Airy or Spacious – a pleasant amount of reverb
Bassy – emphasized bottom-end below 200 Hz
Bloated – excessive mid-bass around 250 Hz
Bloom – early reflection or sense of air in an orchestra
Boomy – excessive bass around 125 Hz
Boxy – excessive emphasis around 250-500 Hz
Breathy – audible breath in vocals, flute or sax
Bright – emphasized top-end
Brittle – weak fundamentals
Chesty – a bump in bottom-end response around 125-250 Hz
Clean – free of noise
Clear – trasparent
Clinical– too clean or not warm
Colored – having not flat response
Constricted – poor reproduction of dynamics
Crisp – referring to cymbals, extended top-end response
Crunch – pleasant guitar distortion
Dark – opposite of bright
Delicate – open sound with strings or acoustic guitar
Depth – a sense of closeness and farness of instruments
Detailed – sharp transient response
Dry – without effects
Dull – see Dark
Edgy – too much top-end
Effortless – low distortion
Etched – clear but verging on edgy
Fat – warm or full
Focused – having a small spatial spread
Forward – sounding close to the listener, emphasis around 2-5 kHz
Full – strong fundamentals and good bottom-end response
Gentle – highs and upper mids are not exaggerated
Glassy – a little too bright or trebley
Grainy – suffering for harmonic distortion
Grungy – lots of harmonic distortion
Hard or Harsh – too much upper midrange, around 3 kHz
Heavy – good bottom-end response below 50 Hz
Hollow – a midrange dip or too much reverberation
Honky – a bump in response around 500-700 Hz
Liquid – opposite of grainy
Mellow – reduced top-end
Muddy – not clear, too much reverb at low frqs
Muffled – weak highs or upper mids
Musical – flat response, low distortion, no edginess
Nasal – bump in the response around 300-1000 Hz, see Honky
Neutral – accurate tonal reproduction
Papery – a kick drum with too much output around 400-600 Hz
Pinched – narrowband, pinched dynamics are overly compressed
Piercing – strident, having sharp narrow peaks around 3-10 kHz
Present – adequate response around 2-5 kHz, punch and clarity
Puffy – bump in the response around 500-700 Hz
Punchy – good transient response
Raspy – harsh like a rasp, peaks in the response around 6 kHz
Round – top-end rolloff, not edgy
Sharp – strident and tight
Sibilant or Essy – exaggerated s and sh in singing, peaks around 4-7 kHz
Sizzly – see sibilant
Smeared – lacking details, poor transient response
Smooth – not harsh, easy on the ears
Squashed – overly compressed
Steely – see glassy, emphasized upper mids around 3-6 kHz
Strained – opposite of effortless,inadequate headroom or insufficient power
Sweet – top-end is extended to 15 or 20 kHz without peaks in response
Thin – fundamentals are weak relative to harmonics
Tight – good bottom-end transient response
Tinny or Telephone-like – narrowband, poor low, peaky mids
Trasparent – clear, not muddy, wide flat frequency response
Tubby – see bloated
Veiled – slight noise or distortion
Warm – good bass, adequate fundamentals relative to harmonics
Wooly or Blanketed – weak top-end or boomy bottom-end, an emphasis around 250-600 Hz