Maybe we now have the means to create a subjective scaling based upon objectively tested knowledge such as that from Harman and other sources.
It's a very good question, whether we can come up with some more accurate/reliable/rigorous/useful subective descriptions of sound vs the ones audiophiles and high end audio writers have been using.
It seems initially promising in a sort of objective/subjective strategy whereby we could just describe how a speaker "sounds" by describing, say, it's frequency response: 6 db hump at 50 Hz, essentially flat to 2 K were there is a 4 db dip, another rise at X, Y, Z..."
The problem is that this requires a good technical knowledge and experience with having correlated various frequency profiles with how things sound. It's a level of technical knowledge that most won't have. Add to that all the different ways speakers differ in frequency response, dispersion, resonances etc, and things become even more complex. It's like how an experienced composer of classical music can look at a score, see all the parts merely written out as symbols on paper, and translate that in to how it will sound when played by an orchestra. This isn't a skill or knowledge set that seems reasonable to demand of everyone. So short cut descriptions of "how it sounds" still seems like a fairly necessary route in terms of a wider audience understanding the sonic characteristics in question, allowing non-tech-geeks to describe sound, etc.
And I think much of the vocabulary that has arisen in the audiophile world to describe sound is pretty valid and can be useful. If someone is using words like
"transparency, detail, soundstaging, imaging, airy highs, tight bass, speakers "disappearing," 'glow' in the upper mids...all that kind of stuff, I pretty much know what they mean. They may be wrong in their description, I may disagree with their perception, but I at least know what they think they are hearing, what they are trying to describe. And some people can be better at accurately transcribing what they hear in to descriptions than others. I've found some reviewers to be quite good in that respect. As an example, I encountered a speaker brand for the first time a few years ago that blew my socks off. What I heard was in absolute terms a very subtle set of characteristics that seemed to distinguish the sound, but which were subjectively very compelling to me. After auditioning the brand myself and becoming enthusiastic about it, I started to look at reviews of the same speakers. And I'll be damned if pretty much every reviewer didn't nail the sonic characteristics of that speaker in their description (especially Michael Fremer and even an Absolute Sound reviewer). The descriptions were just what I heard, picking out exactly the nuances that excited me when I had heard the speakers.
When I was reviewing I tried as best I could to transcribe "what the speaker sounded like" to words, and I very often had responses along the lines of "Wow, I too have auditioned that speaker before and didn't end up liking it as much as you; nevertheless you described exactly the sound I heard!" I've seen lots of similar success in agreeing on sonic descriptions between audiophiles.
And that is one reason why I still highly value the subjective end of this hobby. The end game for all the engineering is the subjective experience of listening to the system, usually music of course. All the talk about distortion or lack of distortion is of little relevance unless it "sounds like something" or not. It's the "sounds like" end result that I'm concerned with. When I hear a fabulous hi fi system, it sounds like something, and in my enthusiasm I want to talk about "how it sounds" with other people who care about these things. Hence, a need for the vocabulary. Especially for folks like me who can not look at all the technical measurements of a system and completely predict exactly how it will sound to me. I've got a pretty good idea of the sonic consequences of some measurements, but I've never been able to predict, nor have someone technical predict for me, exactly how I will perceive that speaker's sound in total.
And the thing is even describing the frequency response/dispersion/room interaction of a speaker doesn't in of itself go all the way. It's not good enough to say "4 db peak and rising starting at 2K." What will that mean? Well, we have to translate that to something useful: It will sound "brighter." Well, what are the sonic consequences of "brighter?" Then we can talk about how, for instance, vocal sibilance may sound harder or peak out unnaturally from voices, how maybe trumpets in their high register or drum cymbals will sound unnaturally piercing to the ears, etc. Or we can talk about the sonic consequences of midrange dips on how voices will tend to sound, or bass peaks on how bass instruments will tend to sound, etc. There are
subjective sonic consequences that will arise, making sense that we would want to be able to describe them.
And then it goes further: sonic consequences can have musical consequences. Burnish away the essential part of the higher frequencies, and you'll take away some of the life in what some musicians are playing where those frequencies are important. Or differences in the bass region can have musical effects. I had a speaker to audition at my place once that produced a significantly different bass profile than my existing speaker (which was leaner, and did not excite room modes the same way). What blew my mind is how this changed the sensation of the music.
The bass parts literally sounded "slowed down" and played lackidasiacally on the new speaker. Switch back to the old speaker, much more taut and propulsive sounding in the bass, and it's like the musician "woke up" and is playing with more ferver and faster. It was bizarre!
A good audio reviewer, for me, can serve the purpose of doing an end run to what ultimately is important to me "how it sounds." He/she may miss describing, or emphasizing certain technical "defects" that a technically knowledgeable person would point to in measurements. But they can still do a good enough job of capturing the essential characteristics of a speaker, how it "sounds" to be of use to me. I've been led by the subjective description of certain speakers - "the characteristics the reviewer is describing are those that I value...I'll seek that speaker out.." - to numerous successful encounters with the same speakers. They had the attributes the reviewer described. I've had less success either trying to divine from graphs what I'll like - including even going on the Harman Kardon/Toole et all school of speaker measurements - or taking the advice of super objective engineer types who think there is a very narrow range of best practices in which to build speakers, and "just get this one, it measures great!" type of advice.
But..that's me. Clearly others can look at measurements, buy on those metrics, and be happy with what they get. Which is great! But, even so, I think a bunch of what I wrote above is still relevant if we cant to actually talk about sound, rather than talk about measurements right up until a system is complete, then sit on our hands, shut up, and have all our own subjective experiences in isolation.
