Is the Pass Labs X350.5 and X1 "warm"?

The X1 is not a warm preamp. To my ears, it has a rather clinical and bare midrange that does not have a cohesiveness to it. Voices do not sound "whole", they sound pieced together. When a singer hits a note, the various elements of the voice do not line up together-- the vocal cords, cavity resonance and the lips. Otherwise, the preamp has great bass, clarity and high end extension. Since I use tube preamps as my reference, they are a hard act to follow.

I heard one of the new point 5 series. Very good, very detailed, powerful, dynamic. Very clear, and able to unravel every thread of a complex passage. They have a certain warmth in the lower midrange that could be considered a coloration. However, above that range, they are a bit forward and slightly aggressive-sounding to my ears, but the amp I borrowed may not have been fully broken in.......

Tony, with all due respect, if you don't hear much of a difference between a solid state preamp and amp and a tube preamp and hybrid amp, I don't know what to say. What recordings did you listen to? If you use some poorly recorded, compressed, canned sounding material, it is hard to make meaningful observations.

This was several years ago, so I don't remember all the equipment or recordings. I did use Sarah Vaughan Mercury Volume 4 Box set. These are good, but not outstanding recordings, that I know intimately and can listen around the average sonics. Sarah's vocals sounded anemic on the X1. The throb of her distinctive vibrato was almost absent on the X1, and the complex overtones and ring from the voice was reduced 50%. I also used Reference Recordings Dick Hyman Swing, which is a Big Band jazz disc. I remember the brass did not bloom out into the room, but sounded contained and smaller. Cymbals and high hats didn't ring out as freely or fully and didn't sound as natural. That's what I remember.