tiny reed in a coil, born for hearing aids. Fast and detailed; several get stacked for full-range sound.Planar magneticA thin film driven across its whole surface. Fast, even, extended bass - traditionally bigger and pricier, now pocket-sized.HybridDriver types combined - a dynamic for bass, balanced armatures for the rest. The most common multi-driver recipe.Impedance (ohms)How much the earphone resists the signal. Low = easy for a phone; high = wants real power. The compatibility checker on every product page works this out.Sensitivity (dB/mW)How loud per unit of power. High sensitivity + low impedance = plays loud from anything.DACDigital-to-analogue converter: turns file bits into the signal your earphones play. Every phone has one; a good external one is cleaner.AmpAdds power after the DAC. Power-hungry headphones sound quiet and flat straight out of a phone.Sources / DAPThe device driving the earphones: phone, dongle, desktop stack, or a digital audio player with DAC and amp built in.Eartips & tip rollingThe seal decides the bass. Swapping tip size or material - tip rolling - changes sound more than any cable ever will.
Want to hear what a tuning term means instead of reading it? Find your tune plays the same track through several tunings.