Every industry, who cares which one you pick, is bursting with jargon. People make acronyms, people change the meanings of regular words, and people certainly make things up every now and then. The audio industry, yes, our industry, is no different. To help the laymen, this glossary was put together to clear things up.

This is Part 3 of the Glossary of terms, which will eventually be consolidated into one post.  Study the words below so you can familiarize yourself with the jargon of the audio industry and the way audiophiles speak.

Trust us, you'll be happy you did...

Pads- The earpads on headphones.

PCDP  -  Portable CD Player

Power -  For electrical purposes (as with amplifiers driving headphones, for Head-Fi readers) it is basically voltage times current, measured in watts.  Or, if you own large tube amplifiers, which dissipate much of their electrical power consumption as thermal rather than electrical energy, you can measure it as the additional kilowatt hours (kWH) on your monthly electric utility bill.  (No mention of CO₂ emissions to generate all of that "power" needed.)

Potentiometer - Commonly referred to as a "pot" for short. The thing you turn or move to change the volume on an amplifier. A simple way to think of this is a variable resistor with a knob. Turn the knob clockwise and the resistance goes down (volume goes up), turn counter-clockwise and the resistance goes up (volume goes down). 

RCA - A type of coaxial connector used for un-balanced analogue connections. The center pin is used for the signal and the outer sleeve is connected to the ground. Sometimes used for digital signals in place of BNC connectors for simplicity.

Rig - A complete set-up of gear, from source to amp and headphones including cables, tweaks and anything else.

Sensitivity - In headphones, the amount of sound output, measured in decibels, the headphones will output at 1mW (milliWatt).

Single-ended - A general term to refer to all non-balanced audio equipment where the signal returns for both left and right are connected to the ground. This is the most common type of design for regular hi-fi gear.

Slew rate - Slew rate is a measure of the "speed" of an electronic gain circuit (in an amplifier or preamplifier), particularly important for the accurate reproduction of transient musical details in digital audio with wide dynamic range, which may come and go very quickly.

Solid state - audio equipment that uses transistors and OPAMPs for amplification as opposed to tubes.

SOTA - State of the Art

Source - The first device that sends out an analog signal, such as a CD player, sound card, iPod or DAC. See also transport.

SS - See "Solid State".

'Stats - Electrostatic headphones such as Stax.

Stax Mafia - An old joke about some forum members who insisted electrostats were superior to other types of headphones.

Stepped Attenuator - Higher end potentiometer that uses a separate resistor for each level of volume. Has a shorter signal path and in most cases it results in a cleaner sound than a conventional pot.

Straight wire with gain - The ideal high-end amplifier is said to behave as if it were merely a piece of wire amplifying the sound without any alteration at all (eg: Transparent). Some amplifiers are described as being like this.

Supra-aural - Headphones that sit on your ears, as opposed to Cirum-aural.

Synergy - The interaction or cooperation of two or more audio components in an audio system, which, when combined, produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects : e.g.. the synergy between DAC and Headphone Amp, or Headphone Amp and Headphones.  This is partly related to subjective impressions as well as electrical considerations such as input and output impedances between components and how they perform when connected.

THD - Total Harmonic Distortion. A measurement of the degree to which a piece of equipment distorts the signal. 

THD+N - Total Harmonic Distortion plus Noise. Another measurement of the amount equipment distorts the signal.

Tips - The silicon, rubber or foam tips for in-ear monitors (IEMs).

TOTL  -  Top Of The Line

Transparent - Does not alter the signal in any way.  While essentially impossible, the ideal of high-end audio gear is that it reproduces a music signal with as little alteration as possible. 

Transport - The device at the very beginning of the audio chain that holds the music data. Could be a computer, CD transport (with or without DAC), iPod or whatever. Sometimes confused with the source for this reason.

TRS - Tip Ring Sleeve connector. The most common connector used on headphones. Comes in two sizes: 3.5mm (1/8") and 6.5mm (1/4"). The smaller size is the standard on portable gear whereas the larger is standard on home audio equipment.

Tube - Vacuum tube, used for amplification prior to the invention of the transistor. As a great many of a great many types were manufactured to a high quality, they are popular to use in amplifier (or amplification circuit) designs due to their pleasant harmonics as well, sometimes, as coloration of the music.

Tube amp - an amplifier that uses tubes in one or another section of the design for amplification of the sound or power rectification. Common designs are OTL (Output Transformer-Less), transformer coupled, hybrid (using solid state circuits as well as tubes) and others. Contrary to popular belief, they do not necessary produce a "warm" sound.

Tube rolling - The swapping of tubes in an amp to change or improve the sound.

Voltage -   Voltage is the electromotive force that "pushes" large numbers of sub-atomic electron particles - which essentially are electricity-in-motion - through a "load" (consisting of "LCR" characteristics), and is measured in units named after Alessandro Volta.  See "Current" above in this same wiki.

Watt - Basically voltage times current. See "Power" and "Voltage" elsewhere on the wiki. In an audio amplification context, it is sometimes amended with "R.M.S." - an abbreviation for "root mean square.

WhipMod - A modification of 5th generation iPods similar to the iMod made by Whiplash Audio. See also iMod and DIYmod.

World Class - Usually used in magazine reviews to suggest that something is of a high enough grade that it can compete with similar gear from any country.

XLR - A connector with three, four or possibly more pins used primarily in audio for balanced connections. With 3-pin plugs and sockets, one pin carries the signal (pin 2 or 3), one the return signal out of phase (pin 3 or 2), and the third (pin 1) is the ground. On headphones, the ground pin isn't used. The 4-pin XLR pinout, when used on headphones, is, respectively L+ L- R+ R-.

Thanks for reading!