Warm Sounding Speakers

05-27-12: Audiofreak32
Warm sound will almost always require tubes...

"Almost always"? I don't think so. Warmth is a tonal balance thing and any number of speakers are voiced this way and speaker placement has a lot to do with it too. If you're talking about smoother highs, there are plenty of SS amps that do that too. Also, some speakers have etched or edgy highs, others have smooth and well dispersed highs.

I have a pair of Mirage M5si's and with their mid-20's bass extension, bipolar radiation pattern, and well-damped titanium dome tweeters they are definitely warm no matter what powers them. I have powered them with Forte, VSP Labs, Carver, and Adcom. The speakers sound warm with all of them.

I appreciate the comments that everyone has made. Gives me something to think about although I believe that roxy54 hit it right on the head and I will never like the Krell because of the way it sounds regardless of the speaker.

I have heard Krell with various B&W's and to my ear the B&W's are not a very warm speaker at all. I think that they are sterile in their own right.

I have heard vandersteen 3A's with Cary tubes and voices were very good but it did not seem as live to me as does the Maggie sound.

Also have heard the Sonus Faber Guameri Momento with an Electrolat (spelling?) 150wpc amp - that spounded delicious to me but those are way out of my price range.

I run the Maggie 3.6's with a W4S st1000 amp and W4S preamp. I like this sound alot and it absolutely blew the Krell away - much more musical and the additonal power did not hurt at all.

To be honest, the only drawback to the Maggies is that they just do not do the snap of the snare drum and my hearing tests indiacate that sub woofers will not help with that.

So...I was thinking about another setup with the Krell so that I could hear something different occasionally.

Mirage speakers on SS is not "warm" at all.

Krell electronics will not work well with SF speakers...

So before you go spending thousands on new speakers...why not try a tube processor/buffer to warm it up a bit. I use a Grant Fidelity B-283 MKII, with super-cryoed Electro Harmonix 6SN7GP from cryoset. My Mirage OMD-28s sound warm and beautiful through my SS Marantz. Spend a couple hundred bucks and see if it solves your issue.

http://www.cryoset.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=81&products_id=339&osCsid=3af8c3a448acd4be0486df4d4c92b5dd

Hope that helps,
Mot