If Warmth Is a Distortion, Why Do So Many Audiophiles Still Defend It?

Some recordings like acoustic are naturally warm and should sound so.  If such recordings are not warm there is noticeable distortion . Warmth is the sound left after peeling away a enough of the icy layer's of noise that permeate our systems.  Some like it some don't.  If warmth doesn't sound good then you still have noise you can hear.

I've had tube pre-amps that colored the sound and added warmth at the expense of noise.  After a while the rose fell off the bloom and all I could hear was the distortion.  My current DHT pre-amp is tube and the trade-off of musicality and warmth is worth the smidge of even harmonic distortion.  Most if the noise in my system is not from the gear but from AC, EMI, RFI, ground plane and the like.

For me accuracy of reproduction is secondary to enjoyment of the music.  I much prefer a sweet sound over a detailed cooler presentation.  Its just better for my nerves.

Unveiling warmth is a long and arduous road.  The foundation is controlling noise in the system not just upgrading parts.  Noise is something I generally don't hear the scope of until it's gone.  I find it beguiling in that I am surprised and pleased when I peel away another layer and I think it can't possibly sound better, but yet I know there is some I am not fully hearing.

It's what keeps me tinkering.

Odd question. Some people prefer the sound of distortion. That's why so many people listen to vinyl. Why does that matter? 

Dear @drbond   : " No analog musical instruments produce one pure note. " and not only that because what all of us are enjoying are those Harmonics but that Note is where start the Transiente Response on any instrument and from there are developed all Harmonics.

As faster the TR in our room/system as better the MUSIC reproduction listen sessions.

Maybe @viber6  could chime about and confirm ( maybe not ) my statements that I posted surrounded of my levels of ignorance on the subject.

R

Compare the warmth of music recorded with different DACs. 1st video below from Wavetouch WT-95 (internal DAC) sounds  warmer due to cleaner and purer (honest) sound. 2nd video with Chord Hugo2 DAC sounds less warm due to the slight veil, even though Hogo2 sounds more detailed.  Alex/Wavetouch audio

WT-95 DAC - Chantal Chamberland - By your side

Chord Hugo2 - Chantal Chamberland - By your side

@atmasphere You said, 

"I concur with the result (passive controls sounding ’cool’ or ’thin’) but not the why. 

That is because the passive control allows the interconnect used to color the presentation far more than a properly designed active circuit might."

But you didn’t acknowledge my other statement that a passive attenuator will be more transparent AND cooler than an active preamp in tonality.  I won’t debate circuit design because I am ignorant of that.  But this is an obvious sonic result heard by educated ears like mine with lots of live music and audio experience.

This is an example of the well accepted sonic result that high fidelity aka transparency is better achieved with a straight wire with gain.  I think we would agree that the straight wire with gain does have its own colorations of whatever resistance, capacitance, inductance is in the wire.  But active preamp circuits have lots more wire and more capacitors, resistors plus devices (transistors, tubes) so active circuits are a much larger deviation from the theoretically perfect straight wire.  Therefore, whatever cable is used, it will have FEWER colorations than all that wire and components in the active circuit.

Long ago, I had a phono stage with just the right gain on a certain recording, so when I plugged it into the power amp it was much more detailed AND cooler in tonality than when I added the line stage.  I did this by plugging the phono out RCA into the power amp, then compared line out RCA into the power amp.

As you say, my equipment didn’t have XLR balanced outputs to do this experiment.  I do know the theory that balanced cables cancel the distortions, which is why in pro applications, long microphone cables and cables from the ADC to recorder inputs are balanced.  Also, long interconnects from preamps to power amps have less resistance and losses in balanced vs unbalanced.  However, I have found that consumer playback with short balanced vs unbalanced cables is slightly more bass dominant, which has the psycho-acoustic effect of veiling.  Dave Belles in the early amps I used had only single ended RCA connectors.  He thought that balanced connections require double the amount of circuitry which would result in loss of detail.